Simon's Movie Reviews

Empire Magazine Greatest Movies List - #407: The Jungle Book

2012-02-08T07:56:00.000-08:00

It’s fair to say Walt Disney provided me with a great deal of entertainment while growing up. His colourful characters were in my storybooks, Saturday morning cartoons, and in some of the first movies I saw as a child. “The Jungle Book,” produced by Disney and directed by Wolfgang Reithermann, is filled with talking animals, hand-drawn animation, and song and dance numbers. That’s all you needed back in 1967, when the movie was made. There is no 3D, no big movie stars providing the voices, and no pop-culture references.

This is one of those movies that bring me back to a simpler time, when I couldn’t go to bed past 10:00pm and when grandma’s apartment was the best place in the world. That’s probably where I first saw this movie. Either that, or someone read me the illustrated book based on the movie. You know the kind. There’s a whole catalogue of short books filled with what are basically stills from Disney movies with about five sentences on the right page to add narration. I might also have had an audio version on an old cassette tape. I can’t be too sure since it’s been at least 22 years. Either way, it did the job.

Based on the 1894 novel by British author Rudyard Kipling, “The Jungle Book” tells the story of Mowgli (Bruce Reithermann), a young boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. When the wolves learn Shere Khan, a man-eating tiger, has returned to the jungle, they decide he must return to his people. Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot), a black panther who found Mowgli when he was a baby, volunteers for the quest.

Before making it to the village, they will run into a menagerie of animals, some friends some foe. It is the jungle after all. Among the foes there is Kaa (Sterling Holloway) a python who would love to have Mowgli for dinner; King Louie (Louie Prima) an ape who kidnaps Mowgli to find out how to make fire; and always lurking in the trees is the merciless Shere Khan (George Sanders).

Among the friends you have the elephant patrol, led by colonel Hathi (J. Pat O’Malley), who rules over his pack like a drill sergeant. Then there are four vultures perched on a dead tree who are stuck in a perpetual cycle of boredom. Their entire conversations revolve around the questions “What are we gonna do?” and “What do you wanna do?” These guys desperately need some action.

The most entertaining character is Baloo (Phil Harris), a bear whose carefree lifestyle clashes with Bagheera’s seriousness. If Bagheera is the responsible adult, Baloo is the teenager who never grew up. Why take Mowgli to the humans when they could just hang out in the jungle, sleep in the shade, and eat? If they were to do this movie now, they would probably have Jeff Bridges do the voice, just to evoke the idea of The Dude from “The Big Lebowski” for the grown-ups.

At a brisk 78-minute running time, this is an effective movie for young children. It should work even for today’s kids even if the movie was made back in the 1960s. The animation still holds up, the musical numbers are entertaining, and the fight scenes aren’t too scary. The fight between Baloo and Shere Khan towards the end might be a bit unnerving, but if kids can survive Bambi’s mom getting shot, they can survive this.

I enjoyed this movie as a child, but in later years I enjoyed two other very different adaptations of “The Jungle Book” which seriously deviated from the Kipling novel.

First there was there was the cartoon series “TaleSpin” which re-imagined Baloo as a bush pilot in the fictional city of Cape Suzette. In this show King Louie is the owner of a bar on his own private island and Shere Khan is a business tycoon.

Second was the 1994 live-action remake, directed by Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy”). In this version, the animals actually kill a lot of people. Characters get buried alive, drown in quicksand, get mauled by Shere Khan, and get their throats ripped by Kaa the snake. Oddly enough, Walt Disney Pictures also distributed this version.

So to sum up, if you are an adult and you want to see a mash-up of Indiana Jones and the “The Jungle Book” watch the live-action version. But if you have young children, let them watch the 1967 version and wait until they are at least 12 before showing them the version where a man is chased by hungry tiger in the jungle. (The tiger catches him.)

Empire Magazine Greatest Movies List - #409: Men In Black

2012-01-25T10:04:00.000-08:00

I don’t know exactly when it all began, but aliens are now part of the world’s greatest myths, right along Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. There are plenty of reports of people seeing them, many blurry photographs, but actual proof? None. Conspiracy theorists say that’s what the government would have you believe, and Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1997 comedy “Men In Black” shows you just how a government agency would hide the aliens in plain sight. The joke is that some aliens are so bizarre they get careers in entertainment. Which makes me wonder about Charlie Sheen. Did he not say he was from Mars?

I first saw “Men In Black” about a year after it had come out and my brother had already seen it on the big screen. He loved it so he figured I would like it too. So we watched while our parents were out for the night. This was back when we were living in Santiago, Chile, so the movie was in Spanish. Will Smith is still funny in Spanish, but unfortunately I had a hard time laughing.

If I am to follow my blog’s mission statement and say what this particular movie meant to me when I first saw it, then I have to swallow my pride and be brutally honest: the first time I saw “Men In Black” it scared the crap out of me. I know, I know, it’s a comedy and it was never meant to be scary in the first place. Unfortunately when I first saw it, I somehow had this profound fear of aliens, probably from just seeing an image of the monster in “Alien.”

What really didn’t help is that scene when a flying saucer crashes on the truck of Edgar (Vincent D’Onofrio) a farmer complaining to his wife about his day. When he gets close to the crater, an arm reaches and pulls him inside. What comes out is an alien wearing his skin. The problem is that in my mind I couldn’t shake the image of Edgar being skinned alive. This proves that when it comes to monsters, your imagination will often do a better job than whatever is shown onscreen. I really should have told my imagination to take five.

It’s a shame, because the movie is a lot of fun. We first meet the mysterious government organisation as they pull up in a black car wearing black suits, white shirts, black ties, and black sunglasses. (Very Blues Brothers of them.) We meet the tough Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) who quickly sniffs out an alien hiding among a group of…illegal aliens from Mexico. The way this alien is designed says it all. He’s gray, tall, with a big mouth and eyes that can look behind its back. These aren’t aliens that can pass for human beings; these are creatures straight out of b-movies from the 1950s.

When then meet NYPD officer James Edwards (Will Smith), who is chasing a suspect with seemingly superhuman strength. When he corners him on top of a building, the man blinks horizontally, says the world will soon come to an end, and jumps to his death. At the precinct, Edwards’ superiors laugh off his story until Agent K walks into the room. Edwards tells him the whole story, including the part about the world ending, to, which K asks: “Did he say when?” Now Edwards is getting very concerned.

After the agency puts him through a series of tests, they decide that Edwards can join the ranks of the Men In Black, a top-secret organization dedicated to protecting Earth from the scum of the universe. They erase his identity, rename him Agent J, give him a classy suit, and hand him his first assignment: save the world. No pressure.

