Kabumpo Reviews

Grey Matters (1992)

Effective student film

[6/10 · 29 February 2024]

This is pretty good for a film made by high school students, although the most memorable part is the guy randomly taking off his shirt accompanied by stripper music as he walks past a mirror. It's very random. The filmmakers explained that they had a continuity problem because they were going to need blood on his shirt in the climax, and it wasn't going to show up well on camera well unless the actor stripped to his t-shirt.

The film is well shot and edited, and the images of the hut are convincing. The film was shot in the Indianapolis area, but the images may not have been sourced by the fimmakers. Most of the film is in low light and looks very effective.

Freddi Stevens-Jacobi was my high school film teacher, and she had the guys who made it, who had soince graduated, show their film in class and speak about it. I'm connected with her on Facebook, and she told me that she doesn't have copies of the student films we saw in class, which also included Giant Space Slugs and The Slammie Brothers vs. Godzilla and Gamera.

Medousa (1998)

Plodding, misogynistic, and full of plot holes, but some talent on display.

[6/10 · 8 June 2018]

This film has a really slow pace, and since the audience knows that it's a retelling of the Medousa myth, all the police procedural scens can be tedious, since there isn't a whole lot of wit and humor beyond the fact that Christina seems to be the smartest of the police detectives. It leads one to wonder if she'll be the one who sets things aright.

Such hopes are dashed by the end of the film and we realize what is happening. I had never wondered what happened to women who saw the face of Medousa, which is a big concern in this film. I remember the original story had Perseus turn King Polydectes and an entire crowd to stone with the severed head of Medousa. Given ancient Greek culture, the crowd potetnially could have been all men, but that would not have crossed my mind as a kid. I didn't know then about the punishment for women who were caught watching the Olympics, for example. In some versions, the mirror even turned her head to stone. In this film, Medousa is not a monstrous person or full-on monster, but a curse that affects only women. If Medousa is seen by another woman, Medousa disintegrates and the curse is passed on to the next woman, making all women in the diegesis effectively monsters and men their hapless victims. Christine is the final Medousa in the film, although it's only implied (and I'm spelling out something conveyed a bit obliquely in the film).

Still there are huge plot holes, particularly in regard to the film's rules. If ten years have passed since Meda was distintegrated, why are the police only now discovering stone men? Does the Medousa curse take hold of a woman slowly, giving Perseas's mother enough will to drive off without harming him? Meda put the stone bodies in the villa's basement, but the current Medousa, who may or may not be Perseas's mother, leaves them to be found easily. It's implied by some dialogue near the beginning that Perseas will ultimately kill his mother, but we are never shown definitively that his mother is the Medousa he kills. Katia looks at her body, but all the audience sees is the disintegration of the body. Perseas kills her without looking, realizing the curse has passed onto her. The thing is, Katia was completely nude, and immediately goes up to put on Medousa's robe, wig, and mask, which the Mother clearly didn't do. It's possible this is because she was made aware of them earlier in the film. Perseas seems to want to spare her from intentionally killing anyone, but when the cops dig her up, she turns the men to stone and disintegrates, passing the curse onto Christina. Christina isn't shown going for the robe, though.

The film doesn't have a lot of nudity (only Katia in the aforementioned scene) or violence (some blood when Katia is killed), and the Lazopoulos seems to be thinking more of art film than exploitation, perhaps middlebrow in his approach. It's more disturbing and creepy to the mind than it is to the eye, in particular the disintegrations--the mind makes it more gruesome than what ois actually shown.

I'll be interested in seeing the interview with the director. Since he plays the guy Perseas tries to sell knives, I imagine knife throwing is a personal touch on the story.

The film is atmospheric, well acted, and shot, and the women are beautiful, but the pacing and misogyny knock several stars off it for me.

The Initiation of Alice in Wonderland: The Looking Glass of Lewis Carroll (2010)

Disappointing, Repetitive, Conspiracy-laden

[4/10 · 19 October 2016]

This is a lot of the same material that he says in the director interview that is included in a bonus over the same images over and over. It asserts, without much evidence, masonic and Rosicrucian influence on Carroll. It's interesting, but with so few images and general lack of evidence--the film is narrated by the director and contains no interviews, and has the same footage of his daughter or other child relative repeatedly representing Alice, one wonders about the credibility of the arguments. I think this was made on the cheap to cash-in on the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. Probably the best thing about this documentary is that it refutes the ideas that Carroll was a pedophile, but it doesn't even do that right--a claim of photographs of naked children being used on Christmas cards is represented by drawings of clothed children on a Christmas card, which is another way he undermines his credibility.

Navajo Blues (1996)

Great characters in bad action movie

[6/10 · 17 July 2011]

I really liked the performances and characterizations of the Wyako sisters, but this film just doesn't work. The end of the film puts forward the very problem that everyone was trying to avoid at the beginning of the film, but nothing was resolved. Irene Bedard and Charlotte Lewis were good enough in their roles that they should have gotten a TV series, but this film is way too cheesy to earn that honor. It's loaded with action movie clichés, such as an overturned vehicle that explodes for no apparent reason, throwing people through glass for no good reason (and no offer to pay for it from the cop, either). It's pretty much Bedard and Lewis and some of the other Native American characters that make the film worth watching, but the excess cheese makes the film disappointing. They needed a film with a better, more plausible plot that isn't so full of coincidences and action movie money shots.

Film Geek (2005)

Lame Remake of The Last Laugh

[5/10 · 24 February 2011]

Being a film geek myself, I was expecting to see a lot of myself in Scotty, but he got on my nerves, going into things that I would rarely say aloud to keep from alienating people. His tastes are also pedestrian and mainstream. The essential story is that a man gets fired from a job that he loves, is forced into another job where he is completely out of his element (in this case, an auto parts warehouse), then has an improbable ending. In F.W. Murnau's _The Last Laugh_, to which I'm surprised the film makes no explicit reference, a man is forced out of a job as a doorman that he loves to a job as a washroom attendant, in which he is ashamed, although the pay is higher. In that film, which is silent with text only in the mise-en-scène until an intertitle punctuates an improbable (in the film's own words) ending in which the man wins the lottery, which he was never shown entering. This film takes the same structure, only it's punctuated with Scotty nude and masturbating before a sink (there are several previous egregious such shots in which he has his rear end hanging out--Mr. Westby, did you really need so show more than Scotty going into the bathroom with a picture of a girl?) rather than a cinematic device. In this case, it reveals that Scotty's Hollywood ending was pure, unmotivated fantasy, even though it at least worked in a semiplausible "how."

This film is alternately cloying and cringe-worthy, with most of the cringing coming from Scotty's alienating persona, and cloying when he discusses his love of film. The biggest laugh I got was when he whispers in his neighbor's ear that Niko's ex likes scat, in reference to a scene earlier in the film in which he saw her while trying to abscond a video that she essentially stole from him.

The most likable character in the film is the beautiful Tyler Gannon, but even she is unpleasant in the way she uses Scotty, and is essentially a bahng-smoking ne'er-do-well who wants to make her boyfriend jealous. If the film were more satirical, it would work, but it seems to want us to like both Scotty and Niko, and fails miserably.

It's easy to understand why Scotty would be fired from a mainstream video store, less so that a niche video store would refuse to hire him, when he clearly has the credentials to do a job. Kim's Video in New York would probably hire this guy in a second, but this guy lives in Portland, Oregon.

