MOVIE REVIEWS BY JAMES M. TATE

THE BODYGUARD

2012-02-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

title: THE BODYGUARD
year: 1992
cast: Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston
rating: **1/2

In a role that Steve McQueen (with then wife Ali McGraw) was planning to star, Kevin Costner, down to the skin-diver haircut and brooding scowl, channels the icon to the best of his abilities, playing the best bodyguard the world has to offer: hired to protect a primadonna pop diva played by Whitney Houston. The real life singer does a good job acting, though it’s mostly reactions to Costner’s cold indifference, which he pulls of nicely through the first half as their personalities clash: she’s unaware of the danger lurking while he constantly leaps at shadows. But during a pivotal scene at one of her appearances, his paranoia is substantiated and, realizes his job is essential, and her life’s in jeopardy, she melts – a bit too quickly – to his frosty anticharm. The suspense takes hiatus after the leads have a successful first date, resulting in a moonlight sexcapade that puts his job (and the character's maverick persona) at risk. Here’s where the film too hits a wall, sustaining through an overlong segment in a snowy hideaway, an attempt to escape from the killer – who’s close enough to keep a residual of suspenseful mystery building throughout. All leading to an Oscar ceremony where one must sustain disbelief – especially with Robert Wuhl being the host – as the identity of the real killer winds up more predictable than the person who hired him. But for the late Whitney Houston (who died last week), this is a steamy thriller worth watching: she looks beautiful, she sings beautifully, and has good chemistry with her leading man, but mostly when they don’t get along. [And see tons of Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard photos here.]

THE VOW

2012-02-13T22:33:00.000-08:00

title: THE VOW
year: 2012
cast: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum
rating: **

The worst thing is having to sit through the actual vow, a sappy diatribe of overwhelming Hallmark drivel during a quickie wedding ceremony, three entire times: once before Rachel McAdams, playing the perfect girl, loses her memory from a car accident; once after; and the last time right as she’s discovering that perhaps… well that’s cutting to the chase in a story that doesn’t have much of a chase at all – even though the perfect guy, Channing Tatum, having lost his wife to amnesia – the hackneyed device used in every soap opera invented – has to woe her back into his current, and her former, life. McAdams only remembers the stuff before the relationship, shown during a ten minute “flashback” of boy meeting girl and never lacking a single moment of perpetual bliss i.e. the Greatest Hits of unrealistic romance. Jessica Lange and Sam Neill, as the rich parents who don’t understand Tatum’s “lowly” lifestyle as a dreaming recording studio owner, nor their daughters choice to sculpt over law school, add as little to the storyline – which nearly tenses up once she rekindles the spark with her snarky ex fiancé. But this, like everything else, thanks to a dull script and wooden performances (especially Tatum, whose expression never changes), amounts to very little in a flick that even chicks might forget once the end credits roll.

THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL

2012-02-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

title: STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL

year: 1978

cast: Art Carney, Peter Mayhew, Mark Hamill

normal rating: *1/2
camp value: ***

Before the horrid prequels, it seemed impossible for George Lucas to back a travesty. Yet despite the sought-after camp legacy, this TV special, aired only one time in 1978, is downright boring. Overlong "comedy" and/or musical skits featuring Harvey Korman as a robot, Bea Arthur as the Cantina bartender, Art Carney as a chummy mechanic, and Chewbacca's family: consisting of wife, son, and dad...the latter having a virtual reality "experience" with hologram Diahann Caroll... make for the longest ninety minutes ever filmed. Not forgetting a wimpy Jefferson Starship video and Carrie Fisher crooning to red-robbed Wookies about "Life Day": a Christmas type celebration the Empire wants to stop. Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and the faithful droids also make embarrassing cameos. But throughout the immense torture, a ten minute cartoon introducing Boba Fett is actually pretty cool.