The cockroach that has taken Edgar’s skin is looking for an object known as the Galaxy. If he gets his hands on it, it will trigger an intergalactic war that will destroy the Earth. Classic MacGuffin: no one really knows what it looks like or what it does, but everyone wants it.

The movie won the Oscar for Best Makeup and rightfully so. When Edgar sheds his skin for the final confrontation, computer effects take over and Smith and Jones are fighting a giant animated cockroach. But for the rest of the movie, Vincent D’Onofrio is walking around New York looking like a man who is wearing dead skin over his body. Not to mention the rest of the weird aliens Agent J meets for the first time, including a tiny one that lives inside the head of human-shaped robot.

This makes for an amusing ride through a world we think we know, New York City, but shows us clever ways in which aliens could be hiding among us. Smith and Jones have a good chemistry together as the eager rookie earning his wings and the gruff veteran who does everything by the (non-existent) book. The sequel was inevitable.

F.Y.I, I now have seen so much violence, gore, and creepy crawlies eating people alive that I am pretty sure no monsters can scare me ever again. As a matter of fact, “Aliens” is now one of my favourite movies.

Empire Magazine Greatest Movies List - #411: Spider-Man 2

2012-01-17T08:08:00.000-08:00

“Spider-Man 2” answers a question many cynics must have asked about superheroes: how does this guy wash his costume? It turns out he washes it at the Laundromat like everybody else and unfortunately it soils his underwear. Apparently even a superhero should know not to mix the colours with the whites.

One of the biggest hits of 2004, “Spider-Man 2” made my day during a rather mediocre summer. I had just finished my last year of high school (not a good one), I was looking for a summer job (no luck), and I was about to start my first year of college. The previous year I had moved from South America to Quebec City and the transition had been a lot less smooth than I had anticipated. I was nervous about college, finding a job, and too many other things. Well at least I didn’t have to worry about fighting a mad scientist in my spare time.

“Spider-Man 2” surpassed the previous movie because in this sequel we see the hero deal with normal problems like the rest of us. When Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) isn’t busy putting on a costume and chasing bank robbers, he has to deal with his crumbling life. His freelance photography job for the irascible editor J. J. Jameson (J.K Simmons) of the Daily Bugle is not paying his rent so he takes a second job delivering pizzas. The job takes time away from his college courses so his grades begin to drop.

Then there is his social life. His best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco) wants Spider-Man dead for killing his father in the previous movie. He knows Peter knows something so in a drunken fit he attacks him at a public event. Meanwhile, the girl of his dreams, Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), is moving away from him. She has found success on Broadway and is now engaged to an astronaut. How do you compete with a man who can literally fly off the planet?

With all this pressure, is it any wonder Peter is considering tossing his costume in the trash? Bad timing as it turns out. A freak accident involving a new form of energy creates the film’s villain, doctor Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina). The incident welds four mechanical arms to his back, turning him into a mad scientist hell-bent on finishing his experiment, even if it means destroying all of New York.

Writer Alvin Sargent brought plenty of self-aware humour to this super-hero tale. When sightings of the mad doctor surface, Jameson and his team brainstorm a name for this new villain. Lets see, a man called Otto Octavius with four mechanical arms welded to his body. “Doctor Octopus?” asks one of his writers. Too cheesy is Jameson’s reply, before stealing the idea a minute later.

Then there is that moment when Spider-Man’s web-slinging abilities fail him, leaving stranded on top of a building. Imagine you are about to take your dog out for walk, the doors of the elevator open, and standing before you is a man in Spider-Man costume, calmly waiting for you to get in. With that awkward elevator music playing in the background, the hero suddenly doesn’t look so super.

It’s not all angst and humour. Director Sam Raimi brought some horror elements to the mix, specifically when the mechanical arms of Doctor Octavius spring to life at the hospital's operating table. As though they can sense the doctors are about to chop them off with buzz saws, the arms grab the surgical team one by one, tossing them like rag dolls. One doctor even leaves nail marks on the floor as the arms drag him by the legs.

Speaking of Raimi, one of the highlights of the entire Spider-Man trilogy has always been the cameo of the director’s old friend, Bruce “Hail to the King” Campbell. In the first movie he played an announcer at a wrestling match. This time, he plays a snooty usher at a theatre where Mary Jane is playing. Good luck getting through the theatre doors if “the chin” is guarding them while the play is in progress.

The vulnerability of the hero, the solid script, and Sam Raimi’s direction made “Spider-Man 2” one of the best super hero movies of the 2000s. Its protagonist is a young man facing problems most men his age face: money, work, stress, love, and friendship. If it weren’t for his ability to climb brick walls and throw spider webs at criminals, he would be just another guy in the city trying to make a living. Things are stressful enough as it is, I don’t think I would want the extra responsibility.

Empire Magazine Greatest Movies List - #413: Finding Nemo

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

Dive beneath the ocean with the geniuses from Pixar. “Finding Nemo” is a great movie because it has the best the studio has to offer: state-of-the-art animation, engaging characters, funny gags, strong dialogue, and a solid story. Directed by Andrew Stanton, the movie was one of the hits of 2003 and was the fifth success for Pixar after “Toy Story” in 1995. Children love this movie for the story and adults can enjoy it for the smart humour.

I first saw “Finding Nemo” in theatres with my brother in 2003. It was a busy summer: my parents and I had just moved back to Quebec City after an 8 year stay in South America. When we were not busy unpacking and painting the walls of our new home, I would ask for a break to go to the movies. The movie was dubbed in French, which I hate, but it’s different with animated movies. The stories told are usually universal, and the jokes can be translated in any language. Seeing a great white shark called Bruce say “Fish are friend, not food” is probably just as funny in Swahili as it is in the original script.

Set in the Australian Great Barrier Reef, the story focuses on the relationship between a father and his only son. Years ago clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) and his wife Coral (Elizabeth Perkins) had hundreds of eggs ready to hatch. In a tragedy worthy of “Bambi,” a barracuda eats Cora and all the eggs save one. Marlin vows to protect his surviving child at all times, turning him into the most overprotective dad in the entire ocean. When his son Nemo (Elliot Gould) is ready for his first day of school Marlin’s constant pestering about safety embarrasses him in front of his new friends.

In an act of defiance Nemo swims towards a fishing boat to touch it with his fin. For fishes, this must be the equivalent of knocking on the door of the haunted house in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, the boat’s owner, who is wearing a menacing scuba diving gear, snatches Nemo. Marlin gives chase, but he cannot swim faster than the boat. In his haste he runs into Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) a friendly Pacific Regal Blue Tang who has seen where the boat is going. That is if she can remember where it went. Dory suffers from short-term memory loss, making her somewhat unreliable when it comes to direction. During their quest, the tow of them will run into vegetarian sharks, jellyfish, surfer dude turtles, and in a scene reminiscent of “Pinocchio,” a whale will swallow them whole.