Overall, the characters are incredibly flat. There is nothing to Scotty beyond his interest in film, and though Niko is a collage artist, we mostly see someone else's paintings and only get brief flashes of any collages, presumably because nothing suitable could be obtained or made in time for the shooting.

I disliked _Napoleon Dynamite_ immensely, and the comparisons between films are fairly valid, even though the likable girl in that film seemed almost out of place.

If the film had been darker or more satirical, it might have worked, but it mostly goes for cheap laughs with cardboard characters that essentially fall flat. The film is mired in mediocrity. Why didn't Scotty at least try to study film in college instead of live in a tiny apartment as a video store clerk? At least then, the temp services might offer him something more than a warehouse job, although in the current economy, probably not. The film does seem set in another time, probably the late 1990s, as DVDs are only starting to infiltrate the store. As Video Connection is not a niche store, by 2005, it would probably have abandoned all of its VHS regardless of whether a DVD of a particular title was available. These days I know of no walk-in video rental stores with the exception of a few niche shops or a Blockbuster franchise.

See Dick and Jane... Lie, Cheat and Steal: Teaching Morality to Kids (1989 TV Movie)

Wrongheaded documentary presenting opinions as facts

[1/10 · 29 June 2010]

I was forced to watch this propaganda piece several times in middle school. It's essentially right-wing drivel that the media teaches kids to do bad things and championing the 1950s as the American Utopia. For example, they list the top en problems in schools in the 1980s based on teacher surveys and compare that to what they allege is a survey of teachers about student misbehavior where the biggest problems were littering and cutting class, a top ten list that was eventually proved to be a hoax that was based on one man's opinion and not derived from a survey at all.

Another scene shows an episode of _He-Man and the Masters of the Universe_ over which Tom Selleck notes that the series tells viewers that violence is the best solution to problems. This is indisputably propaganda, as the scene shown depicts no violence whatsoever, but is, rather, a dialogue scene between He-Man and Gleegle from the episode "Quest for He-Man." It seems like all the adults I knew took this seriously at the time it came out, victims of the magic bullet theory. I never knew why they didn't understand why showing a clip of dialogue between two friendly characters to "prove" that the show teaches violence, especially when there was no audio has no validity. I suspect it was akin to the letter-writing campaign of people telling the network to take off _The A-Team_ on the grounds that it was "too violent," when probably 95% of the complainers had never watched the show and were going based on what friends heard from friends.

Teabaggers would love this nonsense, but fortunately, it has become difficult to see.

Joan of Arc (1990 TV Movie)

Great music, bad libretto, adequate and sometimes better production

[7/10 · 30 July 2008]

As far as the opera, which was new to me, goes, I loved the music, as I typically do with Verdi, as it's very much in his distinctive alternately bouncy and dark style, but it's the epitome of bad libretti (Temistocle Solfera) to the extent that Giacomo D'Arco does the play-by-play of his daughter's battles, which we never see (which doesn't work for exactly the same reason Violetta telling us about Alfredo and Douphol's duel does), and rather than being burned (which one especially expects, since she wears the underwear-looking garb that Brunnhilde wears after the armor comes off to the finale of the Ring cycle where she burns) she is killed in action, but of course, she wakes up long enough to sing a final aria. It's pretty static, but it gets better as it goes along. The story is not what we would really expect it to be, although we have Giovanna and her voices, and we have her father Giacomo who is convinced that he voices are evil, much of what appears on stage is Charles V trying to romance Giovanna, and when that fails, still singing her praises as a warrior and the greatest hero of France.

It kind of surprises me that the quote on the box credits Werner Herzog for the "success" of this production. It's only a couple of steps above Jonathan Miller's Clemenza di Tito for being static and uneventful, and for all Werner Herzog's criticisms about "inadequate images" in our society (of which an Egg McMuffin advertisement seems to be his favorite example), strong images are few and far between, though the very last one is indeed amazing. Herzog comes out for the curtain call, but evidently he didn't really want people to see him, since it cuts away to a long shot as soon as he emerges, but I know well what he looks like and recognized him instantly.

I think it's actually Susan Dunn as Giovanna who carries the production,--she always seems to be in her situation, while Vincenzo de Scola as Charles V is all about his glorious voice and isn't much of an actor.

The costuming has the chorus in tall and colorful masks full of pageantry but looking rather druidic, except for a whole mass of choristers in yellow masks and green who look like homages to Iron Fist, a lesser-known Marvel superhero. Although the removal of armor is an important image in the opera, we never see Giovanna put on or take off any armor, and she wears the nightgown-like costume and socks throughout, and the armor involves other characters.

Herzog first involved opera in his films with _Fitzcarraldo_ (which is about a guy who goes into the rubber business to build an opera house in the Amazon and try to attract Caruso to it), and there he hired a supposed expert to stage the opera at the beginning, and it is more over the top than any opera I've ever seen either live or on video (maybe because that's how they performed them in 1906, but he cast a man in drag as Sarah Bernhardt and has characters complaining that she is an actor not a singer cast in the opera for commercial reasons, even though according to the credits, we're hearing actual recordings of her singing, which sounds fine to me). I've been told that the Met wrote a speaking part for Bea Arthur in _Daughter of the Regiment_ for commercial reasons, by the way. I wouldn't think she would be that big a draw, but whatever. Perhaps this paragraph is too much of a digression, but Herzog fans may well be disappointed. While it doesn't look ridiculous the way the operas at the beginning and end of _Fitzcarraldo_ look, aside from a few frissons, particularly at the end, and the stage littered with corpses even in romantic moments (one blinks, while some look sculptural), there is little here that Herzog fans will find particularly interesting. Indeed, _Invincible_ is more characteristically Herzog than this.

The worst part of all is that I was constantly taken out of it by the LPCM stereo, which is not in sync with the visuals--a Hollywood musical with a canned soundtrack has better lip sync than this stage production (and I watched Brigadoon last week, so I have a recent comparison--I also saw the TV version of Gypsy 2 weeks ago and it looked and sounded like the singing was done live on set). This is also a problem on the Met's Ring Cycle DVD (particularly ludicrous at the beginning of Siegfried when Mime hits the anvil and the sound is completely dissociated), but that gives you a Dolby alternative that is in sync with the visuals. With this one, you're stuck with it. I'm going to post on my film lists to see if that's an equipment issue.

Despite the interest of Herzog as director, I think I'm going to go with an audio-only recording next time I want to experience this opera. While it seems to have potential for exciting staging (though given Giacomo's big aria in Act III it might be somewhat redundant based on the text), Herzog was probably just too new to opera (indeed, he co-directed both the stage production and the video) to really contribute as much to it as he may have liked, or at least as much as his fans would have liked.

The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made (2004 Video)

Belongs on its own list.

[1/10 · 26 September 2006]

This looks like someone's homemade YouTube video, and the level of analysis is no better. In nearly all the cases, all that is shown of the film is the theatrical trailer, which often provides no indication of what makes the film so bad. Early on, we get an exception, with _Mesa of Lost Women_, where the documentarian provides examples of his claims for how bad the film is, but most of the time, we get snide remarks about why the writer perceives the film as bad, without any real demonstration or support, which is certainly difficult if all you can afford to pay for is the trailer. Each film is covered for only about a minute or so, and the segments are broken up with an amateurish computer sequence of thrown popcorn. A coffee table book would be more useful and more fun. This film gets an F.

