1991 - ENCHANTED APRIL, is really boring

On the never ending search to find films I can share with my wife I found this tiresome bore of a film.  The film's own advertising proclaimed "that if you love A Room With A View you will love Enchanted April."  Well I've seen A Room With A View and I can assure you this film is no A Room With A View.

The story such that it is concerns four women who rent a villa in Italy for a month.  They're all repressed in their lives or under the thumbs of their husbands.  A vacation in Italy for a month is just the thing to turn their lives around.  A month in the Italian countryside is going to solve all their problems never mind the other eleven months of the year.

The story has the usual bunch of British characters that show up in these period pieces.  Everyone acts and talks like they are the most emotionally and unhappily repressed people on the planet.  There's lots of introspection and soul searching as they wander around the villa and they wander around the villa a lot.

The film was photographed in Portofino, Italy so the viewer gets many shots of sunlight glistening off of the lake, spiderwebs artfully photographed and lots and lots of photography of one woman sitting in a garden sunning herself.  Not actually an action packed film. 

Clearly the film was trying to pull off a romantic mood but for a film like this to succeed you really have to know your stuff to put this mood stuff over.  You just can't make a film with four women walking around a villa for an hour and a half and not have something happening.  You need interesting characters, interesting situations and interesting dialog which you won't find in this film.  Enchanted April could barely past the mustard as some dull PBS Masterpiece Theater presentation.

The film was written by Peter Barnes, the running time is an interminable 95 minutes.   

1991 - SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO, so be it.

 Junk is junk and it doesn't get much more junky than this film.  The director Mark L Lester had made the amusing B-movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger knocking heads, shooting people and cracking one liners like a Las Vegas comedian as he tried to save his daughter.  If it were possible to make a movie that was even dopier than Commando, it would probably turn out to be something like this thing.  Showdown in Little Tokyo has the poor man's Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren as the action star.

Dolph's your typical big city detective who doesn't follow the rules and doesn't want a partner.  Of course all the tropes are going to be carefully observed.  His boss sticks him with Brandon Lee, (son of Bruce) as a cop and Asian American who doesn't like Asian culture.  For some reason Swedish born Dolph does embrace the oriental world.  He has a collection of samurai swords and lives in a Dojo.  What they have in common is that they are both a couple of kick-ass martial arts guys who don't mind beating the stuffing out of any bad Asian gangster who gets in their way.

Let's go to the recap.  Dolph and Brandon are on the trail of a really bad Asian guy.  You know he is bad because when they capture one of his henchmen the guy breaks his own neck rather than inform on his boss. The big bad guy called Yoshida is so bad he kills the owner of a nightclub which he takes over and turns it into a perverted restaurant which probably doesn't even have takeout.  Naked women lay on tables while their bodies are used as nude placements. This is where his gang eats sushi off of the naked women placemats   Into this evilness comes Dolph and Brandon who rescue the lead singer played by Tia Carrera, 24 years old when she made this film.  She becomes Dolph's love interest and there's lots of nudity between the two of them, although close inspection reveals they are using a body double for Tia.  

 

It all comes down to a big duel with samurai swords between Dolph and the evil Yoshida, but there's really no question how this will all turn out.  I guess the best you can say about this film is that the action pieces are fairly well staged although I've seen them done better in other films.  Dolph has his shirt off a lot and he has sure been hitting the weight room at the YMCA.  Sadly Brandon Lee died young which was unfortunate.  He projects a winning personality and probably would have went far in the B-movie action genre.

 

The film was written by Stephen Glantz and Caliope Brattlestreet.  The running time is 79 minutes, apparently the studio took the film away from Mark L. Lester and significantly reedited it.

1991 - MCBAIN, underachieving action film

The writer/director James Glickenhaus who made the entertaining urban thriller Shakedown sure didn't try very hard with this film, in fact you could say he didn't seem to try at all.  McBain is a real "by the numbers" action film.  