Meanwhile, we learn what happened to Nemo after he was captured. He is now in an aquarium in a dental office with a view of Sydney harbour. The aquarium is the home of a variety of other fish who wish to escape this confined space. Their leader is Gill (Willem Dafoe) whose voice gives him a certain wisdom and world-weariness. Gill has apparently been a prisoner for a long time, which has allowed him time to plan an escape worthy of “Mission: Impossible.”

While these two plot lines are heading towards an inevitable collision, the writers keep the laughs coming. Who wouldn’t laugh at a meeting of “sharks anonymous” where three sharks who have sworn off eating their fellow fish recite their pledge? It even gets a little dirty for a children’s movie at one point. When the fish in the dental office manage to block the aquarium’s filter as part of their escape plan, it quickly fills up with grime. One of them screams, “Don’t you realize we are swimming in our own shi…?”, only to be interrupted by a loud burp.

The animation is top-notch throughout. Water, I have heard, is one of the most difficult elements to animate. Yet the hard-working crew at Pixar created an ocean that is both colourful and convincing. As night falls on Sydney harbour, the sun’s reflection on the ocean is simply gorgeous. When fishes jump out of the water, we can still water on the surface of their skin. A lot of effort went into this movie.

“Finding Nemo” won the Oscar for Best Animated movie, but it is not just a great-animated movie. At the heart of it all it is the story of a dad who needs to let go of his son if wants him to actually grow up. Yes, life is full of dangers, but you cannot live in fear when there is such a big world (and ocean) out there.

Empire List: #418 - V for Vendetta

2011-12-10T12:11:00.001-08:00

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” I don’t know who came up with that quote, but whoever it was, they most likely did not have the hero of “V for Vendetta” in mind. Although when I use the word “hero” I do so only because the villains are much worse than him. To a fictional fascist government “V” is a terrorist who destroys government buildings and kills government officials. To the people, he is a freedom fighter who opens their eyes to the lies they have been sold. One thing is certain: he believes violence is part of the solution. I hope that is a prospect a lot of people find divisive.

I first saw this hundredth graphic novel adaption at a movie theatre in Quebec City in 2006, but I had a much more interesting second viewing in 2010. One of my courses at the University of Sherbrooke was Cultural Studies, and wouldn’t you know it, the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore was required reading. Once we were done with that exhausting homework assignment (sarcasm) we watched the movie in class. We now live in a world where we have to read comic books and watch movies as part of our class assignments. This may anger some uptight literary scholars, but it’s fine by me. We had some great conversations in class discussing the similarities and differences between the novel and the movie, its political implications, and its place in modern culture. I even wrote a 2000 word essay about it. It always helps if you are writing about something you actually enjoy.

To be sure, a lot can be said about both the graphic novel and the movie. Alan Moore and illustrator David Lloyd published their work in the 1980s. It was heavily influenced by the right-wing government of the United Kingdom and was set in a future where fascists rule with an iron-fist in the aftermath of nuclear war. In James McTeigue adaptation, the story is set even further into the future and still features a fascist government, but no nuclear war since there is no surviving that kind of war. Instead, Britain has suffered a biological attack, leading to the political takeover of the Norsefire party led by High Chancellor Adam Sutler (John Hurt). Sutler controls the police, the army, and most importantly, the media.

As the film opens, two people are preparing to leave their homes and head into the streets of London. One is Evey Hammond (Nathalie Portman), a young woman who works at the state television station. The second person is a man whose face remains hidden until he puts on a mask of Guy Fawkes, the man who is known for the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The mystery man and Evey meet in the streets as he rescues her from police officers who try to rape her for violating curfew. The police have guns, but the man is lightning fast with knives. Following his victory, he delivers a speech where just about every word begins with the letter V. “Are you mad?” says Evey. “That’s probably what they will say” is his answer.

He may be mad, but “V” has a plan. It begins with the destruction of the Old Bailey, a court building of central London. The following day he hijacks the state television station to broadcast a message to the nation. He delivers a promise: one year from now, he will destroy the Houses of Parliament, and urges the people to join him in the overthrow of the government.

Sutler will not stand for this. He barks at Chief Inspector Finch (Stephen Rea) to find this terrorist by whatever means necessary. Finch belongs to the grand tradition of smart British detective who know how to follow the clues. Remember, this is the country that gave us Sherlock Holmes. The evidence shows him that “V” was the victim of human experiences done in camps reminiscent of Nazi Germany. After his escape from the room number 5 (“V” in Roman numerals) the man vowed to kill all those who experimented on him. But once they are dead, the government must fall too.

That the government did monstrous things, of that there is no question. But as Evey points out, “they created a monster.” It seems a lot of responsibility for one man to decide how a government should fall. Are his methods perfect? Does the rubble not hurt people when he destroys these buildings? His relationship with Evey is also questionable. “V” wishes her to live without fear as he does. Therefore she must suffer as he has suffered and find freedom from within. This is definitely not the same relationship as the one between Superman and Lois Lane.

As a movie, McTeigue’s adaption of the story has fewer subplots than the graphic novel and focuses more on action. Well, the point of a big budget is to make money, and action usually fills the theatres. Still, nowadays it’s rare for an action movie to make you think about ideas such as anarchy, freedom, and the definition of terrorism. On the one hand you have a government who rules all aspect of your life. Then a man comes along and says the solution is chaos. Where would you stand?

Both the graphic novel and the film have influenced protesters all over the world. I have seen people wear those Guy Fawkes masks at anti-Scientology rallies, but most recently at the Occupy protests. I once heard George Carlin say on “Real Time with Bill Maher” that fascism will not come to the United-States wearing brown and black shirts, but Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Perhaps that is what all of these Occupiers believe: we are not being ruled by an omnipotent Big Brother figure that resides in a government building, but by the people who control all of the money. I doubt a bunch of people wearing Guy Fawkes costumes will make much of a difference in the way Wall Street is run, but at least it shows people care. I am all for protesting inequality, but just as long as nobody decides to fill a train with explosives to blow up a building.

Empire List #420: Jerry Maguire

2011-11-20T15:01:00.001-08:00

When you have a movie where the title is the name of the main character, you can assume a few things off-hand. First, said character is about to encounter a heap of trouble. Second, he will most likely find love, or at least re-deem a relationship. Third, by the end of the movie he will have made some major changes in his life. “Jerry Maguire” follows all of these rules by throwing the life of its protagonist upside down and have try to turn everything right side up. He is like the Coyote in Looney Tunes: if he stops and looks down, he just might realize he is walking on thin air and will fall into a canyon. Sometimes it’s better to keep looking up.