Cutthroats (1994)

Before Office Space and Fight Club existed; Office Space meets Fight Club

[9/10 · 3 February 2005]

This is an imaginative indie film from the great Michael Legge that begins covering the same territory as _Office Space_, and may make you want to mumble about burning down the building, but Legge takes you to a different place entirely, with enough subtle clues that it stands up to multiple viewings.

For anyone who has ever worked in an office, this film displays the tensions as accurately as _Office Space_ (another great film), also did, but works on a completely different level, that achieved by later films like _Fight Club_ or _Mullholland Dr._ What you're seeing is never objectively what is happening except (maybe) at the end of the film, when it generates the question of how it could be possible for a person of the past to dream up such a recognizable future, our present, distorted by what in their own life's experience is the norm. The more out of sync characters begin to behave, the more normal they are actually behaving for the lead character's reality.

To read this much of the review, although I've deliberately not been too specific, knowing just what I've told you might be enough to figure out what is going on long before it's over, so you have been warned.

Much like _Fight Club_, the main character is an insomniac, and has difficulty telling what is and is not real. When he is told he killed the Pope (who looks like John Paul II, but clearly is not (rather than whoever was Pope when the time-tripper came from, which is never clear)), he doesn't believe it, but like Tyler Durden, as an insomniac he can't believe what he sees in either way, so he has to determine that the Pope's supposed visit is not in the Boston Globe before he can confront the guy who claimed that he ran him over.

Another interesting twist is that the most sympathetic character beyond the main character is the one who is, on one level, giving him his exit to the true? reality, but like all his allies, becomes completely demented in the dream world by its end.

Although this is, ultimately, a rather silly film, its realistic portrayal of office life at the beginning and its twists and turns all make this a hugely thought provoking one. Recommended for anyone who doesn't demand high production values for a film (shot on 16mm) set in an office.

My Favorite Fairy Tales Volume 4: The Wizard of Oz; The Magic Carpet; Alibaba and Forty Thieves (1986 Video)

"It's your reflection, dimwit!" "Hummus brain!"

[5/10 · 16 August 2004]

I e-mailed Robert V. Barron about this, and he doesn't even remember directing it (though he does remember being a story editor on Funky Fables/Sugar and Spice/Puppy Dog Tales), presumably because he was a mere nominal director in this anime production bought up by Haim Saban. In fact, the fifth video in the series is the piolot for what became _Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid_, his brilliant timing making the pre-existing animated series look like a quickie cash-in on the Disney version.

This film doesn't really cohere together. The film has three stories, and the first two are told at a frenetic pace, while the third, though the same length, feels properly paced. It also appears to be an older production, back when beady-eyed characters were more common in anime.

The first story is told in first person by a totally eighties Dorothy in an oversized red hat, whose dog Toto talks in Kansas, but never comes with her to Oz (where Toto was reluctant to speak in the books, _The Lost Princess of Oz_ excepted, and it took eight books for him to admit it). The Good Witch of the North is a hopping/floating hunchbacked old sprite who claims that the shoes of the killed belong to the killer by custom! The shoes are red boots that Dorothy (with a cheesy heart on her frock) wears without socks. She has an abrupt meeting with a Scarecrow, who looks like a rod puppt, albeit with his hands in an odd place. His had looks not unlike a witch's hat, leading to the first of the titular quotes, from the Tin Woodman. Although the theme of the story remains, that the three already have what they desire, the Tin Woodman is nearly as obnoxious as Larry Mann's Rusty in Tales of the Wizard of/Return to Oz, and half of his few lines are insults.

Dorothy then feels the need to recap the story (about three minuts in) before they arrive in the Emerald City, presumably because the frenetic pace makes the story too unclear. The Wizard appears as a wildly animated shadow, and his sequence, as welll as the Wicked Witch's are the more inspired parts of the film. The Wizard creates a door in the wall to take them to the Witch, who has several haunted hollow tree huts filled with fires which she uses her magic to turn into fireballs. We are now five minutes into the picture. Well, the Tin Woodman's remark comes from when the Scarecrow sees himself in a well, and would probably be a good title for a more analytical review of the film than I care to give at this time. The most peculiar thing about the film is that the witch can stretch indefinitely, and she makes a powerful image as she streaks through the air. Once the witch is defeated, the humbug Wizard rings a bell, and the room opens up to another location, where a tiny Glinda (unnamed) is perched on Dorothy's shoulder. While sometimes the pacing makes it feel as though this were cut from a longer production, scenes like this suggest otherwise.

The music is overloud and it often makes the dialogue and narration difficult to hear, whcih applies even more strongly to the second story, "The Magic Carpet," which is set in India and told by a narrator with an Indian accent. The titles of the first two stories are video-burned, and presumably the title originally appeared on the image of the carpet alone that opens (and closes) the story, to little good effect her. It tells of a maharaja who determines his successor by a contest, and his evil adviser insists that because the older brother, Safal, struck the flag, while the younger brother, Safal, shot one beyond what could be measured. And according to custom, JAfal is to be exiled. He eventually finds his arrow in a cave, and when he pulls it out, the floor gives way and he lands in the chamber of a magical princess. Jafal tries to return to his brother, despite the exile, and the adviser steals the carpet and tells Safal to ask him to hand it over, and when he can't, sends him on tasks the princess helps him accomplish. He makes the mistake of bringing her along for her to be abducted by the adviser, but together, they are able to defeat him. Despite the obviously shorter source material, the story is still told at the same frenetic pace as Wizard, which is adapted from a novel, not a folktale.

The third, Alibaba [sic] and Forty Thieves, is the same length, but told at the leisurely pace "The Magic Carpet" should have been told at. This one has a female narrator, who is unfortunately rather patronizing. The film includes several still paintings of action that are wuite effective, but a major plot hole in the slave girl's recognition of the lead thief, when she has only seen one of his lackeys, (whom he calls "hummus brain" when she has Xed every house).

Overall, this film has some visual interest, but it's not very good anime, and has a lot of technical problems.

Pesadilla mortal (1980)

as generic as the title

[5/10 · 18 June 2004]

The title of this film translates as "Deadly Nightmare," which gives you an idea of how routine this film is. I bought this DVD because the cover makes it look like a Mexican take on a Hong Kong ghost film. Unfortunately, none of the images on the box are in the film, making the entire venture a waste of what little money I have.

Instead, it's a crime thriller with the quasi-supernatural conceit of Aouda suffering from nightmares about the deaths f various people by an assassin. The best thing about this film is the way her nightmares are cut in a mix if dissolves and very rapidfire crosscutting. I think it was André Bazin who said that the worst films have five minutes more interesting that the entirety of many good films. That's this film's moment.

The film sets up Aouda's co-worker, Hector, as being in league with the criminal element, then gives us sledgehammered melodramatic music when he finally turns on her, as if the previous revelation wasn't enough to make it not a surprise. Almost every scene discusses obsessively an "Alejandro," who was never identified while on screen.

Media Trading Network has apparently decided to market this DVD to the most undemanding of Mexican-American audience, as it contains no subtitle options (so much of the dialogue is redundant it only takes close listening and good etymological knowledge to figure out what they're saying if you don't know the language, as I don't), which is minor compared to the fact that everything looks green. Even with the language barrier, it was obvious that some scenes were redundant filler. One scene simply has Hector come into a place and ask where the crime boss is, only to be told he's in the next room, which given the set design, looks like he could probably be seen through the doorway. Alfredo B. Crevenna is certainly not an economical director.