MONKEY SHINES

2012-02-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

title: MONKEY SHINES
year: 1988
cast: Jason Beghe
rating: ***

George A. Romero trades in sinewy for suspense; zombies for a really smart monkey who, after being excessively injected by a powerful drug, and used as an aide for a quadriplegic man, takes to the streets and kills whoever his master, in his subconscious, wants dead. Jason Beghe’s extremely fake-looking beard (grown after the accident) aside, the muscular actor plays the part of a bed-ridden victim decently enough, but it’s Boo, as the spunky monkey Ella, that steals the show. Scenes involving the monkey-eye-view of the frantic romps through the suburbs to finish anyone that made Beghe’s life uncomfortable – this including a cheating girlfriend, a seedy doctor, a vicious parakeet and a henpecking mother – provide fun and involving fare, as does the initial setup as the monkey takes to the contained setting… the house where the bed-ridden patient resides… to learn how to become an assistant. But our hero realizes too quickly that the Monkey’s up to no good, and there could have been a lot more grizzly deaths before the tables turn. John Pankow's subplot, as the friendly but ultimately devious young professor continuously inoculating Ella, is an essential device: but his selfish triads deviates from the mainline story, too quickly veering into the “We must stop the antagonist at all costs” territory, making the final third a drawn-out, tiresome battle between man and beast. Yet despite the flaws, Romero provides a creepy setting that works throughout.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

2012-02-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

title: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
year: 2005
cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris
rating: *1/2

Prepare to get serious, very, very serious. Viggo Mortensen plays an average guy with an average family... Well they’re fantastic looking but nothing's extraordinary about their personal lives: residing in a small town dream house and running a local cafe, life’s as easy as it’s simple. Until two vicious thugs rob the place and Viggo displays too much tactical know-how in taking them out single handed, becoming a media hero and bringing attention to… well there’s the plot of this searing, melodramatic tale of a man who might not be what he appears. Maria Bello, as his beautiful wife, remains in a blissful, dazed denial about her husband’s true identity, until bigger fish Ed Harris and his formidable goons move in to take Viggo out since he was once, in their opinion, a successful hit man. After all, how could an average Joe be that good with a gun? While EASTERN PROMISES director David Cronenberg sets a nice platform of slowburn suspense, reminiscent of exterior, woodsy Film Noirs like HIGH SIERRA, the good stuff i.e. our hero becoming an antihero takes too long to get happen and once it does… with the 11th hour introduction of a mob boss played by a completely miscast William Hurt… it’s too little, too late. Although Viggo Mortensen, displaying an old school tough guy countenance (think early 70's Charles Bronson) does play the part well – there’s simply not enough for his true self to fight for, or against. Based on a graphic novel, this needed to be more... enjoyably violent. But the main problem is the script, so full of ponderous cliches and drawn-out, uninteresting bouts of dialog with brooding characters talking and talking about things almost happening, or just about to happen, yet nothing really ever does.

RICH MAN, POOR MAN

2012-02-07T00:48:00.000-08:00

title: Rich Man, Poor Man
years: 1976/1978
cast: Peter Strauss, Nick Nolte, William Smith
book I: **** book II: ***

The first couple hours are somewhat corny. Peter Strauss and Nick Nolte, both in their thirties, portraying teenagers... just doesn't work. Either does a hammy Ed Asner as their tough German father, a poor baker that only likes capable Strauss, a climber who eventually makes it big while Nolte, burning bridges at every turn, is a low-rent boxer and eventually captains a small yacht in France: this playing out while the brothers, older and terrifically acting their age, live separate lives that eventually connect. And after a tragedy ends BOOK I, the tale continues as Nolte's troubled but kind-hearted son, Gregg Henry, and Strauss's stepson, a conniving con-man played by James Carol Jordan, become co-leads under Peter Strauss. Other new characters come and go, adding to the gloriously addictive nighttime soap proceedings. And William Smith as the vile thug "Falconetti," makes (in both parts) for an intoxicating heavy, outshining Peter Haskell as the political-manipulating billionaire that Strauss, while seeking true love and keeping his family in line, must eventually destroy.

