David Sticher Reviews

Vamp (1986)

After Hours with vampires. And the Donger!

[8/10 · 19 April 2004]

Vamp is a curious lost little lamb from the 1980's, all lit in bizarre green and purple tones and featuring all manner of Grace Jones wiggling around like a monster. It's a fun ride, cleverly done and not entirely unoriginal, with terrific acting talent and a loopy sense of humor pitched somewhere between After Hours and a sideways college comedy. Another aspect I appreciated was how each vampire had a personality, and they weren't always one hundred percent proud to be vampires. They're very aware that in a lot of ways they're perfectly lame. Fairly cool stuff, especially in the confrontation between a character who "turns" and the protagonist.

On the other hand, the last half lacks the zip and zap of the first and some characters seemed a little undernourished. The geek who owns the car seemed a little extraneous towards the end, and the albino gang, while sort of awesome, didn't really belong.

But either way. If you're interested in an offbeat 80's vampire movie or just seeing Grace Jones scare the s**t out of you with her face, by all means rent Vamp. You will become a much wiser person as a result and your parents will no longer hate you.

Panic Room (2002)

White knuckles.

[10/10 · 30 March 2002]

This is a fantastic cat-and-mouse thriller that delivers with the sort

of steely, intelligent gusto not seen since DePalma and Polanski's

great work of the 70's. This movie is chilling, smart, formidably

acted, directed with muscle, and above all else entertaining, a

corker and a half of a popcorn flick.

What's more, while "Panic Room" is primarily a ripping action yarn,

it also happens to possess a significant amount of weight as a

multifacted satire of class, security, family, and surveillance. This

element is delicate and subtle, just as the social commentary was

in Fincher's not altogether dissimilar "The Game," but it is sincere

and effective without ever overwhelming the fascinating plot or -

more importantly - the tension at large. Keep your eyes open -

Fincher isn't simply an empty stylist, but as he's proven in all of his

films to date, he's a keen observer and possessed of a sly, dark

wit that goes beyond his camera pyrotechnics.

But I'm reading too much into it already, or at least missing the

point of its real qualities - the fact that it more or less kicks ass.

Suffice it to say, "Panic Room" is a great ride, and highly

recommended to anyone looking for a genuinely tense and

exciting thriller.

Trois huit (2001)

Intelligent themes through a stupid plot

[9 October 2001]

In "Trois huit," wildly implausible set-ups lurch clumsily into individual scenes of significant power and thought, causing much head scratching and hand wringing during its running time, but after you think about it for a while it begins to add up. It's a film that you only really appreciate in retrospect. The plot is a frustration of pure contrivance, but it's worth sifting through for what's in between the lines, a seasoned exploration of the complicated psychological relationship between a bully and his victim.

It isn't often that strong direction and acting can redeem a truly problematic script, but such is the case here. I can't honestly recommend it to casual fans of psychological thrillers, but to people in search of something slightly different and quite a bit more thoughtful than usual American fare, it's a fine little time.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Liked it, didn't love it

[12 April 2001]

An American Werewolf in London is a good movie, but also a little disappointing. I'd heard so many great things about it being both terrifying and hysterical, but the final result is merely a solid monster movie with some good jokes. The actors are wonderful, script is very good, and the direction works, but there's never that final push into the true status of kicking ass.

There were some good jump shots, but the chase/attack scenes were a little bland, and the dream sequences never seemed to add up to much. There's also a curious lack of atmosphere - there's a way to make a matter-of-fact werewolf movie, but this project wasn't the place to experiment with the methods. Griffin Dunne also seemed underutilized, although I guess part of what makes him so funny is how infrequently he appears.

Then there's the ending, which should have been either a humorous anticlimax or an exciting finale, but instead is just sort of when the credits start rolling. I'll admit that it was logical, but the script should have made another, more interesting situation even more logical.

I dunno. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, I liked it. I'm normally not this bitchy. But, AWIL got so hyped up for me, and it just didn't turn out to be that great. I couldn't help but think of what an awesome movie this *could* have been, but wasn't.

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990 TV Movie)

Oh my sweet Lord.

[11 April 2001]

George C. Scott is one of my heroes. Let me get this out of the way.

I love Bugs and Daffy, as well as Muppet Babies, Garfield, Duck Tales, and ALF.

I respect George Bush, even if he wasn't my favorite president.

I don't actively dislike the Smurfs.

Let me get all of this all out of the way.