To make matters worse, Aouda romances nearly every character in the film--not that she's portrayed in a sexpot since it amounts mostly to affection over meals where it sounds like the plot is being rehashed, sometimes in picnics or romantic dinners, before finally picking the guy she kissed for a final trite kiss that rounds out the formula Crevenna has so drearily deployed. Beyond the language, there's almost nothing to the film to suggest it's anything other than a rip-off of a Hollywood production. There doesn't appear to be anything intrinsically Mexican about it--not that that is a problem--it just seems overly American, and overly formulaic.

The acting is mediocre and sometimes feels forced, particularly when Aouda helps the investigator examine her mother's house--her tears over the death of her mother are implausibly rendered.

Don't let the box fool you, and pass this one up...4.5/10.

Deadly Tales (1998 Video)

Poorly made and trashy updating not entirely devoid of interest

[4/10 · 5 June 2004]

This DVD caught my eye because the box said it had an adaptation of Mary Shelley other than _Frankenstein_, but when I saw the trailer after I got it home that evening, fearing the worst, I decided to read all the stories first. The Wells story is an enigma--nothing happens except that an antique dealer named Mr. Cave keeps looking into an alien world until he is eventually found dead on the floor. Sounds good enough for a frame story, but it's rather artificial here. The best performances in the film are from Greg Cannone as Winston Kale and Oriana Tavoularis as his wife, Alice Cave. Cannone's performance is unfortunately hit-and-miss, with line readings that sometimes feel read for only the second time, but sometimes seem natural and appropriate. He looks a little like Chris Weitz without the annoying ear-indentation. Alice goes a little wacko at the death of her mother, but as irritating as she is with Winston, and as unreasonable as she can be, she always manages to remain endearing through her cute appearance and essential ill-placement in a horror film, as her slightly over-the-top performance seems to belong in a comedy.

The film claims to have been processed in a film lab, but it looks shot on video, and has lame character-generator titles indicative of home video, as well, but if it is, at least Ford had a decent flying-erase head, since the edits are never defect-jumpy.

Mary Shelley, in "Transformation" (not "The Transformation" as on the credits) originally wrote of Guido, exiled from Genoa by a Marchese (also his beloved Juliet's father) after returning from a riotous travel. On an island, he encounters a dwarf who demands a three day exchange of bodies, and in what turns out to be one of her weaker works, does so exactly to take his place and to have Juliet, confirming Guido's worst fears--though how the dwarf knows about him and why he would specifically choose to mess up his life is unknown). All ends happily. Not so for Eric, who is obsessed with a 19th-century dominatrix photo purchased from Cave Antiques. His girlfriend, Virginia, reveals the most hideous boob job ever (disproportionate, lopsided, you name it) in her lunchtime motel breaks with Eric, who then goes to a strip club. Veronica Carothers gives a wonderfully sympathetic performance as Crystal. She reveals without saying anything about it something of a painful past, and she makes you want Eric to give her a hug for being sympathetic with him. Perhaps I should correct myself about the acting since her performance actually distracts from that she's visibly topless the whole scene. Unfortunately, it doesn't last as Shelley's dwarf, whom Guido kills to get his wounded body back, is a cat creature who is also the dominatrix. Here the performance generates into something worthy of edited porn like _Droid_. To little is made of her trading bodies with him, which is surprising considering the film in general and the Shelley adaptation specifically is not in very good taste. Rather than take his girl, she had needlessly gory and fake looking violence in mind.

Although I found Kipling's "The Mark of the Beast" to be the weakest story of the three, it is, for all its updates, the most faithfully adapted and best done, though all the writing in this film is bad, and the dialogue here is like artless Mamet. The decision to retell it as a gangster story, though, actually works, and "Film Star Randal Malone" gives a ridiculously overacted and slightly queer performance as Harry Green, who was Fleete in Kipling's original. The change of the Indian setting replaces a Hanuman statue with the banality of a wolf ring, and an effeminate Craig Johnson, reminiscent of Jaye Davidson in _Stargate_ replaces Kipling's leper. The changes made to the story reflect entirely the gangster world of the film (which intrudes rather implausibly onto the Cave story--their antique store exterior looks wrong for the kind of neighborhood this would occur in, and generally too big), leading again to a ridiculously violent end. I was kind of disappointed that Ford deleted Kipling's shoehorn-gag scene , but the wolf-suit is so rubbery (and rather apelike) it would probably make it look even more fake. It seems strange that the shaman never bothers to pick up the finger they sever so he can go to a hospital and get it put back on. Ford also adds the thugs turning on each other, which at least fits.

The ending, which is given away in the trailer, is a disappointment--Alice gets a death scene unworthy of her that should not have been fatal, creates _Jabberwocky_-like gore, and reduces Wells's octopoid Martian whatsit (perhaps a War of the Worlds prequel?), into ugly anthropophages erroneously referred to as cannibals on the badly typoed box.

Overall, this is a weak film, its chief interest being exactly what I bought it for--that it is an adaptation of these classic stories. It has its moments, but is overall an amateurish work. On the plus side, even though it certainly could have used a once-over by someone more talented at dialogue, the concept isn't too bad and at least gives a better justification for the lame, borderline campy, gore effects that many others will want to view the film for, than most others of its budget and ilk, no thanks to Ford, but thanks to Wells, Shelley, and Kipling.

I Am Not a Freak (1987 TV Movie)

Heavy-Handed Deadline Doom

[5/10 · 25 May 2004]

An interesting failure, Kirby Dick documents five people (he claims six, but the material on Chang is clearly archive footage from another film with easy-to-deconstruct narration). This film is excessively short and feels incomplete because of its superficiality. The narration seems to condemn freak shows while Robert Melvin and his family both appear to endorse them as a place where unusual people were accepted and even celebrated. Sandy Allen, the world's tallest woman, has been a big proponent of bringing back freak shows, but she is not interviewed. Melvin's interview does not hint that he felt exploited, and Dick certainly does not insinuate that Mickey Hays playing an alien in _The Aurora Encounter_ was exploitative, and indeed, reunited Hays with Jack Elam, who have a rapport much like Gil Gerard and Ernie Reyes, Jr. did at the time.

The opening, complete with footage from _The Elephant Man_, is awkwardly handled, with the narrator introducing person after person and going into details about the sex life of each, including admittedly unconfirmed data about extra sex organs. Perhaps the best handled part is the portion on Sam Early, whom Dick seems to respect most for his total avoidance of show business, though conversely, Loyce (pronounced like "Lois") Bernal's story seems like he didn't have enough time to deal with properly. Her stomach stapling is mentioned, but he clearly did not have the time for the followup he begs. Mickey Hays's grandmother sounds like she's reading idiot cards with built in afterthoughts for a religious station.

A glaring research error appears in the statement that Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, had neurofibromatosis, which Robert Melvin also has. Even in 1985, that diagnosis had gone by the wayside in favor of the diagnosis of Proteus Syndrome, as Merrick's bones were affected by his disorder, which does not occur in neurofibromatosis.

All in all, there is interesting information here, but the way it is presented is teasingly superficial, heavy-handed, and sometimes saccharinely maudlin. 5/10.

Black Hawk Down (2001)

Stupid and Tedious

[3/10 · 6 July 2003]

So this film is better than Scott's _Gladiator_, which isn't saying much, _Gladiator_ being up there with _Rocky_ and _The Greatest Show on Earth_ as films least deserving of Best Picture, and it has a good cast including Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Orlando Bloom, Sam Shepard, and Tom Sizemore, but if I had been one of those marines, I'd feel insulted by this movie, despite the tribute to the fallen officers at the end, which seem more to give the picture clout.