The funny thing is, the first time I watched this movie I didn’t know I was about to fall down a canyon myself. It was in January of 2003, back when I was still living in Chile. In May my parents and I were going to move back to my native Canada, but first, a father-son trip. My father thought it would a great idea for him to take me to Argentina and take me to see his company’s mining project way up in the mountains. During our stop in Buenos Aires I didn’t have anything to do while he was working in his office, but lucky me he had HBO and “Jerry Maguire” was playing. Now, this is probably some giant cosmic coincidence, but seven months later my parents had broken up, I was starting my last year of high school with no friends, and had no clue of what to do with the rest of my life. Like Maguire, my life had hit a bit of snag.

Tom Cruise plays Jerry Maguire, a sports agent who loves his job, has a gorgeous fiancée who loves the idea of him, and has the advantage of looking like Tom Cruise. Things couldn’t be better until one of his clients suffers a major injury in the field. In the hospital he sees the player’s son who looks at him as though he was the scum of the Earth for pushing his dad too hard. This leads Jerry to write an essay that denounces the dishonesty in his business, which he distributes to everyone in his office. By the applause they give him the next day, it is clear they agree with him…in theory. In practice management has decided to fire him. Not only is he fired in a restaurant so he doesn’t make a scene, but the person doing the firing is Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr), Jerry’s protégé.

Realising he has until the end of the work day to convince his clients to work for him without the support of his company, Jerry rushes to his office and frantically calls everyone on his list before Bob can beat convince them otherwise. He has two hits, but one stands out: Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) an egotistical football player that feels neglected by Jerry. Rod will take a chance with Jerry on the condition that he chants Rod’s motto: SHOW ME THE MONEY! As time runs out, Jerry has no option but to scream that motto at the top of his lungs while the whole office is watching. Appropriately, it pays off.

Before leaving in semi-defeat, Jerry makes a speech in front of everyone he has worked with for years asking anyone to come and join him to make a new agency. Whether out of pity or possibly attraction, Dorothy Boyd dares to come with Jerry (and the gold fish he steals). Of course it isn’t that easy to re-start your life from the ground up. Jerry now has to compete with Bob and every agent with a company, manage the un-manageable Rod Tidwell, and deal with the fact that his fiancée will not stay with him now that he is one bad day away from unemployment.

The rest of the movie follows Jerry as he picks up the pieces and forms an uneasy relationship with Dorothy. Director Cameron Crowe, who also wrote the film, shows us a man trying to manage not just an athlete, but also the crisis that is his life. Jerry smiles and keeps saying everything will work out, but damn it, life can be hard. Rod is great at acting like a super star football player, but he is just not that good of a player.

Cuba Gooding Jr. earned his only Oscar for playing Rod and it is well deserved. When he is first introduced he is a manic burst of energy that keeps Jerry on the phone for what seems like hours. When Jerry desperately tries to convince him to try harder, Rod is convinced it is Jerry who is not trying hard enough to sell his talents. Then there are moments where Rod shows deeper sides of his personality by giving Jerry advice on his relationship with Dorothy.

Things will of course work out in the end for Jerry. We don’t go to the movies to see a man throw caution to the wind and then be crushed by reality. We need hope that there is hope and that no matter how bad it gets you can eventually rebuild your life. Cameron Crowe conveys those ideas by having his characters not focus on money and power, but on finding true friends and on finding that special someone that you can look in the eyes and say: “You complete me.” The man’s a dreamer. Nothing wrong with that.

Years after seeing “Jerry Maguire” I am yet to find a person who completes me, but like Jerry I am picking up the pieces. Life is not a movie, but that shouldn’t stop from grabbing that gold fish and taking a chance on myself.

Empire list #421: Lethal Weapon

2011-11-13T09:58:00.001-08:00

Take a look at any bubby cop movie that has come out in the past twenty years and odds are it has been influenced by Richard Donner's “Lethal Weapon” franchise. It has all of the necessary elements for that genre: two cops, one white, one black, one is by the book, one breaks all the rules, one is a family man, one is single, one is old, one is young and they both have a weapon of choice. In real life cops investigate, gather evidence, and then arrest all the bad guys at once. Buddy cops investigate, get shot at, find out where the bad guys are hiding and then kill everybody in a massive shoot out while dishing out quips.

There are a total of four titles in this franchise and in just about all of them Danny Glover’s character says: “I am getting too old for this shit.” By the fourth one even Mel Gibson was getting too old and everyone knew it. I have seen all of them, but not in chronological order. I saw the second and third on TV and the fourth one on the big screen. Finally, one evening I finally got to see the very first one from beginning to end on TV. It worked more as a prequel from my point of view, explaining how Gibson’s and Glover’s characters first met, why it the franchise is called “Lethal Weapon,” and what was life before Joe Pesci and Rene Russo came along. Turns out it was a lot less funny and way more brutal.

Mel Gibson is Martin Riggs, a narcotics investigator who is contemplating suicide after the death of his wife in a traffic accident. Danny Glover is Roger Murtaugh, a homicide detective with a wife and kids. While Riggs is playing Russian roulette all alone in his trailer while watching cartoons, Murtaugh is getting ready for Christmas in his suburban home. Deemed a lethal weapon because of his army training and state of mind, Riggs is transferred to homicide so he can be less of a danger to himself and others. He is partnered with Murtaugh who of course wants nothing to do with him.

Their first case: the apparent suicide of a young woman who jumped off a skyscraper. Before jumping she had taken drugs laced with poison, making this a homicide. Through a series of connections with pimps, prostitutes and Vietnam War veterans, Riggs and Murtaugh stumble onto a major heroin smuggling operation. The man at the top is General McCallister (Mitchell Ryan) but as with all buddy cop movies, the real threat is the second-in-command. Gary Busey, back when he wasn’t the definition of insane, plays Mr. Joshua the general’s right-hand man. Just to prove he is a loyal, he is willing to burn his left arm with a lighter.

Along the way Riggs and Murtaugh get to know each other for better or worse. They practice at the range, share a few beers on Murtaugh’s boat and Riggs tries to kill himself with Murtaugh’s gun. They are an unlikely pair, but that’s why this movie, and most movies like it, works. They clash when they first meet (literally) but they bond over their hate of mutual enemies.

Compared to the rest of the titles in the franchise, this is the most brutal. The movie opens with a topless woman jumping off a balcony, Riggs is tortured with electroshock, characters swear constantly and when they get shot we see them bleed, the camera just doesn’t cut away. Then there is that final violent fight between Riggs and Joshua on Murtaugh’s front lawn. It makes no sense as it takes place in front of dozens of cops who are just standing there watching while a helicopter provides the lighting.