Now let me point out that this special is truly one of the most unintentionally hilarious slices of "Reefer Madness"-style anti-drug propaganda pieces ever put to film (or in this case, video). Nice touches include how marijuana turns you into one of the dancers from "Thriller" or how the nightmare sequence inexplicably features Huey, Dewey, and Louie as the primary tormentors of America's drug-addled youth. Also keep an eye out for the pointless voyage through the brain in which a puff on a blunt is interpreted visually as an outtake from Altered States.

It must have been a recurring joke in the animation studio about how the horrors of marijuana, even as depicted, could never compare to the exquisite terror of waking up to see three 4' ducks in beanies, sans pants, cursing your lifestyle choices.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Underrated Gem

[5 March 2001]

"The Ninth Gate" suffers from being exactly the sort of movie it should be. It's a supernatural thriller about a book detective who gradually learns the truth of the horrors he is investigating and unleashing. It is not about car chases, Bosch-inspired landscapes, or what evil lurks in Mia Farrow's uterus. There's no slam-bang ending, because none is needed - it's about the journey, not the destination.

What's left is an intriguing mystery, great performances, some classic set-pieces (eg when the wheelchair keeps bumping against the wall, the ritual that goes wrong), and *lots* of dark, dry wit (eg the constantly breaking glasses, the EWS parody). "The Ninth Gate" won't convert those who aren't already fans of Polanski, but it is a wonderfully paced and original thriller that received a preposterous amount of drubbing.

Highly recommended to anyone who doesn't mind a spiritual noir that has the emphasis on the noir and not the spirits.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Amazing.

[5 March 2001]

It's tough to say anything about this movie that hasn't already been said. We all know that it's an amazing film, full of great horror, humor, and hope, that Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are fantastic, and that the ending's one of the finest endings ever. There are just some notes I'd like to jot down.

• Have you ever noticed how easy it is to be ironic about difficult subjects? Have you ever noticed how being ironic about difficult subjects is frequently mistaken for edginess? Have you ever noticed how great and exceptional this movie is for *not* approaching its subject with irony?

• The plot to Shawshank isn't that amazing, but it's certainly nothing bad. Nobody enjoys Shawshank for the plot. The feeling one gets at the end and the characters are what makes this movie so powerful.

• I've heard some people grumble about how having the main villain being a Bible-thumper shines a bad light on people who frequently quote the Bible. I would argue that that's the case no more than Hannibal Lecter shines a bad light on intellectuals, and that if you quote the Bible in a fashion that reminds them of the Warden then you are doing something gravely wrong.

The Beach (I) (2000)

Terrible disappointment

[4 March 2001]

"The Beach" plays like a thousand and one vignettes from alternate, better versions of itself. Maybe Boyle meant something by the use of fragmented tone and plot, but the end result comes across as a messy and uninspired retread of Lord of the Flies and Apocalypse Now.

The technical credits are great and the performances are interesting, but neither the script nor the direction is able to convey any kind of significant tension, meaning, or tone. Individual sequences work (Robert Carlyle's bit, when the stoners are in the grass, Leo's shark monologue), but there's far too much silliness and incoherence in the air for anything to properly gel. I haven't read the book on which this is based, to be sure, but I can hardly imagine given the reviews I've read of it that it was anywhere near as overly sympathetic to Leo's character as this film is. And the ending - say what? Email my heart, indeed. I still think Boyle's got a lot of talent. Trainspotting rocked and A Life Less Ordinary was fun. This movie has my faith shaken, however. There are some stabs at good filmmaking here, but overall the direction seems confused and unwilling to give insight on its material. The incompetence seems preternaturally high for a big studio project with a talented director, writer, and cast - were there studio problems with this release? For Boyle's sake, I hope so. This is a true bomb.

Nurse Betty (2000)

Uplifting and ***DARK***

[1 March 2001]

I came into Nurse Betty not knowing what to expect at all, and I came out glad I didn't. This movie is just about unlike anything else I've ever seen, combining some horrifyingly dark comedy, painfully pathetic situations, a loveable heroine, and an ultimately uplifting message into one of the best-written and most original movies I've seen in a long time.

It's not for everyone, but I can't recommend it highly enough to people who aren't for everyone, either.

Raising Cain (1992)

Sisters meets Scream meets Lost Highway meets god knows what

[10/10 · 1 March 2001]

Raising Cain is an awesomely baffling set of pomo hijinks care of the man De Palma. I can't blame the hordes of people who hate this movie for its nastiness and incoherency, but those are the reasons I love it so much. It's a total parody/homage/celebration of the kind of razor-inspired fun De Palma spent much of his career perfecting, with the fun (and intentionally self-destructive) gimmick of presenting the movie more or less from Carter's point of view.