This is one of the worst war movies ever made. It's 2 hours of video game action and 5 minutes of character development, and 10 minutes of credits. All the best war movies let you get to know the characters, and this does it less than the most stereotypical films, do, and only then in the worst way possible, in the form of what Stanley Kubrick called the "mandatory" scenes he and his source novel avoided in _Full Metal Jacket_. That created a film with much richer characters and much more believable fights in just under 2 hours. _Black Hawk Down_ has none of what made _Full Metal Jacket_, or _Platoon_, or _Catch-22_, or _MASH_, or _Three Kings_, or _No Man's Land_, or even Armando Crispino's _Commandos_ so good. In _Full Metal Jacket_, the Viet Cong were an unseen enemy. Here, the Somalis are the evil hordes of _Dawn of the Dead_, a mass of savages, or "skinnies" as they're called, who are there to be slaughtered in a war that was supposed to help the people. The few Somali we see as more than cannon fodder are melodramatic villains ill-befitting a realistic film about war.

None of the necessary irony that a failed mission needs to have comes through, nor any of the tragedy. Since we don't get to know these people at all, Scott goes the Paul Verhoeven route by having them die the most gruesome ways possible--getting halved, a severed finger, an exploding body that looks straight out of _Dawn of the Dead_ (why is Scott getting good work when Romero is getting DTV?).

When someone is severely abused by the system, such as Alex Murphy in Verhoeven's _RoboCop_, a gruesome death can work effectively as a means for gaining sympathy, but routine horrific war violence has minimal impact without giving good definition to the characters who are being harmed. _Saving Private Ryan_ gave us graphic war violence, even if some of it was a little over the top (the guy picking up his own arm in a lame reference to Kurosawa's _Ran_, which probably should have been snipped), but it gave us characters to focus on who were viewing on this, and we learned more about them as the film progressed, and even while it relied on the tired one-of-each style, they were fleshed-out characters. These are ciphers.

On the technical point, the CGI is far less noticeable than it is in _Gladiator_. The artificiality of all the scenes made that film feel like a video game because of the look, even though the bad writing was pure Hollywood. This film is a live-action video game with "cinema scenes" to advance the story. All of this exemplifies why Jerry Bruckheimer productions suck and why he ought to be involved in video game development. His style is inherently distancing since it fits in so well with interactive media, and watching video games without playing them is rarely exciting for me anymore, and this film was unrelenting tedium. Maybe I grew up and Bruckheimer didn't. Scott should have known better, but he was never that great a director, and it's all been downhill for him since _Blade Runner_, despite the honors he has undeservedly received. Maybe Bruckheimer picked him because he shares his first name with a space pirate in the _Metroid_ video games, since video games are all he seems to understand.

Almost everyone I know had a similar reaction to this film, but it kept coming up in my Amazon ratings, and got largely good reviews, so I gave the film a look. Critics have to watch hundreds of films a year, and so perhaps they'd be best equipped to compare due to having that broader knowledge base. Why this picture struck so many so strongly when so many war films in recent memory are so much better I don't understand. Perhaps the convergence of cinema and video games has become so strong that what I regard as tastelessness and simple-mindedness is now regarded as classy. The extra star is for the cast that had to be in this dreck with barely functional lines and for the use of color, particularly greens, Scott imbues on it.

Red Blooded American Girl (1990)

good acting can't save terrible script

[4/10 · 21 June 2003]

While this film has an interesting premise, Allen Moyle's script can't get anything worthwhile out of it. Said premise is that experiments with kuru have caused the spread of a scientific form of vampirism. Kuru is an actual disease that is transmitted when cannibal warriors eat the infected brains of their opponents. Perhaps if the script had been rewritten, it would have been a good film, as all of the cast are very strong and try to make the material they've been given better than it is, except for Christopher Plummer, who knows full well he is in drivel and too arrogant to care about doing his best. I felt a similar way about Ridley Scott's _Gladiator_, in which Oliver Reed gives a lackluster final performance in a drivel film with strong, albeit stylized, acting. The film is a mix of '90s slickness and '80s sleaze comedy. Because the actors are freewheeling and unwilling to let their craft be hampered by poor material, the film never stops being interesting, and leaves you feeling sorry for the actors, except for Plummer, whose boredom is infectious.

This is the sort of film that should be remade--one that had a lot going for it, including wonderful production design be Ian Brock--but since part of what makes it strong are the efforts of the actors, who have aged over a decade, there really isn't much point, particularly since all that ever get remade are films that were done right the first time. If it were remade, of course, the script should be thrown in the dust bin so someone with talent could write a good script using the same idea.

Like Scott's _Gladiator_, in which Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus is akin to Andrew Jackson's Donald here, this made it to my worst films of all time, but both films have similar redeeming values that make them of marginal interest. _Gladiator_ should have ended up only as well known as this one, not a Best Picture winner--they're very much on par. If you liked _Gladiator_ for any reason other than fandom for one of the stars, then I would recommend this picture wholeheartedly, even if you're not into horror/SF combinations. They're both worth a 4, but _Gladiator_ gets marked down a point in my book because it was so expensive (the cheaper a film is, the easier it is to forgive its flaws, particularly if acting isn't one of them--good actors can be found at any price) and so overpraised.

The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow (1973)

Charming, Inventive SF Comedy!

[10/10 · 9 October 2001]

_The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow_ is a fascinating film. Given the lurid title _Invasion of the Girl Snatchers_ nobody expects much, but I had the fortune of seeing the trailer, which has two guys trying to come up with a title that encompasses everything that is in the film. _The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow_, which is the name of Aph's compound has an appropriate air of mystery that seems more fitting than the title we get, that never appears on the film itself. I have seen to versions, one that I rented that had it chyroned in over synth music and cutting off the end credits, and one with the end credits and no opening title (and it wasn't cut off--it still has FBI warnings and the like), which I bought in an eBay auction.

Set in a rural forested area that is simply gorgeous to behold in its natural wonder, on top of it we are given Aph's weirdly decorated mansion, which is a highlight of the film. Something about it is both very surreal and very seventies at the same time.

The two central characters, Kaspar and Prudence, are unusually written and don't seem like halves of a couple but rather individuals. I particularly liked Prudence. I believe I've seen Elizabeth Rush as a teacher on an independent segment of _Sesame Street_, but it was so long ago, I could be mistaken. She is a forthright character with an interesting fashion sense, and practices new-thought Christianity with smatterings of the occult, while Kaspar is a hippie working for a private investigator. Elizabeth Rush effortlessly imbues her character with wisdom and compassion (although the fact that she never does find help for Junior after her very strange chase scene seems a bit out of character), while Kaspar is a lovable dolt. You don't tend to think of hippies with redneck accents, but here one is.

As you might expect simply form my descriptions of these characters, aside from the title assigned to it in 1985, nothing in this film is handled conventionally. The Prospero-like Aph rarely uses his powers on screen, and often sits bottom center in the camera frame looking on at the cockeyed plans of the two Juniors and the alien he mistakenly brought forth into the world. While ostensibly a mad scientist/alchemist/sorcerer type figure, he seems to pride himself on his calmness and inaction, realizing that these weak people are likely to destroy themselves. Charles Rubin gives a deadpan, nearly emotionless performance, but actually substantially different from the totally emotionless performance of the possessed girls.