Today Mel Gibson is known for lots of things, mostly destroying his first marriage, destroying his second marriage, being charged with assault, offending women, offending the Jewish community and somehow also offending the black community. Yet, it can’t be denied he is a good actor and he brings a lot of humanity to Riggs who is constantly teetering on the edge. The character evolved into a happier and more stable cop with each sequel, but in this one you truly believe he could end his life after one two many beers.

“Lethal Weapon” has been imitated and copied many times in the decades that followed its release. Sometimes it has been done very successfully, as with “Hot Fuzz,” and sometimes with mixed results as with “Rush Hour.” The key, I believe, is this: have two leads with great chemistry, have actors who take the material seriously and above all have it rated R so us adults can have a good time. Well actually, I was nowhere near adulthood when I saw this R-rated film, but even then I could tell this is way more fucking fun than a PG-13 movie.

Empire List #423: Kill Bill Vol. 2

2011-11-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

Quentin Tarantino must be a major annoyance to a lot of film teachers. They say to become good at anything you must first learn from the experts. Tarantino learned a lot before becoming a filmmaker, but from watching the stuff other people had done. It’s the dream of every guy who has ever worked at a video club: I have watched thousands of movies, what if I made one myself? Of course now that video clubs are going out of business we’re not likely to see someone emerge with a similar back story, but if anything he has proved you can watch and learn. With “Kill Bill Vol. 2” Tarantino shows what he learned by watching Westerns and Kung Fu movies, resulting in one of the best revenge movies of the last ten years.

By the time Volume 2 came out in early 2004, I was still reeling from having seen Volume one the year before. I must have had a weird facial expression after I left the theatre because my brother had looked at me and said: “You’re not going to go see the sequel aren’t you?” To which I responded “Are you crazy? Of course I will!” That’s right. Baby brother had grown up and had developed a taste for blood, mayhem and destruction. Bring it on Tarantino. I had turned 18 the previous year, my cynicism was up after my parent’s divorce and so I was ready for some R-rated violence. I love escapism.

Picking up where the “Kill Bill Vol. 1” left off, with assassin The Bride (Uma Thurman) going through the list of people who killed her friends and fiancé at her wedding rehearsal. There are only three people left: Bud (Michael Madsen), Elle Rider (Daryl Hannah) and at the bottom of the list sits Bill (David Carradine), her former employer. The Bride is now on her way to kill Bud, the brother of Bill, although I don’t see the family resemblance. Having just chopped her way through 88 Japanese henchmen, it is a change of pace for her to go after a strip club bouncer who lives by himself in a trailer. It should be incredibly easy to sneak up on him while he’s rocking in his chair, listening to Johnny Cash. Not quite.

In the aftermath of their encounter, Bud locks up The Bride in a coffin and buries her six feet under. This is shot in a scary sequence, as we hear the nails being pounded into the wood, the box being dropped into the grave, the soil being shoved onto the coffin and finally silence. We only hear The Bride panicking in the dark, until she turns on the flashlight Bud gave her. Him giving her a flashlight seems a bit contradictory. If he is evil enough to bury her alive, why show a modicum of mercy by giving her light? Why not go all the way and have her suffocate in the dark? If I had to guess, I would say because without the flashlight, the audience wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.

That’s for the linear part of the plot. Tarantino has never been a fan of chronology. His breakout film “Reservoir Dogs” went back and forth in time constantly. The flashbacks in “Kill Bill Vol. 2” fill in the holes of the story as we head towards the inevitable final confrontation with Bill. One involves a black and white encounter between The Bride and Bill just before the massacre at the church. The scenes are filled with suspense since we already know that somewhere down the line four people will enter that church and shoot everyone from the groom to Rufus (Samuel L. Jackson) the piano player.

Yet Tarantino takes his time and allows them to talk first. As bloody and violent as his stories might be, they have some of the most entertaining and smart dialogue. His characters take time to have conversations, to discuss important things and sometimes to poke fun at their lifestyles. Before The Bride’s attack on Bud’s trailer, Bill warns him of her killing spree in Japan. Bud asks Bill if The Bride really killed 88 men, to which Bill points out they only called themselves The Crazy 88. “They just thought it sounded cool.” Well, it does. What were they going to call themselves? The Crazy 79?

All of the great actors saying this dialogue do a great job with their performances. Everyone has their moment in the sun, from Michael Madsen musing about retirement, to David Carradine delivering an analogy about life and death involving a gold fish. Also noteworthy is Michael Parks as retired Mexican pimp Esteban Vihaio. Parks is one of those actors most people have never heard about, but Tarantino and his friend Robert Rodriguez loved his early work, so they hire him every now and then. In “Kill Bill” he pulls double duty by playing both a pimp and Sheriff Earl McGraw in the first volume. Watch him play a deranged preacher in Kevin Smith’s “Red State.”

Some say revenge is sweet; others say it is a dish best served cold. The introduction of a character in the third act shows that if anything, revenge is complicated. Then of course there is the issue of the surviving characters left in The Bride’s path of destruction. Some of her victims’ relatives and friends might want to have a word with her in a couple of years. The fate of one character on her hit list in particular leaves the door open for a sequel. Will The Bride pick up her sword again? I certainly hope so.

Empire List #327: The Nightmare Before Christmas

2011-10-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

You know you have a cult hit on your hands when a movie inspires fashion. Walk into a rock or a Goth clothing store and odds are you will find hats or t-shirts with motifs from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Leave it to that Vincent Price obsessed director to come up with a movie where the monstrous citizens of Halloween Town take over Christmas. Each of his creations are animated not by computer but via stop-motion, the process in which objects are moved inch by inch and then recorded to give the illusion that inanimate objects are moving by themselves. It also works as a musical, with music and lyrics provided by long-time Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.

Released in October of 1993 as “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas,” despite being directed by Henry Selick, the film worried Disney executives because of it might be too scary for young children. I guess my parents thought the same thing since I had to discover that nightmare by myself. It wasn’t too difficult. Flip through your TV channels around October and odds are you will find it playing right after “Beetlejuice.”

But for the full experience, buy the DVD or Blu-Ray to get the informative behind-the-scenes. It turns out animating plastic figurines inch by inch is a lot of work. Best of all, the DVD comes equipped with some of Tim Burton’s early movies. These include “Vincent” an animated short about a young boy obsessed with Vincent Price, and “Frankenweenie” a reimagining of “Frankenstein” featuring a young boy in suburbia who brings his dog back to life.

“The Nightmare Before Christmas” opens with the camera zooming down to a forest where trees contain doors to towns that represent each holiday. As we zoom in on the door of Halloween Town, we meet its inhabitants in a musical number called “This is Halloween.” Their official leader is the mayor (Glenn Shadix) who, like most politicians, has two faces. The man in charge of Halloween is Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon), a tall skeleton with a round skull head who wears a suit and a bow-tie.

