2002 - BLADE 2, sequel to Blade (what else would it be).

Wesley Snipes is back as Eric Brooks aka Blade a sort of half man, half vampire.  This being a sequel to the 1998 film.  In the first film he joined forces with Rhodes Scholar, and Country Music Hall of Famer Kris Kristofferson to kill a bunch of modern day vampires.  In Blade II Snipes and Kristofferson are back this time teamed with a vampire SWAT squad to kill some sort of super vampire.

There's lots of action and unsurprisingly mucho blood spewing everywhere, after all this is a film about vampires. Frankly the story is kind of dumb but what the film has going for it is the director Guillermo Del Toro who gravitates to all this horror movie stuff since he grew up with it.  It doesn't hurt that Wesley Snipes has in real life a 5th degree black belt in karate, he looks like he actually knows how to karate chop super vampires.

 

I guess if you are looking for a film with a lots of action and blood along with those creepy touches that Guillermo Del Toro brings to his films you've found the right film.  Del Toro is a master of this stuff and really keeps the film zipping along from one well done action piece to another.

 

Blade actually started out as part of a comic book series from Marvel and Marvel has  been trying to figure out an approach to remaking the film.  With all the violence in this film the remake has been in "developmental hell" for some time.  Marvel superhero films are extremely family friendly and you can be sure that Mom and Dad aren't about to take little Bobby and Suzie to a film that features super vampires chewing the necks off of their victims.

The film was written by David S. Goyer, the running time is 117 minutes.

2002 - THE FOUR FEATHERS, another remake

This is a remake and an update of the 1939 film about honor, courage and duty in the British Army circa the late 1800's. 

Briefly, a British officer Harry Faversham along with his troop is ordered to the Sudan to put down a revolution by the Mahdi a religious zealot who is leading his "fanatical" followers against the occupying British forces.  Faversham decides he wants no part in this war and resigns his commission.   This prompts three of his army buddies and his fiance to send him four white feathers which in essence say he is a coward.  The rest of the story is about Faversham's attempts to redeem himself.

This is a well made film.  The photography and the settings are impressive.  The big battle scene is well staged.  The acting  when this film was released is that old stiff upper lip stuff the British like to convey in their war movies.  I think the problem with the film is that it is just a completely unnecessary remake.

 

The film definitely lacks a strong point of view.  Does it celebrate the tradition of British Empire building or is it a criticism?  Hard to tell since this point of view is all over the place.  When the original film was released in 1939 there was no question that it advocated the empire building fantasy the British embraced for a long time.  It least that film knew what it wanted to say.  This version just flip flops all over the Sudan as the viewer has to figure out it the British are the good guys or the bad guys.  In the end The Four Feathers is just a nothing film with nice desert photography.

The film was written by Michael Schiffer and Hossein Amini, the running time is 130 minutes.

2002 - SUNSHINE STATE, pretty good multi character drama from John Sayles

Another interesting multi character, multi story film from writer/director/editor John Sayles and his producing partner Maggie Renzi.  I don't think this is one of his best films but it's very good.

In a small town in Florida, developers are attempting to purchase and develop the beach front for a resort complex.  Some of the locals are tryiing to stop the developers others welcome the money they will bring into the town.  This very brief summary doesn't really describe how Sayles takes a lot of characters and subplots and weaves them all together.

The film is focused on two characters, Angela Basset as a woman attempting to resolve some issues with her judgemental mother or a mother she sees as judgemental and Edie Falco as a woman who as lived all her life in this town is frankly fed up with her life, both these actors are excellent.  Add to this lots of characters and subplots around a town celebration and a romantic relationship that starts to develop between Falco and Timothy Hutton as one of the land developers.

 

A lot of reviewers have pointed out that Sunshine State bears a strong resembelence to some of Robert Altman's multi character films and I suppose that's true.  But unlike Altman, Sayles actually likes or at the very least is sympathetic with all of his characters.

 

My minor criticisms of the film are that it is somewhat of a challenge to sit through the first rather slow moving 20 minutes of the film and the rather abrupt ending.  However this is still a very good film with an impressive cast of actors.

Running time is 141 minutes.

2002 - THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, another butt buster in the series

The second film in the extended version trilogy.  This film contains god help me 45 minutes of new scenes, i.e. stuff that wasn't deemed worthy of release in the theatrical version and 11 extra minutes of ending credits.

The Two Towers picks up the pace with Peter Jackson cutting between three different stories in this film.  This film also prominently features the CGI character Gollum.  One has to give credit where credit is due this is a very impressive achievement from a technical and artistic standpoint

Liv Tyler looks good but really has nothing to do in this film.