Ellen Tripp as Ruthie and Ruth Horn as Rosebush give remarkably deadened performances, like that of true (Haitian) zombies rather than the movie zombies like the one played by James Rueckert in this movie that has everything. Some of the humor with these characters is wonderful, but some goes on too long. It's rarely generated by them, and even worse from Pepper Thurston as Big Girl (who is aptly described--very tall). Prudence's reactions to Ruthie walking around topless all the time are priceless. The major problem is that the cramp jokes go on too long, as most of the other humor works quite well.

Hugh Smith as Sam Trowel is appropriately serious, but he really doesn't change enough when he becomes Utaya, or else I'd give higher marks for his performance. It is certainly a serviceable one, but that aspect does not do much to impress, though Smith does have an impressive stage voice.

The real dynamism comes from David Roster as Freddie, who is dumb enough to be funny but not dumb enough to be dull, like his brother, who is basically there to be his foil, as they're both juniors after all.

The camerawork in the film is sometimes stiff, and the camera, except during the chase scenes is often used in a way that is too "stagy" to be effective, although many of the compositions are still impressive. Lee Jones and his crew obviously had access to a wonderful property which they often use very effectively, particularly in chase scenes. Unfortunately, some of the shots are over exposed, but that may be correctable on remastering. The scene in which Prudence and Kaspar are in the circle of protection has one camera angle for which the film was very badly overexposed, and fortunately, this angle is used only sparingly, since they Jones did not try for any Laughton-esque uses of ill-matching lighting to demonstrate the characters being in psychologically separate worlds, which they certainly are, particularly at this point.

The film is one that constantly throws out ridiculous ideas and makes them work, from the abandoned bra causing a quick circulation to the constant spoofery. The only one I was sure about was _Mission: Impossible_, but it seems to spoof a lot of things I haven't seen and I hope to get the references someday. Aside from running jokes not working, most of the off-the-wall additions to the plot are what make the film so interesting. "Invasion of the Girl Snatchers" just suggests a much simpler film than it is. In fact, aside from Utaya, who wants money, none of the other aliens have motivations for being there, other than simply that they were brought by either Aph or Utaya. The aliens are neither a united force or evil or a legion of buffoons. They are just like people in the way they think; we never see what there bodies are truly like, nor do we care to as they aren't very interesting people as it is. All we need to know is they don't really know why they are here and do what Utaya says because they are hopelessly out of their environment.

Little additions make the film interesting, too. A nine chambered revolver throwing off a count, an exploding tape that won't explode when it's supposed to, Rosebush drinking nitro, all go into a film that makes you wonder what the meaning of it all really is. It's almost Buñuellian, even if unintentionally so. (On the surface it looks more like Arthur Penn.) Still, it's a shame we don't see Elizabeth Rush, Ele Grigsby, or David Roster in anything else.

A discussion of this film would not be complete without mentioning James DeWitt's score, although some of the suspense scenes rely on library music that tends to punch up the humor rather than suspense. His style is somewhere between Bob Dylan and Roger Miller with a booming bass voice that is smoother than either of them. DeWitt, who also plays the pimp in the green jacket, has clever, rapid fire lyrics that comment on the action as well as the Leonard Cohen songs in Altman's _McCabe & Mrs. Miller_, and as a result it results with odd language use and a lot of internal rhyme. The songs are a strong part of the character of the film, and question what's going on as often as they describe it "Freedom" is the main theme of a song in which a character breaks free, for example, but the opening song, which is repeated several times, could be said to represent the aliens' confusion as much as anything else. It mentions such things as struggling to stay out of trouble, dealing with confusion that spreads like cancer, and the impossibility that everything can ever makes sense. It's certainly apt as this film's principal theme, which again makes me think of Buñuel in his deliberate attempt to make nonsensical films. It suggests the filmmakers, despite the technical glitches, more aware of what they were doing than what viewers might expect, or that they intended viewers to expect.

View this film with an open mind. You are not going to be seeing the usual fare when you sit down to watch this, neither are you seeing something truly pretentious, but you are seeing a fascinating film that does not ask you to think about it, merely to laugh, but when you do think on it, it becomes all the more interesting.

The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow (1973)

Charming, Inventive SF Comedy!

[10/10 · 9 October 2001]

_The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow_ is a fascinating film. Given the lurid title _Invasion of the Girl Snatchers_ nobody expects much, but I had the fortune of seeing the trailer, which has two guys trying to come up with a title that encompasses everything that is in the film. _The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow_, which is the name of Aph's compound has an appropriate air of mystery that seems more fitting than the title we get, that never appears on the film itself. I have seen to versions, one that I rented that had it chyroned in over synth music and cutting off the end credits, and one with the end credits and no opening title (and it wasn't cut off--it still has FBI warnings and the like), which I bought in an eBay auction.

Set in a rural forested area that is simply gorgeous to behold in its natural wonder, on top of it we are given Aph's weirdly decorated mansion, which is a highlight of the film. Something about it is both very surreal and very seventies at the same time.

The two central characters, Kaspar and Prudence, are unusually written and don't seem like halves of a couple but rather individuals. I particularly liked Prudence. I believe I've seen Elizabeth Rush as a teacher on an independent segment of _Sesame Street_, but it was so long ago, I could be mistaken. She is a forthright character with an interesting fashion sense, and practices new-thought Christianity with smatterings of the occult, while Kaspar is a hippie working for a private investigator. Elizabeth Rush effortlessly imbues her character with wisdom and compassion (although the fact that she never does find help for Junior after her very strange chase scene seems a bit out of character), while Kaspar is a lovable dolt. You don't tend to think of hippies with redneck accents, but here one is.

As you might expect simply form my descriptions of these characters, aside from the title assigned to it in 1985, nothing in this film is handled conventionally. The Prospero-like Aph rarely uses his powers on screen, and often sits bottom center in the camera frame looking on at the cockeyed plans of the two Juniors and the alien he mistakenly brought forth into the world. While ostensibly a mad scientist/alchemist/sorcerer type figure, he seems to pride himself on his calmness and inaction, realizing that these weak people are likely to destroy themselves. Charles Rubin gives a deadpan, nearly emotionless performance, but actually substantially different from the totally emotionless performance of the possessed girls.

Ellen Tripp as Ruthie and Ruth Horn as Rosebush give remarkably deadened performances, like that of true (Haitian) zombies rather than the movie zombies like the one played by James Rueckert in this movie that has everything. Some of the humor with these characters is wonderful, but some goes on too long. It's rarely generated by them, and even worse from Pepper Thurston as Big Girl (who is aptly described--very tall). Prudence's reactions to Ruthie walking around topless all the time are priceless. The major problem is that the cramp jokes go on too long, as most of the other humor works quite well.

Hugh Smith as Sam Trowel is appropriately serious, but he really doesn't change enough when he becomes Utaya, or else I'd give higher marks for his performance. It is certainly a serviceable one, but that aspect does not do much to impress, though Smith does have an impressive stage voice.

The real dynamism comes from David Roster as Freddie, who is dumb enough to be funny but not dumb enough to be dull, like his brother, who is basically there to be his foil, as they're both juniors after all.