After this particular Halloween Jack is feeling bogged down by the routine of his work. He tells the undead musicians in the streets this was great Halloween just like the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that, etc. While wandering aimlessly in the forests, he finds the trees with the doors to each holiday and is particularly intrigued by the one for Christmas Town.

Once in Santa’s land, Jack is amazed by the lights, the food and the presents. Could this be the change he has been looking for? After a series of scientific experiments in which Jack unsuccessfully attempts to understand the meaning of Christmas, he convinces the monsters of Halloween Town to do their own version of the holiday by kidnapping Santa and delivering their own brand of presents. These include rat hats, possessed dolls, snakes, and shrunken heads. Seeing children open these presents may make you laugh, depending on your sense of humour.

No doubt about it this is a movie with a weird plot. How could Jack ever think this was a good idea in the first place? Moreover, how come Jack had never heard of Christmas before? Don’t these people ever visit other holiday towns? And for that matter, is there a Hanukkah town?

But now I am digging too deep. The point of this movie is to create visually unique landscapes for two of the world’s most famous holidays and then watch what happens when the creepy one takes over the cheery one. Since Tim Burton grew up watching horror movies in the sunny California suburbs, so I am sure he must have imagined that scenario plenty of times.

What makes this work is the stop-motion, the visuals and the music. Halloween Town is populated with vampires, monsters, ghosts, witches, and of course a mad scientist called Dr. Finkelstein (William Hickey). Their town is grey and cloudy, just like any regular October night really. By contrast, Christmas Town has that comfortable December snow, bright colours, and Santa’s cute little helpers singing Christmas carols. It all looks gorgeous and you appreciate it even more once you see how difficult it was to set up each frame.

The music is catchy and will fit right in at your Halloween party. If you’re a hard-core fan, try the 2006 re-release featuring Fall Out Boy, She Wants Revenge, Panic! at the Disco, and Marilyn Manson.

The stop-motion tradition lives on with movies like “James and the Giant Peach,” “Corpse Bride,” “Coraline,” and next year’s “ParaNorman.” Happy Halloween.

Empire List # 430: Big Trouble in Little China

2011-10-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Among the great partnerships between actors and directors you can count Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, John Wayne and John Ford, and my personal favourite, Kurt Russell and John Carpenter. Together they made an Elvis Pressley biography, a horror movie (“The Thing”), and a post-apocalyptic action movie (“Escape from New York”). With “Big Trouble in Little China” (1986) they tried a mash-up of three genres: comedy, martial arts, and action. The result is a blend of Chinese legends, monsters, kung fu fighting, and Kurt Russell trading quips with Kim Cattrall in the San Francisco underworld. Man, movies were crazy in the 80s.

I saw this particular genre mix back in 2009 while spending the summer in Vancouver as a summer student. Wonderful beaches, but since I only had three courses and didn’t know a lot of people in town I had a lot of free evenings. Always count on iTunes to have a large variety of titles at low prices if you want some home entertainment. Rather appropriate, since the movie was a cult hit on video. It’s the second chance medium for movies like that. First they burn at the box-office, then they’re brought back to life on home video and eventually someone is making a festival based on that one movie. Although given the crazy stuff that happen in Carpenter films, I don’t expect to see a “Big Trouble…” festival anytime soon.

The plot is so bizarre that the best way to approach it is through the eyes of Kurt Russell’s character. He plays Jack Burton, a fast-talking trucker who rolls into San Francisco’s Chinatown looking for a little fun with his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun). They go to the airport to pick up Wang’s fiancée Mio Yin (Suzee Pai) only for her to be kidnapped by a Chinese street gang. Jack and Wang chase them to Chinatown and are caught up in a fight between two ancient feuding societies who have mystical powers.

Their fight brings face-to-face with Lo Pan (James Hong) a 2000 year sorcerer who intends to use Mio Yin to…actually, I am not a 100% sure what he intends to do with her. I lost track of the plot when the guys who look Mortal Kombat characters showed up in the streets shooting lighting out of their eyes. Suffice it to say that Lo Pan is the villain and he has evil intentions towards the damsel in distress. Jack Burton will help his Chinese friends take him down because he has a hero complex and also because they stole his truck. What’s a hero without his ride?

Also, what is a hero without a leading lady? Kim Cattrall plays lawyer Gracie Law (not the most subtle name for a lawyer) who helps the citizens of Chinatown against the local crime lords. Unlike Jack, she actually knows a thing or two about the local culture so she joins in on the adventure. She is the brain between the two of them whereas Jack just likes to shoot, throw knives, punch and ask questions later.

What stands out about Russell’s character is the fact the he isn’t really the hero. If anything, he’s the sidekick. He’s just a truck driver, not some invincible special ops warrior on leave from a war. When he tries to fire a gun half the time he misses. Once he even shoots the ceiling and is knocked out by falling debris. Dennis Dun and the rest of the mostly Asian cast are all martial arts fighters who could probably beat him to a pulp if they had to.

Yet Kurt Russell is one of the reasons why the movie works. Well it didn’t work, it bombed at the box-office when it first came out, but like most of Carpenter’s movies it found new life on video. I guess over time people rediscovered this crazy movie featuring a thousand-year-old villain, exploding henchmen, and Kurt Russell firing one-liners like Bruce Campbell in “Evil Dead II.” Sometimes a concept is so crazy it can’t work on the big screen, but over time you can enjoy with a bag of chips and an ice-cold beer. It doesn’t hurt to be buzzed to have a good time at the movies.

The plot may be ludicrous, the special effects are admittedly sub-par by today’s standards, by “Big Trouble in Little China” survives by being a truck-load of fun with Kurt Russell at the wheel and John Carpenter giving him directions.

Empire List #289: John Carpenter's The Thing

2011-10-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

For my personal taste, most horror movies today have a lot of gore, but little suspense. In 1982, horror master John Carpenter made “The Thing,” a frightening story that had a lot of gore, very suspenseful scenes, a scary setting and memorable characters.

This being October and the weekend when the prequel to Carpenter’s version is released, it seems like an ideal time to revisit the 1982 version. The first time I saw this movie was in a basement, by myself, during one of those horror marathons they have on the Space channel during Halloween. The only thing missing was a rainstorm outside and scratching sound on my bedroom windows. It’s one of those movies that are scary to watch by yourself, but of you watch with other people it’s kind of funny. When I watched it as part of a double bill at the film club at my university (with David Cronenberg’s “The Fly”) we would laugh at some of the film’s more shocking moments, and also at the somewhat dated special effects. My ideal scenario: seeing this at a midnight screening followed by “Evil Dead II.” That’ll keep you up at night.