A DANGEROUS METHOD

2012-02-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

title: A DANGEROUS METHOD
year: 2011
cast: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen
rating: **1/2

The analysis for this biopic directed by David Cronenberg is that Carl Jung, played by a metronomic Michael Fassbender, and Viggo Mortensen’s quietly concentrating Sigmund Freud, didn’t agree on everything. The film begins in turn of the Century England as Jung, a psychoanalyst with a beautiful pregnant wife, takes on a new patient: a savagely unglued Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein, a gorgeous Russian woman whose spasmodic tantrums seem more parody than authentic. But Fassbender, remaining calm throughout the tensely nerve-wracking scenes, moves the story forward as he, practicing mentor Sigmund Freud’s methods of psychotherapy, wants to take things a step further – instead of simply diagnosing patients, to provide them a means of recovery. This gives Viggo a genuine, subtle performance, mentoring Jung who's drifting towards a surreptitious affair with Spielrein. Enter Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross, a philandering maverick that Jung’s supposed to treat but who, with a devilish gleam, steers the conservative doctor into the affair that eventually ruins Freud and Jung’s friendship; which had been established through breezy bouts of dialog, each discussing their methods that, despite the title and the usually controversial director, never feels that dangerous. And despite the risque sexual romps with Knightly and Fassbender, the film lacks edge and particular scenes, like both doctors traveling to America, wind up feeling incomplete – yet the acting, reminiscent of a royal stage play, makes up for what the story leaves out… But perhaps it’s the subconscious we’re intended to embrace.

CHRONICLE

2012-02-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

title: CHRONICLE
year: 2012
cast: Dane DeHaan
rating: **1/2

Three teenage boys, after discovering a mysterious hole in the ground, acquire telekinetic powers. The main character, Andrew, the nerdiest of the group with a dying mother and abusive dad, is determined – even before the transformation – to film everything on his home video camera. The best scenes involve the trio first discovering their skills by lifting smaller objects around, performing miraculous tricks at the school’s talent show, and eventually maneuvering vehicles: think if Sissy Spacek’s CARRIE directed JACKASS. The reactions of the wizardly teens, playing God with the unaware dolts around them, is infectious – you’ll wonder what they’ll think of next. But when things kick up a few notches, and they begin flying around like teenage superheroes, it resembles a computerized mainstream motion picture, losing the spontaneous edge of the “chronicling camera” device. Here's where the characters get lost in the mix: especially after Andrew becomes a formidable villain that can’t be stopped, resulting in an air battle you’d see in a video game. But as entertainment goes, this does entertain. It’s too bad the film – like the characters therein – eventually takes its powers, and itself, way too far and far too seriously.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

2012-02-05T15:31:00.000-08:00

title:THE WOMAN IN BLACK
year: 2012
cast: Daniel Radcliffe
rating: *1/2

In the spirit of the HAMMER FILMS of yesteryear, here's an old-school horror with a familiar premise: a handsome young lawyer's sent to a dark town that harbors secrets and winds up being stalked by an ominous presence. Using the implied method of building suspense, and never clearly showing the antagonist, does have its merits: except when there's more work than payoff. Daniel Radcliffe embodies the right amount of clean-slate expressions for the gloomy pawn, narrowly searching through the main setting – a haunted house where the ghost of a shrouded woman resides. But save for loud music erupting whenever the titular wraith peaks her head around a corner, or sulks through the mist-laden exterior, his determined curiosity... the basis of any horror tale... seems in vain. So by the time he attempts resolution for the menacing ghost, learning the motivations of her vengeful purpose to remain an active trickster in the doomed little villa, the audience is hoping for all those cheap, fun, and most important, scary thrills that are never realized.

EASTERN PROMISES

2012-02-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

title: EASTERN PROMISES
year: 2007
cast: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent Cassel
rating: ****1/2