The camerawork in the film is sometimes stiff, and the camera, except during the chase scenes is often used in a way that is too "stagy" to be effective, although many of the compositions are still impressive. Lee Jones and his crew obviously had access to a wonderful property which they often use very effectively, particularly in chase scenes. Unfortunately, some of the shots are over exposed, but that may be correctable on remastering. The scene in which Prudence and Kaspar are in the circle of protection has one camera angle for which the film was very badly overexposed, and fortunately, this angle is used only sparingly, since they Jones did not try for any Laughton-esque uses of ill-matching lighting to demonstrate the characters being in psychologically separate worlds, which they certainly are, particularly at this point.

The film is one that constantly throws out ridiculous ideas and makes them work, from the abandoned bra causing a quick circulation to the constant spoofery. The only one I was sure about was _Mission: Impossible_, but it seems to spoof a lot of things I haven't seen and I hope to get the references someday. Aside from running jokes not working, most of the off-the-wall additions to the plot are what make the film so interesting. "Invasion of the Girl Snatchers" just suggests a much simpler film than it is. In fact, aside from Utaya, who wants money, none of the other aliens have motivations for being there, other than simply that they were brought by either Aph or Utaya. The aliens are neither a united force or evil or a legion of buffoons. They are just like people in the way they think; we never see what there bodies are truly like, nor do we care to as they aren't very interesting people as it is. All we need to know is they don't really know why they are here and do what Utaya says because they are hopelessly out of their environment.

Little additions make the film interesting, too. A nine chambered revolver throwing off a count, an exploding tape that won't explode when it's supposed to, Rosebush drinking nitro, all go into a film that makes you wonder what the meaning of it all really is. It's almost Buñuellian, even if unintentionally so. (On the surface it looks more like Arthur Penn.) Still, it's a shame we don't see Elizabeth Rush, Ele Grigsby, or David Roster in anything else. Apparently Lee Jones has other credits, but the IMDb doesn't list them, even if it lists films like _Supervan_ he apparently had something to do with.

A discussion of this film would not be complete without mentioning James DeWitt's score, although some of the suspense scenes rely on library music that tends to punch up the humor rather than suspense. His style is somewhere between Bob Dylan and Roger Miller with a booming bass voice that is smoother than either of them. DeWitt, who also plays the pimp in the green jacket, has clever, rapid fire lyrics that comment on the action as well as the Leonard Cohen songs in Altman's _McCabe & Mrs. Miller_, and as a result it results with odd language use and a lot of internal rhyme. The songs are a strong part of the character of the film, and question what's going on as often as they describe it "Freedom" is the main theme of a song in which a character breaks free, for example, but the opening song, which is repeated several times, could be said to represent the aliens' confusion as much as anything else. It mentions such things as struggling to stay out of trouble, dealing with confusion that spreads like cancer, and the impossibility that everything can ever makes sense. It's certainly apt as this film's principal theme, which again makes me think of Buñuel in his deliberate attempt to make nonsensical films. It suggests the filmmakers, despite the technical glitches, more aware of what they were doing than what viewers might expect, or that they intended viewers to expect.

View this film with an open mind. You are not going to be seeing the usual fare when you sit down to watch this, neither are you seeing something truly pretentious, but you are seeing a fascinating film that does not ask you to think about it, merely to laugh, but when you do think on it, it becomes all the more interesting.

Sword of the Valiant (1984)

A Magnificent, Humorous, Fantastic Vision

[9/10 · 14 July 2001]

Yes, this film has weaknesses, notably Miles O'Keefe in the lead. It doesn't really hurt the film, being a hero type role, but it doesn't help, either. The film is a collection of episodes in a year of Gawain's life, which cycles through four seasons in the pattern of the Green Knight's life. The sense of time is rather peculiar, and it's unclear how Gawain rejoins his squire after visiting Leonesse, yet somehow it all fits. The film builds its vignettes around the game of the Green Knight's four part riddle. The film seems to have been botched in the editing room a bit, as the script is excellent, though with a great deal of joke cracking, notably one about a corkscrew that gets repeated an extra time, although it's the only one of the jokes that could be considered camp.

The film is sumptuously photographed, and the cast and the sets are wonderful to look at. Weeks planned to incorporate footage from _Gawain and the Green Knight_, but everything that the producers took out of that film they destroyed, this time hampered again by producers, who denied him final cut and forced him to cast O'Keefe after _Tarzan the Ape Man_ proved a box office success, despite being universally loathed.

The music score is rousing, but it was done on a computer, and so the timbres seem jarring. The humor and makeup effects are obviously jarring to some. Also jarring is the bright yellow bars letterboxing the credits of the video version. While the film suffers from being preserved only in pan and scan, I couldn't wait for the letterboxing to end since it makes the opening sequence more difficult to watch with the yellow glaring at you.

Don't let the bad reviews of this film dissuade you. This is a thoughtful film, buggered in the production process, but much of its glory still shines through. Know going in its a semi-comedy, and that some of the cast, including the aforementioned O'Keefe and Cyrielle, who is lovely but had to have all her lines dubbed, being a French speaker, and the likelihood you'll appreciate this film will go up. Most of the film works so well that I focused on that rather than its weaknesses. I also picked up Weeks's _Madhouse Mansion_ in the same closeout sale (Video Update went into Chapter 11 and is selling off the inventory from most of their stores in the area). That film has been equally poorly received by IMDb users, yet I have read (in _Video Watchdog_) that it is his best work. After having seen this, I hope to list it among the greatest film ever made. This is certainly one of the most entertaining fantasies I've seen in a long time. The other reviews I see here sound like reviews for _Wizards of the Lost Kingdom_ except that they mention Connery's Green Knight, which is certainly impressive. Other than that, it seems like we saw different films.

An entertaining film with weaknesses is still an entertaining film if it makes you think and rouses your spirits. Could have been better, but unquestionably worth seeing.

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall (1980 TV Movie)

TV makes it boring and ordinary due to unimaginative

[4/10 · 22 October 2000]

_The Jilting of Granny Weatherall_, being told in stream-of-consciousness, could easily have been a cinematic tour-de-force. Unfortunately, Haines drains any interest out of it by trying to present it in a literal manner. The story would have been nothing special were it not for the stream of consciousness technique. Instead of trying to express Granny's feelings, Haines simply gives us static reenactments of events in her past, filmed in such conventional ways that we do not get much of Granny's attitude toward how she remembers things.

In this TV movie. It is simply an old dying woman having flashbacks. Had Porter's story been given an imaginative director, it could have easily been made into a remarkable and astonishing film. Instead, we get a lame Cliffs Notes version of the story.

I would recommend this film only to curious Porter fans, but I don't expect they'll like it. Anyone who took interest enough to read this review is referred to the short story, which was very innovative in its day. It could make an innovative film someday, but this definitely is not it.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Beautiful disappointment

[5/10 · 20 January 2000]

I would watch this film again, but when I finally got to see it the first time, I was severely disappoints. The film is extremely sumptuous to look at and Burton's 1799 New York is remarkable, as are the torture chambers and the whole town of Sleepy Hollow. The acting, too, is uniformly fine. I would not expect Depp and Ricci to be speaking in accents, but the become almost unrecognizably absorbed into their characters, as do the character actors in support. Unfortunately, the way the plot spun from the pen of B-movie maestro Kevin Yagher, in which in ends up, in its last third or so, a lame revenge plot with by the numbers mistaken attribution, discovery, and resolution, that I thought were so trite that I really didn't care. Perhaps a more Brechtian acting style would have helped make it through this part, better, but the Delsartian performance of the culprit late in the film makes it silly. Adherence to Irving was thrown out the window as a given as soon as it was announced, but what sounded like improvements turned out to be Hollywoodization, with little sense of parody, other than quoting _On the Town_. In the story, Katrina married Brom van Brunt, who is here hacked in half by the Headless Horseman, though it is Brom who throws the pumpkin at Ichabod, something only hinted at on the last page of the story. It would have been nice to see more action from Ray Park's Headless Horseman when he's attacking, but we don't seem to get all that much, while by the end he's acting like a lame pastiche of Burton's own _Batman_ in a lame pastiche of James Whale's _Frankenstein_. Burton did that better when he was tongue-in-cheek in _Frankenweenie_.