With this, the movie trades conventional thrills, chills, and spills for a sneakier sort of fun. Instead of putting together the sort of hallucinatory bloodbath De Palma specialized in, he takes it apart. It's like he took all of his box-office successes, threw them in a blender, and kneaded the mixture into an extended nightmare sequence of half-remembered horrors, unreliable visual intake, and malformed cliches.

If you try to take it as a straight thriller, it'll never work. It's a thriller plot turned into a horror flick, where instead of being the brave wife protecting people from her deranged husband, we're the deranged husband, not sure where we are or who we are, doing terrible things we don't quite understand, in a dreamworld constructed entirely of cliches and stock terrors.

Scream would take the parody aspect into firmer territory and Lost Highway would take the insane protagonist aspect into firmer territory as well, and both of those films worked very well, but Raising Cain gets the ultimate thumbs-up from me for being constructed much like my own nightmares and for genuinely surprising me from time to time, not to mention for creating a feeling of urgency and sympathy for Carter.

If you're into really oddball flicks, give Raising Cain a chance.

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

Limp but not terrible

[1 March 2001]

As an adaption of Tom Wolfe's novel, this film is much too broad and limp-wristed when it comes to slapping about the Sherman McCoys of the world. Brian De Palma has done satire before, and better, but this particular sort of satire isn't his strong suit - it's not an escapist work, nor are the characters supposed to be all that likeable. The casting is wrongheaded, the script is amateurish, and the ending - while a potentially interesting one - is handled weakly.

However, that's where the criticism ends. The rest of the movie attempts to make up for its losses, and end result comes off as being more than a little watchable. The minor roles are done very well, the cinematography is top-notch, and most significantly, the live-action cartoon aesthetic is weirdly engaging in a hypnotic sort of way. De Palma's own odd sense of humor is at odds with the written material - in a more perfect world, the producers would have ditched Cristofer's script and let De Palma just sit around and get down with his own wacky self - but that, too, makes it somewhat interesting.

It's not the sort of thing I'd heartily recommend to everyone, but it's hardly the abomination people would lead you believe. So far as supposed "turkeys" go, it's a pretty engaging 2 hours. In fact, in light of the novel's caustic nature, the movie's harmlessness has been its own worst enemy. If the book had never been written, I'm sure this movie would have gotten a better rep as simply a slight but spry black comedy; however, the novel has been written, and it made nine dollars at the box office, so failure it remains.

Rent it if it sounds interesting to you, or catch it on TV if it plays. It's really not that bad.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)

Awesome premise, writing, and acting; good direction

[10/10 · 20 November 2000]

This is a severely underrated film. Richard Grant's more-than-capable slimeball antics are put to a very worthy test in this bitter little polemic about consumerism. It's very British, and very 80's, but its message is still as universal as ever, and the execution is wickedly original, affecting, and cough-out-loud funny.

The only negative point about the movie is the occasionally lax direction towards the end, but that's just a quibble.

Overall, this is definitely very cool, and highly recommended to fans of Withnail and I, Network, and Fight Club who want something nice and bitter at the end of the day.

This would make an awesome play...

Hamlet (2000)

Oh my sweet Lord.

[12 November 2000]

This is easily the worst translation of Shakespeare's work to film that I have ever seen. In this pointlessly, ineffectively, and inconsistently updated re-imagination of Hamlet, determinedly, overly hip cardboard cutouts do battle within themselves and with one another, using the text of Hamlet as the basis for their acts in a literal sense, but without even a hint of the humanity and insight that the original work gave us or that a new one could attempt to give. I have no issue with resetting classic works, nor do I care if an adaptation is somewhat unfaithful to the text; what I do have an issue with is if a movie simply doesn't work. At least Romeo + Juliet had some kind of emotion behind it; this version is altogether too detached to care about its characters and too clueless to remember that the story just doesn't work if we don't care.

Good points: Bill Murray as Polonius, and Kyle Maclachlan's Claudius, apparently digitally superimposed from another, better movie.

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Awesome - not just for fans of The State!

[17 September 2000]

I saw a rough cut of "Hot Wet American Summer" at NYU and was subsequently bowled over. This movie is hilarious - maybe not four-star art a la Herzog or Tartovsky, but it's damn funny. Fans of The State will not be disappointed at all, seeing as how the entire movie resembles more or less one giant State skit.

The chase scene on the motorcycle is worth the price of admission alone, although I also award bonus points for Jake Fogelnest's innovative and deeply touching cameo towards the end...