As I popped in disc two of this version and faced down another two hours of running time I couldn't help thinking that perhaps some trimming of Aragon's hanging around the country of Rohan and maybe less of the talking trees would have maybe moved things along a little bit faster.

Everything in this film builds up to the big battle at Helm's Deep and it is spectacular to watch. Whatever reservations I have about the length and confusing plot are placed on the back burner for this display of CGI and practical effects mayhem.

223 minutes, written by Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Stephen Sinclair.

2002 - CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, slick Hollywood

The problem with being Steven Spielberg is that he is always supposed to direct major masterpieces.  Catch Me If You Can, is not a masterpiece and will never be a masterpiece.  It is a very slick piece of Hollywood entertainment.

The film has big stars in the leading roles, Hanks and DiCaprio, it also has actors like Christopher Walken, Jennifer Garner, Martin Sheen, Nathalie Baye and sexless Amy Adams. The cinematography is Spielberg's go to guy these days Janusz Kaminski who shoots everything in a warm nostalgic glow maybe a little too nostalgic.  The art direction and production design is impressive, the film has a real authentic 1960's look to it.  John Williams composed a nice minimalist score for a change instead of the usual bombastic soundtrack that Spielberg seems to like in his films.

Catch Me If You Can is easy to watch, it has the smooth professional style of a filmmaker who really knows how to assemble a film.  Spielberg piles on his usual mush about the boy whose father didn't love him, a road he's gone down many times before in better films.  When  Catch Me If You Can is  over it doesn't seemed to have added up to much of anything very interesting or important.  

As usual with one of these "based on a true story" films the story is barely true.  For a smaller Spielberg film it's longer than it has any right to be.

141 minutes, screenplay by Jeff Nathanson.

2002 - WE WERE SOLDIERS, less then epic Vietnam war movie

Mel Gibson and the writer/director Randall Wallace, attempt to tell a true life Vietnam War story.  Mel's the Colonel with his men trapped behind enemy lines who apparently is a devote Catholic.  One minute he's praying on the battlefield the next minute he's mowing down the godless North Vietnamese, what a guy.

This film wants to be a cross between Blackhawk Down and Saving Private Ryan, but the storytelling skill just isn't here.  The film just plods along with lots of bloody violence and killing as it attempts to make some sort of statement about the futility and glory of war, that "comrades in arms" stuff. There is a solemn narration by a reporter on the battlefield who will turn around and write a a book about Colonel Mel and his boys.  This is just another cliche, which can be traced back to the old World War II film, The Story Of GI Joe. 

For all the issues with Gettysburg and The Longest Day, at least those films manage to give the viewer a sense of the epic scope of the war and the battles they were dramatizing.  

138 bloody minutes.

2001, 2002 - THE HIRE, glorified, car commercials.

The marketing department at BMW got the brilliant idea to hire 8 top directors and have them shoot short films with the actor Clive Owen racing around in different model BMWs.

AMBUSH, by John Frankenheimer, a good car chase film.  Frankenheimer had directed Grand Prix and Ronin so he knew how to film exciting chases.

CHOSEN, by Ang Lee.  Also a fairly decent car chase film.  Probably the only interesting thing in it, Lee's little inside joke about The Hulk his big budget flop was the next film he directed.

THE FOLLOW, directed by the artsy fartsy Wong Kar-Wai, aims to be a mood piece but is just boring.

STAR, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring his then wife Madonna.  Madonna looks pretty bad and the film is about the driver embarrassing and humiliating her.  Almost prescient considering how Madonna and Ritchie's marriage ended.

POWDER KEG, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu wallows in it's stylization and pretentiousness, no fun.

HOSTAGE, directed by John Woo, only goes to prove that Woo should stick to filming scenes with Chow Yun-fat shooting thousands of bullets into guys instead of staging car chases.

TICKER, directed by Joe Carnahan, probably the best short film of the 2nd season, to bad Carnahan couldn't have brought this kind of interest to The A Team.

BEAT THE DEVIL, directed by Tony Scott.  The most annoying of all these short films, an attempt at a supernatural/ comedy/ action short film.  Filmed as usual by Scott like he had irritable bowel syndrome.

 Ambush and Ticker are probably the only two worth checking out.  This series is kicking around on YouTube.

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2002 - ROAD TO PERDITION, graphic novel and film

The Road To Perdition exists in 2 forms, a graphic novel and a film directed by Sam Mendes for Steven Spielberg's production company.