Christopher Walken is McBain out to avenge an old Vietnam War buddy who has been killed by an evil South American dictator.  After being alerted to the death of his friend by that friend's hot Hispanic sister played by María Conchita Alonso.  Walken rounds up his old Vietnam war platoon buddies and heads to South America where they shoot and blow up a lot of stuff.

The film leaves no cliche untouched and the story is so rote it gives the word rote a bad name.  Even the action scenes are incredibly lackluster.  Lots and lots of stuff blows up but it's presented in such a nonchalant way that even blowing people and machines up seems like an afterthought.

 

Walken is an actor from the less is more school of acting.  He so underplays his part it seems like he is almost in a different movie or hoping he was in a different movie. Maria Conchita Alonso in her prime was a great beauty but her acting to put in charitably leaves a lot to be desired.

 

McBain is an odd action film, Glickenhaus should have been able at the very least  provide some entertainment with the usual shooting and killing stuff but the film gives off the vibe of a director who has a complete lack of interest in the film or even the film making process.

The running time is 107 minutes.

1991 - THE ROCKETEER, another attempt to start a franchise

Well the plan apparently was to set up The Rocketeer as a three picture franchise.  Unfortunately the film wasn't the financial success that the Walt Disney Company had hoped it would be.  Still, the film is entertaining especially when approached as a summer popcorn movie.

For a film about a guy who straps a rocket on his back without burning his butt.  It has fairly decent special effects before computers completely took over the special effects industry in Hollywood.  The director Joe Johnson had been associated with the Star Wars series and he probably knew his way around big budget effects driven films. 

The film is set in the 1940's and has fairly decent period detail to it.  The main leads Bill Campbell, the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly (21 years old at the time of filming), Alan Arkin and one time James Bond Timothy Dalton (hamming it up as a thinly disguised version of Erroll Flynn) do I good job of putting over this stuff.

 

I think the major problem with this film was a meandering script with brought in a lot of extra characters and subplots that weren't needed.  Also all of the 1940's references probably didn't mean much to contemporary audiences.

 

Anyway, the film is entertaining for the most part.  The film was written by Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo and William Dear.  The running time is 108 minutes.

1991 - POINT BREAK, incredible action scenes in an incredbibly stupid film.

Kathryn Bigelow directs excellent action sequences in a film which plot wise and character wise is almost to stupid to be believed.  Keanu Reeves is rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah who along with his partner Angelo Pappas is on the trail on a gang of surfing bank robbers led by the charismatic Bodhi played by Patrick Swayze.  It seems the surfers rob banks to finance their life style while blathering on with some philosophical garbage about being free spirits as opposed to the rest of us suckers.

Johnny Utah goes undercover and gets involved with this gang of surfing bank robbers and there is a lot and I mean a lot of gay subtext between him and Bodhi to put it mildly. About the only character who seems in on the joke of what a stupid  film this is  Gary Busey as Reno's partner.  Busey gives a rather bemused performance throughout this film which is definitely a highlight.

Still, say what you want about this film, the action sequences are extremely well done and really make up for the goofyness of the rest of the film.  If I'm complaining to much about Point Break, it's only because Kathryn Bigelow is clearly a very talented filmmaker which she proved later in her career.

 

W. Peter Iliff wrote the screenplay, the running time is 122 minutes.

1991 - HUDSON HAWK, Bruce Willis vanity project is actually funny.

A project close to the heart of the star Bruce Willis.  He gets a story credit along with playing the title character.  Willis is Hudson Hawk a famous cat burglar who is forced to steal some crystals that were created by Leonardo da Vinci.  The crystals will turn lead into gold.  Into this mix is probably the scariest movie couple in this history of film, Darwin and Minerva Mayflower played by two very scary actors Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard.  Throw in James Coburn as a rogue CIA agent and Andie MacDowell as an undercover nun working for the Vatican.  Starting to get the picture?

Critics and the public hated the film when it came out but there is some very funny stuff here.  Just the eccentric cast alone is worth a look.  If you're looking for something different this may be it.

The film runs 100 minutes and was written by Steven De Souza and Daniel Waters.  The film was such a disaster at the time that it did serious harm to the careers of Daniel Waters and director Michael Lehmann.