The film opens in Antarctica, where a Norwegian helicopter is chasing a dog across the snowy white plains. For some reason, the passenger is trying to kill that innocent-looking dog with a rifle and grenades. The chase leads to an American camp where the helicopter lands and the passenger blows up the helicopter by dropping a grenade in the snow. He then aims for the dog again but hits one of the Americans, prompting Gary (Donald Moffat) the station commander to shoot him dead with his revolver.

The members of the station are baffled by this behavior and assume that the people at the Norwegian camp have gone insane. Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) and R.J MacReady (Kurt Russell) a helicopter pilot, fly to the camp only to find it burned to the ground. One member has killed himself, while others are horribly disfigured. MacReady finds a room that contains what seems to be a giant empty coffin made of ice. VHS tapes later reveal that this coffin was found buried under the ice, along with is clearly a flying saucer.

The extent of the threat is discovered when the dog that was being chased by the Norwegians reveals itself to be a hideous beast and tries to take over the dogs’ bodies. An autopsy performed by Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley) informs all members of the station that the thing in question can imitate other life forms. Before long every man is suspecting each other. To top it all off, a storm is coming.

One of the reasons why this movie works is the atmosphere. These men are all trapped in a building made of silent corridors and dark rooms. A great travelling shot is used when the camera is moving along one of those corridors and you see a blurred reflection on a metal surface. Obviously it's the cameraman's reflection, but in terms of the story, you have no idea which character is walking down that corridor or if he is human. When the characters walk outside there is only snow and a howling wind. Anybody who has ever been in a blizzard can attest that it can be a creepy sight, especially at night. The wind is blowing in the darkness, there are dunes of snow everywhere and you can barely see two feet in front of you. Not a good time to run into a friend who might be an alien intent on taking over your body like a parasite.

The fact that the monster could be anyone is a masterstroke. It takes the movie from “Alien” territory into “Ten Little Indians” by Agatha Christie. Eventually MacReady becomes the de facto leader as the chain of command breaks down. He decides to tie everybody down and perform a blood test to see who is human by touching the blood with a hot needle. Of course once he finds out who isn't human, the thing is not going to just stand still and surrender.

When the thing does reveal itself, a lot of old school special effects are involved. This was before computer generated images, so all of the monster make-up and effects were hand-made. The half-transformed corpses look like grotesque statues from a horror museum. When a character gets both of his hands chopped off, a body double with no arms was used. Stop motion is used when the monster spews blood and separates itself from its human body. It may look amateurish to some, but at least you are looking at an actual object, not a computer image.

Even though this is clearly a B movie, the actors pull their weight. Kurt Russell's MacReady eventually clashes with the more temperamental Childs (Keith David) over who should be in charge since Gary no longer feels up to it. Wilford Brimley's Dr. Blair suffers a mental breakdown after discovering the power of the thing and attacks his fellow team members. Distrust and paranoia spreads amongst all the characters who live in fear of each other. "Trust is hard thing to come by these days" says MacReady to Blair, possibly echoing Cold War paranoia, which was most likely still very high back in the 80s.

The paranoia, the (old-school) special effects, strong characters, and suspenseful setting make John Carpenter's The Thing a classic of the genre. It wasn't a success in when it was first released, but thanks to VHS and DVD it has found a new and loyal audience. I try to watch my copy every Halloween. I am reminded of that station in Antarctica whenever I am walking outside during a blizzard and can hear the howling wind. Watch your back.

Empire # 432: X-Men 2

2011-10-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Among the dozens of comic-book movies that have come out in the past twelve years, “X2: X-Men United” is one of the best of the bunch. It has awesome special effects, an army of original characters, a menacing villain, and a strong plot. Like all of the movies in this particular franchise, it touches on themes such as racism, civil rights, and fear of the unknown. Only instead of people of different skin colour, it is people with mutant abilities who are being persecuted by fearful government agencies. Cheesy, but it makes great action scenes.

Ideally I should have seen a big comic-book movie like this with friends my age at some major multiplex in Canada. Instead when it came out in 2003 I was still living in Santiago, Chile, and on that particular occasion my dad wanted to spend some more time with me since he was home from work. I am the movie geek, so I get to pick the movie. Unfortunately, during the previews he asks me if this is a spy movie, meaning he had no idea what X-Men was about. So, I had to do one of the geekiest things ever, and explain to my dad what I knew of the X-Men universe, how it served as a metaphor for civil rights, and fill him in on the previous movie. Then again, how am I the geek? He used to watch “Star Trek: The Next Generation” every week.

The movie kicks off with an assassination attempt on the American president by Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) a blue-skinned mutant who can teleport from one end of the room to the next. The next day the president receives a visit from Colonel Stryker (Brian Cox), who uses the attack to receive an authorization for a military strike against a school for other mutants. To be fair, there is a jet under the basketball court, so that should at least warrant a government audit.

The school in question is Professor Charles Xavier’s (Patrick Stewart) school for gifted children, which offers refuge for children who have been rejected for being different, i.e. some have them can turn off TVs by blinking. Unfortunately for Striker’s troops, they have decided to attack when Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), the most kick-ass of all mutants, has returned to the school to find some answers concerning his nebulous past. Some mutants can control the weather, some can fly, some can go through walls, and yet Wolverine is just more fun to watch in a fight. He has metal claws that pop out his knuckles, is bulked up like a tank, fights like an animal, and enjoys a diet of beer and cigars. His fight against the soldiers is a highlight in the franchise.

Another of the more interesting characters is Magneto (Ian McKellen), a mutant with the ability to control metal. He is first seen in a prison reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter’s in “The Silence of the Lambs,” only it is built out of plastic. A villain in the first movie, Magneto believes mutants are “gods among insects” and has no problem with killing innocent bystanders if it means victory for mutants. Yet in war, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so the X-Men and Magneto must put aside their differences if they want so prevent a genocide orchestrated by the colonel.

All of this involves battles amongst mutants with various abilities who most of the time wear black leather outfits, or in Xavier’s case, a blue suit. On paper, the whole X-Men concept might have sounded too comic book to bring to the screen. Yet director Bryan Singer managed to make one of the best films in the genre by playing it straight while working with a strong script. One character decides to come to Magneto’s radical side, while another wants to live in peace with other humans, despite being rejected by his own family.

At 133 minutes, this is a somewhat long movie, but this is one of those cases where the length of the story is justified by all of the events happening. It takes time to get to the big climactic final battle at dam in Canada, but it’s worth the wait. Along the way the characters take time to talk, relationships are explored, and of course there is a great deal of exposition scenes where the villain discusses his evil plan. A story featuring a blue teleport might sound weird to grown-ups, but I think my dad liked the movie for its big ideas, action scenes, and acting by top actors such as Ian McKellen. Then again, maybe he just liked it because of Patrick Stewart who had top billing “Star Trek.”