The graphic novel is a grim 300 page story about a hit man working for a Midwestern crime boss who along with his son is seeking revenge for his wife's death after the crime boss's son kills her.  The graphic novel is told from the point of view of the 12 year old as the hit man goes on a robbery and killing spree to get back at the crime boss.

The comic book panels are drawn very dramatically and the story has a lot of killing in it but since the pictures are in black and white the reader is sparred looking at some lurid violent images.  There is very little dialog in the graphic novel.  It's a quick read.  Some attempt is made at characterization, but for the most part it's just a series of pictures of people getting shot in the head.  

I'm not sure what Spielberg exactly saw in this story?  Perhaps the attempt to tell a story about a father and son and cast it as an American tragedy was the appeal.

The film is certainly a very good looking production.  The director Sam Mendes was still pretty hot having won and academy award for American Beauty.  The cinematographer Conrad Hall was one of the best technicians in Hollywood, he had achieved legendary status working during the 1960's and 1970's.  Tom Hanks and Paul Newman were the big stars.  The film had major award winner slobbered all over it.

Unfortunately the basic hollowness of the story defeats the film.  The graphic novel had to be changed and expanded especially in the second half of the film. You can't have two big stars like Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in a film and not have them appear together occasionally.  New scenes were written for them to do their acting stuff which really brought nothing to the story.  Another addition in the film is to create a creepy killer, who likes to take pictures of his victims after he kills them, ho hum.

Even with all the technical and artistic ability on hand, The Road To Perdition is an empty uninvolving film.  Another disappointment from Sam "the Man" Mendes.

1993- IN THE LINE OF FIRE & 2002 - PHONEBOOTH two bland thrillers

Digging deep into the collection watched 2 thrillers this past weekend. In The Line Of Fire features Clint Eastwood as a secret service agent attempting to stop the assassination of the President of the United States, by the crazed, brilliant, ruthless, John Malkovich. Malkovich is a master of disguise even though all of his disguises still make him look like John Malkovich.

 

 His reasons for killing the President seem a little unclear with the exception of his sticking it to Eastwood who he has decided to mess with. Malkovich also has an unlimited supply of money which allows him to fly around the country, build improbable electronic devices that stop the Secret Service from locating him, and allow him to construct wacky weapons that can't be detected by metal detectors and scanners.

Clint also has a love interest played by Rene Russo. Russo was an older actress who usually got hired to play love scenes with aging male stars. As male actors moved into the later part of their careers, love scenes they played with younger actresses usually made the age difference look like the actresses were just out of after school day care programs. A producer would hire Rene Russo, who generally looked pretty good for a woman in her mid 40's, to make the love scenes look a little less creepy. Their relationship in the movie is probably the most interesting thing about this story, unfortunately that's only about 10 minutes of the film's running time, after which we get back to the business of Clint being Clint, and nailing the psycho assassin.

 

This isn't a bad film, it's just a bland one. Clint takes on the psycho, you get lots of action scenes, Clint wins in the end, movie over. 

Running time, 126.  Written by  Jeff Maguire

Which brings me to Phone Booth. Directed by Joel Schumacher, Batman and Robin, Batman Forever, a glitzy mainstream director and written by "B" movie veteran Larry Cohen of It's Alive, It Lives Again. This was a very improbable film about a man stuck in a telephone booth. If he leaves the phone booth he will be shot by a sniper hiding in a building nearby. The sniper torments the man over the phone while the police surround the phone booth and try to figure out what the hell is going on. This thriller is a very tall tale filmed with lots of Hollywood gloss, it's sharply edited and uses split screen techniques to keep the audience from being bored to tears because watching a guy talking on a telephone for about 81 minutes is nobody's idea of a good time.

 

Unfortunately the Hollywood gloss is what fails the film. This is the kind of junk that probably should have been directed by Larry Cohen himself. Cohen was a master of cranking out this kind of thing on a low budget, and this film needed a no frills low budget approach. A big disappointment for a film that should have been foolish fun.

2002 - JOHN FORD GOES TO WAR, interesting war documentary about an interesting guy

Cinema scholars, movie buffs and film geeks take note, this is a short documentary covering John Ford's years in the OSS. This is an interesting little film, but this is not for the "typical" movie viewer.

This film will only appeal to people who are interested in the career of John Ford. This film covers the most important part of his life, his involvement in photographing World War II. Ford saw a lot of action during the war. He photographed Midway, The Doolittle Raid, North Africa, and D-Day.

He also prepared and photographed the Nazi atrocities against the Jews in the various concentration camps throughout Europe. Oliver Stone is in it whining about Ford making propaganda films for the government, which is pretty rich coming from a message filmmaker like him.

 

  56 minutes, written by Tom Marksbury.