dpenny Reviews

Battlefield Earth (2000)

Hubbard's Gate

[6/10 · 13 May 2000]

I take perverse pride in the fact that I saw 'Cutthroat Island' on the big screen (it's not really that bad, by the way) and soon I'm sure I'll have the same feelings about having seen 'Battlefield Earth' in a theatre. Bad films are released every week, but this one sinks beneath ordinary badness to become a genuine so-bad-it's-good movie.

Barry Pepper gets to make lots a big, faux-'Braveheart' speeches as Johnny, a cave-dweller who leads his people in a fight against the voracious aliens who have taken over Earth. He is aided in his fight by the aliens themselves, who helpfully teach Johnny their language and all the basics of science, leave him in an abandoned library so he can be inspired by the Declaration of Independence, and send him off unmonitored so he can take his people to a huge cache of US weapons left in a bunker, still working after 1000 years of neglect.

(By the way, it appears these weapons were never used...no wonder the aliens only needed 9 minutes to conquer the planet.)

John Travolta, who labored long and hard to bring this story to the screen (it's based on a book by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard), seems to be having a great time as Terl, the alien chief of security. (Forrest Whittaker, playing his sidekick, looks like he can't believe he's in this thing.) But the truly big laughs come from Pepper, who actually seems to be taking this seriously. And the swelling, "stirring" music. And the stunning plot holes. And the stupidity of the aliens. And the schockingly lame action sequences by director Roger Christian. And the laughably fake matte paintings meant to evoke post-invastion Denver and Washington. Mark my words: 15 years from now, this movie will be a staple to midnight showings, complete with people coming dressed as Terl and shouting things at the screen. It's such a fascinating guilty pleasure that, God help me, I'm giving it 6 out of 10.

The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

Occasionally funny, but dated

[6/10 · 20 April 2000]

"The Kentucky Fried Movie" has some genuinely funny scenes, but I have the feeling this movie was a lot funnier in 1977 than it is today. Many of the targets - blaxploitation films, Bruce Lee movies, the oil crisis - are hardly relevant today...the result is like watching a mediocre mid-1970s episode of "Saturday Night Live". That said, Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker's distinctive sense of humor is evident throughout, and there are some truly inspired moments (especially a public service announcement for America's number-one killer: death).

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

illustrates the sheer lunacy of war

[9/10 · 16 April 2000]

There have been many films which argue that war is hell, but only a handful which argue that war is sheer lunacy. This short list includes Apocolypse Now, Three Kings and Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, one of the best movies of the 1980s. In the first half of the film, Matthew Modine's character can only look on helplessly as one of his fellow recruits, an overweight misfit, is slowly driven crazy by military life. The second half is made up of a series of short vingettes showing the dehumanizing effects of war but also the bizarre reasoning people use to justfy it. In one scene, a military journalist orders his men to use a more mundane phrase instead of "search and destroy"...without getting into a debate over whether the Gulf War was justified, it certainly shows that some things never change.

Pushing Tin (1999)

A wasted opportunity

[5/10 · 19 February 2000]

I had high hopes for "Pushing Tin" because of its wonderful cast, proven director (Mike Newell, who made "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Donnie Brasco") and fascinating premise. I have never seen a film centred on the lives of air-traffic controllers, and the scenes in this film actually set in the control center are excellent; we get a real sense of the stressful, fast-paced world of air-traffic control, and the cynicism which helps the controllers survive the job.

Had "Pushing Tin" actually been about a day in the control tower it could have really been something, especially with John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton on board. Unfortunately, after a promising start, the film bogs down in the complicated love lives of these two characters, who clash on sight and spend the rest of the film trying to one-up each other (at least until an unsatisfying happy ending). Thornton and Cusack ultimately drag their wives into the picture, leading to a series of romantic complications I really did not care about, since the exciting air-traffic control scenes whetted my appetite for more.

Why? Why would Hollywood feel we would be more interested in a sluggishly paced romantic dramedy than a film about this fascinating profession? Formula filmmaking strikes again, and "Pushing Tin" is the latest casualty. (5/10)

Stir of Echoes (1999)

The best boy-sees-dead-people movie of 1999

[8/10 · 18 February 2000]

While the moviegoing public - and the Academy - swooned for "The Sixth Sense", I think the similarly-themed "Stir of Echoes" is a far better film. Where the former film is slow and dull right up to its trick ending, "Stir of Echoes" is briskly paced and genuinely haunting; I knew what Kevin Bacon's character would find buried beneath his property, yet the result of his search is still shocking. Kevin Bacon, normally a solid actor, is the film's key weakness (for most of the movie, he seems to be channelling Matt LeBlanc), but all the other performers are fine, and without giving too much away, I will say the last shot paints a very disturbing picture of what the young boy goes through. "Stir of Echoes" did not deserve any Oscar nominations, but it deserved some nominations more than "The Sixth Sense" did.

Fight Club (1999)

The defining movie of the NEXT decade

[10/10 · 12 February 2000]

Fight Club was a box office disappointment perhaps because no one really knew what to make of it. A lot of people went in to see Brad Pitt and Edward Norton pounding each other, and instead got a subversive satire of consumerism and the cult mentality.