1991 - A MURDER OF QUALITY, the return of George Smiley

John Le Carre's master spy George Smiley is called in when there is a murder at a boys school in some rural location in England.  As usual with Le Carre, the film is about social and class differences in English society among other things..  The film also features another interpretation this time by Denholm Elliott of Smiley a very self deprecating character who is smart as a whip.

A Murder of Quality also features the rarely seen actress Glenda Jackson as Smiley's associate.  Jackson who quit acting in 1992 and went into politics. 

A Murder of Quality is a well made film with interesting characters that is very enjoyable as that type of civilized entertainment the British could knock out in the good old days.

103  minutes.

1991 - HE SAID, SHE SAID - is another romantic comedy.

Writing a negative review of this film is mostly a "what's the point" post.  He Said, She Said is what it is.

The film has an elaborate flashback structure about a couple who get together, break up and finally get together again.  Probably the only interesting thing about this film is that it was directed by a man and a woman although you would never be able to tell if it wasn't pointed out.

The film follows the usual formula, she's a career woman who is kind of a cute ditz who in real life no guy would want to hang out with.  Naturally she wants to get married.  He's a good looking playboy who can have all the hot women he wants.  A one point he passes on a young and kind of hot looking Sharon Stone.  The guy has commitment issues of course when it comes to long term relationships.

Will they work out their relationship and get together in the end?  I wonder how it will all turn out?

115 minutes.

1991 - BARTON FINK, what is the point?

As Barton Fink comes to it's cryptic conclusion, I am left wondering, "what is the point" of this film.

Everything about this film is first class, the direction, the sets the acting, the Coens make make very good films.  However I still wonder what this all adds up to?  The film is clearly some sort of satire or ridicule of a certain type of left leaning 1930's playwright like Maxwell Anderson or Clifford Odets.  These guys were intellectuals writing about the "common man."  Plays like Winterset or Golden  Boy look kind of corny and pretentious with their concern for the "little people."  But these plays are a product of a time and the Coens ridicule of these authors seems a little mean spirited. 

The shots at old fashioned Hollywood studio executives also seem like pretty easy targets as well.  Does anyone doubt that a Harry Cohn or a Louis B Mayer hard nosed studio executives were kind of monsters when it came to producing films?  Is this really a big insight?

Still, Barton Fink is a well made film, if a pointless one.

116 minutes.

1999 - THE SIXTH SENSE, supernatural thriller is extremely well done.

First time viewer for The Sixth Sense.  Even though I knew about the famous twist ending the film played pretty well. 

The acting is at a high caliber.  Bruce Willis underplays fairly effectively.  The creepy kid Haley Joel Osment is good as is the actor playing his mother, Toni Collette. 

The Sixth Sense has been documented and discussed in greater detail elsewhere as the film that made M. Night Shyamalan's reputation.  It's also the film that sent him spiraling down the black hole of having to stick some sort of trick ending in his films a losing proposition for him.

The Sixth Sense is a goosed up Twilight Zone episode, but it is well done.

107 minutes.

1991 - LIFE STINKS, Mel Brooks goes for pathos and sentimentality

Mr. Unsubtle plays a billionaire who makes a bet that he can can survive in the slums of Los Angeles for a month without money.  This is the plot of Sullivan's Travels with a lot of Charlie Chaplin like stuff mixed in.

Life Stinks is one of the better later period Brook's films and that's not saying much.  Brooks as usual isn't capable of any kind of subtlety in his acting or his direction.  Every scene is constantly hammered into the viewer with the great auteur the constant focus of attention.  Preston Sturges could mix slapstick, sentimentality and drama into his films but even Sturges had a hell of a time walking that tightrope in some of his films.  Brooks is no Sturges.

The rest of the cast does what they can to keep the film on track.  Jeffrey Tambor doesn't get the good lines, but he knows how to deliver a funny and clever performance.  One time Disney ingenue Lesly Ann Warren star of such classics as The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band and The Happiest Millionaire is the sexy bag lady he takes up with.  One of Mel's old buddies Howard Morris who apparently trained at the same school of overbearing comedians that Brooks came out of is a street person who Brooks befriends.