In David Cronenberg’s riveting mob exploitation, a dead young girl’s diary provides a posthumous narration while Naomi Watts, as the emergency room nurse who delivers her baby, seeks answers at a restaurant where the girl had worked – but there’s so much she doesn’t know: the owner is a dangerous Russian mobster who wants the diary since it provides information about his only son, a brash, unpredictable firebrand played with a sinister childlike edge by Vincent Cassel. His only friend is the family’s driver/hitman Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai – a Siberian thug sent to recover the diary and who’d already “cleaned-up” the remains of a spontaneous hit that ignites the movie with the kind of (somewhat gratuitous) ultraviolence occurring throughout, reminiscent of the horror genre where Cronenberg made his ground. But as the director of a suspenseful mob film, and using only a few dark lit locations – each bathed in a stark, Noir inspired visage – he makes each moment seem as if anything can happen at any time. There are a good number of important twists that would be a crime to mention, but what really matters is the dark-edged, underplayed performance of Mortensen – who this reviewer’s been a fan of since his irascibly savage turn in 1991’s THE INDIAN RUNNER. Not since Sally Kirkland's ANNA has an American pulled off an East European accent so well, you don’t even think about it. Armin Mueller-Stahl, as the aged mob boss hiding his own secret, embodies the subtle pride of his Russian lineage with a lethally formidable countenance growing darker as Watts, wonderfully mixing a lithe vulnerability with a spirited strength, gets deeper into a world that she, and perhaps even Nikolai, doesn’t belong.

CLIFFHANGER

2012-02-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

title: CLIFFHANGER
year: 1993
cast: Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Janine Turner
rating: ***1/2

The opening scene, as intrepid rescue worker Sylvester Stallone attempts saving a woman hanging onto a cable connected from a really high mountaintop to a helicopter, sets a nice stage to one of the better (or perhaps the only decent) Sly action flicks during the 1990s. Cut to a group of T-MEN embarking on a plane trip to move three suitcases of money, and wouldn’t you know: they just happen to crash on the same mountain where Stallone had worked before quitting and, eight months later, returning for his woman. But she’s content with the same job as a rescuer who, along with Michael Rooker, Ralph Waite and a reluctant Stallone, is thrust into “saving” the plane-wrecked villains led by a really nasty John Lithgow, who wants that cash residing in various locations throughout the storm-ridden mountaintops. And it’s up to Stallone and Rooker to recover it, or else. Stallone makes for a worthy action hero, which is no surprise, but since you can tell he’s doing most of his own stunts in genuinely dangerous settings, his physicality, along with Renny Harlin’s weaving camera, makes for a star-director collaboration that, although loaded with corny dialog, is a fun ride. With every scene there’s another goon to thwart (including Rex Linn in a great performance) and a new peak to climb. Janine Turner is more than eye-candy as Stallone’s independently daring girlfriend, while John Lithgow not only chews the scenery but blows bubbles with it. And that's okay – because even the silly stuff works.

DOUBLE IMPACT

2012-02-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

title: DOUBLE IMPACT
year: 1991
cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Geoffrey Lewis
rating: ***

If one Jean-Claude Van Damme was never enough, here's the movie for you: a decent action flick beginning with two infants separated during a bloody shootout in Hong Kong… Their father did a favor for a mobster who didn’t need his services any longer. Thanks to Geoffrey Lewis as a bodyguard turned uncle, one of the brothers, who winds up a pretty boy karate instructor to rich, horny women in Los Angeles, is saved. But he’s drawn back to cutthroat Hong Kong where he meets his shady twin, an arms dealer who couldn’t be more different. Together, along with Geoffrey Lewis and of course a beautiful love interest, they take on the mob boss who killed their parents, and even with two Dammes, it won’t be easy. The best scenes involve the milquetoast brother getting tougher through various fights, especially with the iconic ENTER THE DRAGON badass Bolo Yeung (fitfully scarred-up from the opening scene, making him even more intimidating). But the crooked brother, who had so much promise as a rogue maverick in the beginning, becomes but a jealous whiner as his put-upon lady starts preferring Abel to Cain. It’s a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and there’s an abundance of insert/close-ups that lead one to believe the budget wasn’t too high. But the characters are interesting enough to care about and it’s the fights that matter, occurring enough to appease hardcore karate buffs.