The movie may not have been appreciated in 1999, but I'll bet it will quickly become a classic. The recent protests at the WTO meetings in Seattle showed that a backlash is brewing against rampant consumerism, and while I don't necessarily agree with what many of the anti-WTO demonstrators were saying, I get a feeling this movement is going to build up steam as this new decade proceeds.

And Fight Club speaks to that mentality. Edward Norton plays a recall investigator for a major car company (he decides whether it makes financial sense to announce a recall) who has turned to a life of conspicuous consumption to fill his spiritual void. (In one astonishing sequence, he literally walks into an IKEA catalog.) Then he meets Tyler Durden, who introduces him to the underground world of "Fight Clubs" - where men who feel emasculated gather to get back to their roots by pounding the tar out of each other. But as Norton's character is sucked into this exciting new world, his new compatriots decide to expand into society at large - with potentially disastrous consequences.

Many have called Fight Club a fascist movie (the debate was eerily similar to what surrounded "Starship Troopers" in 1997) and I think this is way off the mark. Instead, the message is that if society trys to reduce a man to a simple consumer, aimlessly following trends, he will inevitably lash out. This one will be watched, studied and debated long after, say, "The General's Daughter" has been forgotten.

Wild Wild West (1999)

A special kind of disaster

[4/10 · 12 February 2000]

Any hack (almost inevitably produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) can make a bad movie, but "Wild Wild West" is that special kind of disaster that only talented people could have made. Barry Sonnenfeld is a talented director - he made the truly inventive "Men in Black" in 1997 - and the stars have been appealing in the past. But when you become too successful in Hollywood, eventually people don't question your judgment when they really should. That's what happened here.

The film stars Will Smith and Kevin Kline (who disowned the film before it was released) as mid-19th century Treasury agents out to stop a mad villain - Kenneth Brahagh, who I assume really needed the money to make another Shakespeare film - from destroying America with his giant mechanical spider. I'm not leaving much out by way of plot here, but never have I seen so many jokes fall flat - Smith's constant jibes about recently-abolished slavery are especially appalling. (Mel Brooks could have made 'em funny, but that's about it - and now I'm reminded of how great "Blazing Saddles" was, but that's another story.)

The sad part is that there are a few flashes of inspiration throughout "Wild Wild West", such as a dazzling shot of 1860s Washington with the Capitol Dome under construction in the background. But the whole production gives the aura of successful people assuming everything they touch turns to gold. This movie definitely did not.

Last Action Hero (1993)

underrated, hilarious satire

[8/10 · 12 February 2000]

There are underappreciated films, underrated films, unfairly maligned films...and then there's Last Action Hero, perhaps one of the most hated movies of the 1990s. Well, I thought it was hilarious from beginning to end, a great send-up of Arnie's image. The movie takes dead aim at all the action-movie cliches, from a non-stop parade of gorgeous women to every phone number beginning with "555" ("That's why we have area codes," says Arnold's character.) My hunch is that people expected another Terminator or Total Recall, and were completely caught off guard by this offbeat film.

Sling Blade (1996)

emotionally shattering

[9/10 · 5 February 2000]

"Sling Blade" is an emotionally exhausting picture which establishes Billy Bob Thornton as one of our very best actors, writers, and directors. This story of a mentally handicapped man committed to a mental hospital for a childhood double murder, and his attempt to make it in the outside world, avoids the usual stereotypes about the closed-minded townsfolk and their prejudice against someone like Karl Childers, Thornton's character.

Indeed, upon his release Childers is given a mechanic's job and befriends a young boy, his widowed mother, and her gay best friend (played by an unrecognizable John Ritter). Unfortunately, the mother's drunken, violent boyfriend - Dwight Yoakam in a dark, effective performance - cannot accept Karl getting in the way of his relationship, and Childers must ultimately defend his new "family" the only way he knows how.

The tragedy of "Sling Blade" is that Childers is a basically gentle soul whose abusive childhood - his father (Robert Duvall in a cameo) and mother made him live in a shed behind the house - and marginal intelligence have made him unable to function without violence. More importantly, deep down Childers knows this; he knows he cannot function as a free man, and simply cannot protect the ones he loves without violence. The result is one of the most sympathetic characters I have ever seen in a movie. This film is one of the great movies of the decade. (9/10)

The Hurricane (1999)

Well-made but standard biopic

[7/10 · 31 January 2000]

"The Hurricane" contains a truly great performance from Denzel Washington, and a genuinely touching relationship between the title character - wrongfully-imprisoned boxer Rubin Carter - and a young Brooklyn boy being raised by a commune in Toronto. Unfortunately, by the last hour, it develops into no more than a standard legal thriller, with Carter's supporters - all crusading white liberals, as the heroes always seem to be in Hollywood films about racism - trying to find the critical evidence which will prove his innocence. I was hoping for more. (7/10)

Go (1999)

More than a Pulp Fiction wannabe

[8/10 · 10 January 2000]