Unfortunately, this film resonated with me as all gloss and no substance, mainly due to the ending, because that really isn't the case, early on, even though it still could have used more depth. It seemed saturated with references to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films as well, which would be okay if it actually did something with that. Burton also made strange choices as to when and when not to show a graphic decapitation, so that whenever one isn't shown, it seems anticlimactic. The torture chambers and maltreatment of witches seems to be more of introducing a plot point than trying to say anything. In short, were the ending less trite, this film would be a thoroughly entertaining, if relatively empty film (even _Batman_ was deeper than this). As such, it was a disappointment in several ways. This is Burton's most beautiful, but least meaningful, film.

Half Human (1958)

How to make a good film boring

[4/10 · 18 January 2000]

It is a very unfortunate thing that Toho has decided to pull _Jû jin yuki otoko_ from its catalog based on Ainu lobbyists. Had Akira Ifukube scored the film, rather than Masaru Sato, he might have said something against it because he lived among the Ainu and knew the culture presented in this film bears little resemblance to the Ainu.

Instead, we are left with this badly edited mess because an American producer got his hands on it, and inserted scenes with American actors that give away the story before we can actually be shown it. Ostensibly this footage was shot to increase Americans' interest in the Japanese production. Instead it brings the action screeching to a halt and we are given glimpses of what is obviously a much better film, with one of the most convincing yet-teh costumes of all time. The older one has a very lifelike face that is showing signs of balding.

Because of Toho's quarantine on the original film, one has to sit through a lot of drek to have any film at all, since the 98 minute film runs 63 minutes in this version, even after all the boring footage was added. The sound quality is poor as well, and all (or most) of Masaru Sato's score as been replaced with library music. It's too short to fast-forward through all the nonsense and too dull to sit through it.

The only redeeming element of the film are the exquisite Japanese scenes that we hear John Carradine talking over. This film is utterly ruined, thereby demonstrating Gresham's law. The good version is unavailable, and only the bad version can be seen.

Oh, Grow Up (1999)

Silly and serious at the same time

[8/10 · 29 December 1999]

One of the best new shows of the season, so far I've found only the episode of 12/28/99 disappointing. The show is loaded with silliness and an ensemble cast with great comic timing, but it really develops as you get into it. The relationship that develops between Hunter and his newly-discovered daughter Chloe is the heart as well as the edge of the show. Each character has a great deal of maturing to do, and the comedy comes as much from their immaturity as from how frequently the viewer is encouraged to look down upon them and see the room for growth, and unlike Archie Bunker, always back to the same as each new episode starts, the characters seem to gradually improve from episode to episode. Except for Suzanne, she seems to get worse as episodes go on. She came across as the most mature with the first episode, and the show parallels her degeneration, or its revelation of how immature she is, further and further as Hunter tries to be a better father for Chloe. This show isn't likely to make it through the entire season, which is unfortunate. Alan Ball has created a comedy about more than just silly antics. While that isn't new, it is certainly handled in a unique, refreshing, and funny way.

The Heimlich Maneuver: How to Save a Choking Victim: 2nd Edition (1983)

Hysterically awful!

[1/10 · 13 December 1999]

Note that the cast and makeup artists were not credited with this film. Despite the presence of the ostensible inventor of the maneuver, it is impossible to take the film seriously when people turn blue as a Smurf in overdone makeup that doesn't look bruise blue, more like blueberry blue or turquoise (the colors look worse on the film; they toned it down a bit for the video). None of these people in the simulation can act. "Look! He's turning blue!" is one of the film's more precious lines, said more with surprise than concern. How do they expect us to take the film seriously when a kid puts some small toys in his mouth, then tries to leap onto a cat, who runs away with a cartoon sound effect for good measure? Note the film contains a cheesy score by another Heimlich, Peter, making this a family travesty. Does it teach you the Heimlich maneuver? Yes, but not in a way that a viewer can take it seriously. You're left remembering all the production gaffes and none of the information, so a film that was supposed to be informative but not especially fun ends up fun (in a dumb sort of way) but not especially informative.

Under the Rainbow (1999)

Bleak, Chilling, and Powerful

[10/10 · 4 October 1999]

_Under the Rainbow_ is a chilling look at human mistakes and the domination of fear. The unstable factor is Jacob Rainwater, a brilliant, isolated, and ultimately cruel individual with a curiosity that causes him to be misunderstood and feared. Eventually this fear develops into good reason, as he withholds important information that would lead to the survival of the crew.

Things seem fairly normal as the crew talks about their hopes as they reach Earth, like mission specifics and the "telemovies" that they have watched. Soon art reflects life as we see difficulty in the marriage of Stuart and Diane. Tino and Mary-Beth vowed to continue going together until the filming ended, and it did last a bit longer, but eventually broke up. Their relationship, however, had nothing to do with them being cast as husband and wife. After the final course correction fails, Stuart, as, admittedly, the most expendable member of the crew, the captain, must sacrifice his life, which he had wanted to spend as an antique dealer with Diane, the ship's engineer designing great underwater vessels. His death eventually gives way to what he most feared, Diane choosing Gordon, the ship's doctor, over him.

The four have been given a raw deal by their parents, and their anxiety is not unfounded, as Jacob hides an important message illegally sent from Frank Boltinghouse revealing the ultimate revelation of the extent of the damage he has caused, and his placing it into a secured file results in devious requirements of his erstwhile friends, though it doesn't end well for anyone, whether in the ship or not, and its final shock has Jacob at its hub as everything comes to an end.

Watching this film reveals what a loss the breakup of Tino and Mary-Beth was to the group, as Mary-Beth, who left as a result, was one of our finest actors. The others put in excellent performances as well, in a film that seems almost more suited to the stage than the screen. Very much in a minimalist mode, the film may be only the second science fiction film to not have sound effects in the vacuum of outer space.

Specters (1987)

wasted opportunity

[4/10 · 24 September 1999]

There is never any mention of a "specter" in this film. The creature we finally do see (other than Universal's Gill Man) is an ugly beast not unlike the She Creature. If it weren't for the ridiculous horror clichées, this film might have worked, as the set design is fascinating and some scenes are actually suspenseful, and the archaelogical dig is exciting. Unfortunately, a lot of it deals with stupid teenagers, gratuitous pop songs, sex, and topless scenes, and predictable junk make much of the film annoying. When wine bottles start spraying and catacombs are collapsing, it's interesting, but it has the cliché horror it's not really ending, no one survives by the main fornicating couple, and girls panicking from little mice. The blind man's beating heart getting ripped out is the ultimate in gratuity, since it lacks all the significance of Evan pulling out his own heart in Michele Soavi's _La Chiesa_. It could have been better than _Demoni_, but at least it's not worse, nor as disgusting.