COLUMBO CRIES WOLF

2012-01-31T23:12:00.000-08:00

title: COLUMBO CRIES WOLF
year: 1990
cast: Peter Falk, Ian Buchanan, Rebecca Staab
rating: ***1/2

If every COLUMBO episode can be judged upon how conceited and prosperous the villain is, you can chalk this up as one of the best... at least of the latter episodes made during the 1990s revamp. Peter Falk is an older, scruffier Columbo, feigning naivete with his ruffled trench coat and even wearier eyes: yet he's always thinking. Here he deals with a playboy photographer and co-owner of a million dollar mansion that would make Hugh Hefner jealous... or at least concerned about the competition (or copyright!). Ian Buchanan is the haughty, sophisticated Sean Brantly, more suave and egotistical than most of the seedy rich jerks Columbo deals with. His trophy model girlfriend Tina, played by the gorgeous Rebecca Staab, is constantly at his side, and oh does he flaunt her but good. But Columbo doesn't balk... in his usual "One More Thing" fashion he sticks to the duo: yet this particular case isn't a homicide. Brantly's partner, a beautiful but slightly older blond woman, goes missing... after having threatened to sell the company from under him... and her body can't be found. Lots of beautiful women and best of all, Columbo meandering around a setting that doesn't become him: Leading to a good twist that occurs before the conclusion, which eventually provides a very clever "Gotcha" at the very end. [And check out photos of Rebecca Staab from this episode and Rebecca Staab's official facebook fanpage.]

SKATEBOARD

2012-01-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

title: SKATEBOARD
year: 1978
cast: Allen Garfield, Leif Garrett, Pam Kenneally
rating: ***

For a mainstream 1970’s flick, SKATEBOARD sticks firmly to the exploitation style of spontaneous direction, freestyle dialog, and capricious plotline. And although billed as a Leif Garret vehicle, the bulk belongs to character-actor Allen Garfield as a tubby, struggling talent agent who owes big bucks to a dangerous bookie so, after discovering a group of wayward teenage skateboarders, Manny starts a hopeful team that travels in a decapitated bus doing borderline minstrel shows disguised as freestyle competitions. While Garrett meanders in the background as one of the younger skaters, too shy to really take chances, the true hotshots are real life rollers Richard Van der Wyk, Tony Alva and Ellen O’Neal. And while the trio skate better than act, there’s something genuine in the deadpan deliveries: after all, it’s their territory more than Garfield who, with a constantly frantic bicker, seems more part of a low-rent gangster flick than skateboarding propaganda: which this needed more action shots of. But Manny’s a likable antihero, especially after Kathleen Lloyd joins the ranks as the chaperone/nurse. Although scenes where Manny attempts talking ingénue Pam Kenneally from sleeping with Van der Wyk seem a bit creepy, he eventually becomes the endearing sloppy uncle as the team climbs to the final competition where – after the star skater drops out – it's up to underdog Garrett to win a do-or-die downhill race, providing more suspense in the buildup than the real thing. [And join the SKATEBOARD FACEBOOK FAN PAGE and check out the PAM KENNEALLY PHOTO PAGE.]

SEE NO EVIL

2012-01-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

title: SEE NO EVIL

year: 1971

cast: Mia Farrow

rating: **1/2

Terrific build-up has a blind woman, played wonderfully by Mia Farrow, being reintroduced to her childhood home, literally feeling out the location where her entire family will be murdered, bodies strewn here and there, and she doesn't even know it. The peak of Richard Fleischer's direction are the scenes in which Mia's in the dark, but when she realizes the situation and runs for her life, hunted by the mysterious, faceless, boot-clad killer across a not-so-barren landscape, it becomes a tediously exhausting chase leading to a bland, anti-climactic conclusion.

ALBERT NOBBS

2012-01-28T12:00:00.000-08:00

title: Albert Nobbs
year: 2011
cast: Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowska
rating: ***