"Go" owes an obvious debt to "Pulp Fiction", with its unusual continuity and interconnecting storylines. The film cannot be dismissed as a mere rip-off, however, thanks to a terrific cast, a wildly funny script, and the manic, fast-paced direction of Doug Liman, who delivers a worthy follow-up to his magnificent "Swingers". The characters are all people we can like and relate to - an amazing feat, considering that they include drug dealers and takers, thieves, gamblers, and a few with decidedly unexpected sexual proclivities. It's not predictable for a second, and - unlike far too many films in 1999 - isn't padded. A future cult movie. (8/10)

Ed Wood (1994)

A great movie about the movies

[10/10 · 2 January 2000]

"Ed Wood" is probably the best movie ever made about the movie business and those desperate to break in. It is director Tim Burton's valentine to the cheesy B-movies he loved as a child, and also to those who love films so much that they are willing to do whatever they can to be a part of the film world, notwithstanding their complete lack of talent.

The performances are wonderful - especially Martin Landau's remarkable turn as Bela Lugosi - and Stefan Czapsky's black-and-white cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. What really makes "Ed Wood" work, however, is that Burton and his actors found exactly the right tone in their loving re-creations of Wood's awful movies. Unlike the star-studded cast of Burton's subsequent film, "Mars Attacks!", where it was painfully obvious that everyone was in on the joke, the "actors" in the likes of "Bride of the Monster" sincerely believed they were making great art, and that's what makes these old movies so much fun. Of all the "A" movies that have tried to duplicate this, only "Ed Wood" and 1993's "Matinee" get this right.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Devastating portrait of the angry loner

[9/10 · 2 January 2000]

"Taxi Driver" is an absolutely harrowing journey into the world of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a lonely, confused ex-Marine driven over the edge by the world around him. Bickle is a terrifying character, but also quite sympathetic; you feel sorry for a man so lonely and depressed that he would turn to what he does.

An underlying theme of the film is that, with the world (especially in this decaying, crime-ridden pre-Giuliani New York) going to hell all around us, we react to it in different ways. Some, like a man who spies on his cheating wife (a surprisingly effective cameo by director Martin Scorcese) harbor fantasies of lashing out but do not, as far as we can tell, act on them; Bickle cannot show such restraint.

The biggest shocker is the ending; while the climax is, as expected, violent, the aftermath is completely unexpected. Without giving too much away, all I will say is that it illustrates how America celebrates the violent loner at the same time as it fears him. "Taxi Driver" is a truly brilliant film, even better than Scorcese's "Goodfellas" and "Raging Bull" - one would be hard-pressed to come up with higher praise.

The Iron Giant (1999)

a masterpiece, plain and simple

[10/10 · 29 December 1999]

I'm 25 years old. I have no children. So why am I praising a 'kid's movie' which nobody saw? Because I have never seen a film pack the emotional wallop 'The Iron Giant' provided.

The film's plot is similar to 'E.T.' - a young boy meets an alien robot from outer space, who is stranded on earth, and runs afoul of paranoid government agents. Not to knock the Spielberg film, but what makes 'The Iron Giant' the better film is that the young boy is the teacher. It is he who has to teach the Giant about the beauty of life, the difference between good and evil, and choices we have to make. The Iron Giant, it turns out, is a weapon, who has to struggle against his own nature. The film has an obvious (and timely) gun control message, but its real message is about the choice we make when dealing with other people. We can use our powers for good or lash out at everyone around us.

I dare not give away the climax. All I will say is that it features a sacrifice absolutely breaktaking and emotionally shattering (albeit somewhat blunted by the ending). The animation is gorgeous, Michael Kamen's score is perfect, and the film beautifully evokes the 1950s.

Sadly, poor marketing kept audiences away in droves. All I can say is, to heck with the box office gross. Despite Warner's appearant desire to pretend the film never existed, the word is getting around about what a magical film this is, and I have no doubt it will join 'It's a Wonderful Life' as a film which bombed in theatres but became a classic over the years. See it now, so you can say you discovered it before everyone else did.

Man on the Moon (1999)

Fascinating, but not for everyone

[8/10 · 29 December 1999]

Man on the Moon is one of the stranger films I've seen in recent memory, which is fitting for the life of one of the strangest men ever to acheive fame, however fleeting. From the first scene, in which Jim Carrey (as Kaufman) tries to convince us the film is already over, the movie is a non-stop celebration of Kaufman's sense of humour, in which the joke was usually on the audience. The film is somewhat sketchy - Kaufman appears to go from nightclub comedian to 'Saturday Night Live' guest in no time flat - but Jim Carrey's remarkable performance perfectly re-enacts his most famous comic antics. I was not really familiar with Kaufman before seeing this film, but I will now try to hunt down his real performances on tape.

The audience I saw the film with didn't really know how to react. Andy Kaufman is not really that well known to Carrey's usual audience, and it wouldn't surprise me if many theatregoers didn't even know Andy Kaufman was a real person. Indeed the audience was as befuddled as the people who paid to see Kaufman do 'Latka' and ended up hearing him recite 'The Great Gatsby' in full. All of this may hurt the film at the box office - but I think Kaufman, in a way, would have approved. (8/10)