It would be easy to write something like "Life Stinks and so does this film."  But the film doesn't really stink, it's just another mediocre comedy in a long list of mediocre comedies

92 minutes

1991- THE COMMITMENTS, the rise and fall of an Irish soul band.

Just a whole lot of covers of soul music and lots of indecipherable Irish babble in this comedy/drama which is essentially plot less.

The film is considered one of the top Irish films of all time, apparently no one had seen The Quiet Man in a while.  The film is well made and the band created for the film perform the various soul songs very well but this is ultimately kind of a pointless film.  What we have here is an old MGM musical where Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland get the gang together to put on a show.  The Commitments just dresses up the same premise with lots of swearing and a silly ending.  A cliche is still a cliche.

The Commitments was directed by Alan Parker who was the go to guy for film musicals that were considered kind of edgy, stuff like Evita, Bugsy Malone, Fame and Pink Floyd The Wall.  These films were all kind of interesting but but somewhat unmemorable.

 

 

 Unsurprisingly, the film was responsible for 2 soundtrack albums.  There is just lots and lots and lots of music to pad out the sparce  story.  Watching the film is a little bit of a weary experience after a while.

118 minutes, screenplay Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais and Roddy Doyle.

1991 - STAR TREK 6: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, as they say nostalgia ain't what it used to be

The final film with the original Star Trek cast is a letdown.  After five films Paramount probably saw the handwriting on the wall with diminished box office returns and a cast that was probably asking for more money with each successful film.  The studio decided to pull the plug on the series with this shoddy production.

The director of the best film in the original series (The Wrath of Kahn)  Nicholas Meyer was brought in to wrap things up.  Meyer was also co writer of the screenplay and conceived an outer space murder mystery for a plot, with Kirk and McCoy being put on trial for the death of a Klingon ambassador while Spock tries to figure who framed them.

The mystery element was new in the series which had increasingly loaded up the films with comedy.  Meyer had written a few Sherlock Holmes stories so he probably seemed like the right person to incorporate the mystery and science fiction plots.  But the mystery was really uninteresting with everyone pretty much walking around waiting for the next clue to show up.  

Unfortunately by this point the oldster cast had kind of descended into a quasi hammy acting style.  If the audiences wanted to see William Shatner in full overblown expressive mode that's what he gave them.  DeForrest Kelly was equally hammy as the put upon ship's doctor and the rest of the original crew followed suit with similar broad performances.  The acting at one point was so ridiculous that Christopher Plummer showed up as a Shakespeare quoting Klingon captain attempting to match Shatner with an equally over the top performance.  The constant quoting of Shakespeare that was meant to give the story some dramatic importance got pretty stupid.

All of this might have made for an enjoyable final film but Nicholas Meyer directed the film with almost no visual style or pace.  Almost every scene is shot in medium closeups with all the interest of an episode of Dragnet. The film looks very clautrophobic for a story with spaceships flying through space.

The constant jokes about retirement and being "put out to pasture" get tiresome, and even Shatner's overblown acting style can't prop this thing up.  The reassurance of seeing the familiar characters that dates back to their first appearances in the the 1960's show is about the only thing interesting in The Undiscovered County.

A disappointing way to end the first Star Trek film series.

113 minutes.

1991 - Werner Herzog's LESSONS OF DARKNESS

Herzog's film of the Gulf War oil fires filmed in 1991, appears to be aiming for something bigger than the standard documentary put out a fire thing. I would venture to guess it is some sort of hallucinatory vision of the end of the world set in a literally burning desert hell. The film is particularly effective when the oil fires are being photographed from a helicopter that slowly flies near them and in some cases even through them.

The background music consisted of Wagner, Mahler and Grieg. The music adds a deliberate grandeur to the fire imagery of the film reinforcing the "fires in Hell" theme. Herzog's only interview is with a woman who has seen her children die during the war and has lost the power to speak. I would assume that people living in hell don't get much of a chance to speak for themselves.

The film is about an hour long and is available on YouTube.