Glenn Close, resembling an aged Peter Pan mixed with Levon Helm (Sissy Spacek’s father) in COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER, has some good moments: especially when reflecting on a childhood experience which led to… for means of employment but, as we eventually realize, deeper reasons… becoming a man who works in a 19th century Irish Hotel. But most of the time she’s got the countenance of a frightened deer, and seems too old for the part. And Mia Wasikowska as Helen, the gorgeous hotel maid that Albert loves, is too young – making the age difference feel odd to not only the audience, but Helen as well. Perhaps this is intentional: Albert’s yearning to find her, or rather, his place in the world – and dreams of owning a Tobacco Store – seem as farfetched as landing Helen as a future wife, who’s in love with a brash young drifter displaying all the negative aspects of the male species: including charm! But the best character, and the glue to the entire picture, is Janet McTeer as “Mr. Moore,” a confident freelance painter whose secret mirrors Albert’s. The scenes where both discover their true identity (to each other) are more surprising to the characters than the audience, since they really don’t look like men: but the acting, especially one hilarious scene as both go for an awkward stroll dressed like elegant women, makes it all seem genuine. And the biggest achievement is turning one contained setting – the posh Hotel – into a world of its own: giving each player their own importance therein.

THE GREY

2012-01-28T00:37:00.000-08:00

title: The Grey
year: 2011
cast: Liam Neeson
rating: **

Never has a cast of characters so deserved to suffer – they’re just begging for it. That being a rowdy group of oil drilling roughnecks in Alaska, and one man, played by a brooding Liam Neeson, hired to keep wolves off the premises who, after a plane crash, are all left vulnerable to a surrounding pack: yellow eyes glowing in the dark like a cartoon and growls more befitting the MGM lion. The camera shakes around so much the fanged antagonists are practically unseen, and thus, not very frightening. It’s basically a wraithlike feeding frenzy of shouting, screaming, and kicking to stay alive. But something happens when the count dwindles to four survivors – a few of the performances stand out beyond Neeson’s maverick: especially Frank Grillo as an existential badass who can’t admit he’s scared to death. But even the well-acted campfire scenes, as the men expose their soft side in the face of doom, drag so long you'll forget what the movie's about. Till the growling continues and the group ventures further towards… where exactly? Since no one had much of a life to begin with, it’s hard to imagine, or care about, anyone surviving. But the main problem is the nerve-wracking direction that, with the jangly, documentary style camerawork, does successfully put you into the situation – only it’s not a place you'll want to be for very long. (For a much better film with practically the same premise, rent THE EDGE, where the characters go through hell, not the audience.)

THE DON IS DEAD

2012-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

title: THE DON IS DEAD

year: 1973

cast: Anthony Quinn, Robert Forster, Fredric Forrest

rating: **1/2

How could a movie starring Anthony Quinn, Robert Forster, Frederic Forrest, Al Lettieri, directed by Richard Fleischer and centering on cutthroat mobsters miss the mark? Probably because there's not much of a target to begin with. Story centers on a brash climber, played by Forster, who, along with two brothers, Forrest and Letteri, attempt to overthrow a newly-made don, Anthony Quinn, playing white knight to Forster's beautiful, and abused, girlfriend who dreams of being a famous singer. Melodrama befitting a TV movie-of-the-week makes for a lotta whistling in the cemetery: and not a catchy tune. There are so many twists (everyone wants to kill everyone) you'll forget there's any destination at all. And although Robert Forster goes from a temperamental jerk to woman abuser that the audience winds up rooting against, he's much more likable than Quinn, a brooding know it all. There are some decent gunfights but way too much exposition in-between.

THE GOLDEN CHILD

2012-01-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

title: THE GOLDEN CHILD

year: 1986

starring: Eddie Murphy

rating: **

In 1986, it was time for superstar Eddie Murphy to fully establish himself after three big hits: 48 HRS. where he proved his worth as a substantial actor, TRADING PLACES as a cinematic funnyman, and BEVERLY HILLS COP as both at the same time. (We'll just forget about his strategic guest star turn in BEST DEFENSE). The world was poised to see him again: He was beloved.... He was "it." So for his next role he plays an "investigator" hired to find Tibet's GOLDEN CHILD: a bald boy with magical powers to make Pepsi cans dance and to bring back parrots to life. Eddie battles flying demons, talks smack to a (literal) dragon lady, wields a magic sword, and all the while tries maintaining the street-smart charm that made him so popular. This film is like hobo stew... if you get sick eating it, there are so many ingredients: what exactly is to blame? Either way, it wasn't a wise choice for Murphy... Although he'd make up for it in COMING TO AMERICA.

2012-01-27T11:25:00.000-08:00

THREE THE HARD WAY

2012-01-27T10:32:00.001-08:00

title: THREE THE HARD WAY
year: 1974
cast: Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Jim Kelly
rating: ****

A mad scientist and a white supremacist millionaire will poison the water supplies of three American cities, killing only the black population in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, unless Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly stop them. This action packed blaxploitation, bordering on Roger Moore era Bond, never lets up as the dynamic trio, sometimes together, sometimes alone, fight cops and goons alike, surviving car chases, foot chases, gun fights, explosions, and everything else thrown their way. A scene where three motorcycle riding vixens cruise the streets, and then torture a crooked cop, will confirm the heavy influence this had on Quentin Tarantino's work. And most importantly, all three black icons have their own separate identities to make them really count: Fred Williams is a suave and funny businessman, Jim Kelly the mellow karate man, and Jim Brown as the badass bottom line bringing the trio together in one of the best blaxploitations ever made.

HOT POTATO

2012-01-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

title: HOT POTATO

year: 1976

cast: Jim Kelly, George Memmoli, Irene Tsu

rating: ***

Sequel in character's name only has Black Belt Jones, played by Jim Kelly, sent to an unknown Asian country to recover a diplomat's kidnapped daughter (the gorgeous Judy Brown). More of an old fashion pulp adventure yarn than blaxploitation, with nonstop challenges for Kelly and cohorts Geoffrey Binney as a suave Australian journeyman, Irene Tsu as their tough yet gorgeous native guide, and George Memolli (Joey in "Mean Streets") as the chubby comic relief. Despite the utter corniness and goofy soundtrack, taking away from solidly choreographed karate scenes, likable characters, and the overall journey, this is a thoroughly watchable romp with a few aspects (other than the hero's name) later borrowed in the "Indiana Jones" franchise.

BLACK SAMURAI

2012-01-27T10:23:00.001-08:00

title: BLACK SAMURAI
year: 1977
cast: Jim Kelly
rating: ***

When you got Jim Kelly as a secret ops/Black Samurai who uses a rocket-powered jet pack and fights nonstop under the quick-paced, extraordinary low budget yet completely creative direction of b-movie icon Al Adamson, and a bad acting devil-worshiping villain with a pet vulture who employs killer midgets falling from trees, and a captured beautiful woman on an James Bond villainesque island fortress that Kelly infiltrates: massacring scores of henchman while an ultra-funky soundtrack presides... When you have all this (and more) in a single motion picture: do you even need a review?

THE TATTOO CONNECTON

2012-01-26T10:03:00.000-08:00

title: THE TATTOO CONNECTION

year: 1978

cast: Jim Kelly, Tao-liang Tan, Bolo Yeung

rating: ***1/2

This is really a Tao-liang Tan vehicle with ENTER THE DRAGON's Jim Kelly on the side, but with his usual confident bravado he steals, and eventually owns, this thoroughly entertaining Chinese-imported kung fu flick centering on the recovery of a stolen diamond. "Master of Kicks" Tan kicks ass for fifteen minutes before Kelly, a CIA agent named "Lucas", is called in from America. Tan works for the villainous Sin Cheng, along with Bolo Yeung and some other badly dubbed goons, but eventually our flash-legged hero, with the aid of his beautiful wife Nami Misaki, joins Kelly in a glorious fight on a freighter ship. Good stuff, and not too much exposition dialog since you always know where the character are going, and why.

MOVING

2012-01-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

title: MOVING
year: 1988
cast: Richard Pryor
rating: ***

Sure, it's yet another everything-bad-happens-to-the-main-character family film but there's enough going on, at all times, to make this work despite the cliches. Although star Richard Pryor is showing signs of the horrible disease that would eventually end his career, and life, he's got gusto as he loses his job and eventually moves his family to another state. Dealing with crooked movers, obnoxious next-door neighbors (both played by Randy Quaid), a frustrated family and just about everything save locusts and falling frogs, Pryor keeps us both rooting for him (to succeed) and against him (to have more misadventurous bad luck) at the same time.