Empire List #433: Good Will Hunting

2011-10-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

Gus Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting” is a very effective dramatic film that could appear in one of those “Before they were Famous” specials. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who were both supporting actors at the time, wrote the screenplay. Their words and individual performances earned them both Oscar nominations in 1997 before they went on to become major movie stars. Casey Affleck, brother of Ben, has a supporting role, and he also would eventually move on to bigger things.

I remember seeing the Oscars in 1997 and knowing this movie was a big deal, but I never got time to see it. I was probably too busy adjusting to living Chile, having recently moved from Newfoundland. About ten years later I finally rented it and watched it in my off-campus room near the University of Sherbrooke. I was studying English, not math, so I couldn’t really indentify with a main character who is a closeted math genius. Yet on some level, I think there is something for everyone in this story.

Matt Damon plays the titular Will Hunting, a young man living in Boston working a blue-collar job like his many loyal friends. He spends his days cleaning up at Harvard University, the Mount Everest of American education. One day as he is cleaning the floor in a classroom, he notices a mathematical equation on the board. With seemingly no difficulty he solves it, indicating he could do more than clean up on campus.

The following day Professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgärd) is pleasantly surprised to see someone has solved the problem on his board as he had left as a challenge to his students. He is further surprised when no one rises up to claim the credit. One night he catches Will solving yet another equation, but Will runs off as though shamed by his intelligence. Desperate to nurture this diamond in the rough, Lambeau bails out Will when he get into a fight with a police officer, on the condition that he becomes his student and he seeks counselling.

A funny montage shows Will mocking whatever councillor comes his way. It turns out he is not only good with numbers; he can also throw people off. As a last resource, Lambeau reaches out to his old colleague Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) with whom he has a tenuous history. Over time Sean does manage to break through with Will since he see through his defences.

Most importantly, they share about the one thing all men can talk about: women. Will has begun a relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver) a student about to graduate from Harvard with plans to further her education in California. Shamed of the poor neighbourhood where he grew up, Will is hesitant to let her into his life. Having lost his wife, Sean encourages him not too waste any time.

Despite his gift, Will is like all young men his age. He is at a crossroads and hesitates where to go next. Lambeau has many connections that could lead to high paying jobs but Will feels so much loyalty to his childhood friends that he wishes to stay in Boston and work with them as a labourer. Even his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck) believes that would be the wrong move. If any of Will’s friends had his gift with numbers, most of them would probably never hesitate to leave.

Those honest scenes are what earned this movie the Academy Award for best original screenplay. What earned Robin Williams his Oscar for best supporting actor are the therapy scenes between Sean and Will. One of my favourites was Sean’s re-telling of a historic Baseball game involving his future wife. I am not a baseball fan, but you could feel it was a one heck of a game.

This movie is about finding your place in life and choosing what is most important to you as you embark on your journey. I am no math genius nor do I have Will’s emotional baggage, but having recently been through college and university, I know what it’s like to hesitate where to go next in life. We all have to make heavy choices some day. Seeing this movie is a very good choice for the writing, superb acting and directing.

Empire List #434: The Cat Concerto

2011-09-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

I am glad there is a cartoon on this list. Granted it’s a bit of a stretch to consider a 7-minute Tom and Jerry cartoon a movie, but it is the best kind of cartoon. “The Cat Concerto,” directed by cartoon masters William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, is simple, entertaining and has inventive animation.

This short may have come out in 1947, but like most of the great cartoons, I got to watch it in the mid-90s. This was before Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Yogi Bear, and The Flintstones all ended up on Teletoon Retro and Seth MacFarlane swooped in with Family Guy. For me these cartoons weren’t just a form of entertainment, they were teaching tools. Back then I was living in Chile so the cartoons were always in Spanish. They didn’t teach me grammar, but I did learn that “What’s up doc?” in Spanish is “Que hay de nuevo Viejo?”

Not that I could ever get any language lessons from Tom and Jerry. With these two it’s always the same basic premise. Tom the cat is doing something around the house, Jerry the mouse starts bothering him, and they start fighting without ever saying a word. In “The Cat Concerto” Tom is a pianist trying to play Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, which wakes up Jerry who is sleeping inside the piano.

At first Jerry is happy to just sit on the piano and watch, but Tom finds him distracting and flips him off. As Daffy Duck once told Donald Duck, “This means war.” Jerry fights back by putting a trap on one of the keys, playing with Tom’s chair, and jumping on the piano’s chords. Tom tries to crush Jerry with the keys and attempts to knock him out with those tiny hammers inside the piano. As all the fighting takes place, the action still manages to match the music. Even if Tom is playing with his feet you get the illusion that it’s him playing the instrument.

This is all very entertaining despite the age of this cartoon. It makes sense for it to be on Empire magazine’s list. Yet, Tom and Jerry they are not my favourite. When it comes to old school cartoons, I’ve always been more of a Looney Tunes fan. I think it’s the lack of dialogue. Tom and Jerry never say anything, but just about every character in the Bugs Bunny universe has a catchphrase. Daffy has “You’re despicable,” Tweety has “I thought I saw a putty cat” and Sylvester has “Sufferin succotash.” And how funny is it when Will E. Coyote and the Sheep Dog go to work in the morning and say “Hello Ralph” “Hello Sam”?

Tom and Jerry are great together, Hanna and Barbera can make great cartoons that mesh physical humour and classical music, but when it comes to old-school animated shorts, I am siding with Warner Bros.

TIFF: One Year Later

2011-09-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

A year ago I had the chance to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time. I had only heard about it over the years through news articles, blogs and TV coverage. Like everything on TV, it doesn’t seem real until you get to see it in person. Sure enough, I got to see “Monsters” directed by newcomer Gareth Edwards and even got to ask him a question after the movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should do so as soon as you can.

I also got to see “John Carpenter’s The Ward” his first movie in nine years. A horror movie, of course. Not his best one, but still pretty solid work from one of the masters of horror.

My friend Shannon Scott, who used to work for the festival, was nice enough to explain to me where I could buy tickets and what places to visit. I would have bought tickets for every day of the week, but I was living off student loans and was starting a semester at Sheridan College, in Oakville. Still, thanks for the information Shannon.

At the time I was studying Journalism-New Media, a very useful post-graduate program. Professionals from the media industry teach you the latest technology used in news agencies including Final Cut, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash. They teach you how to shoot footage using Sony-XD cams, how to edit, how to write for print, how to write for the web and how to work in a professional newsroom. In short, everything you need to know to be a journalist in this brave new world of blogs, Twitter, Google+ and whatever is coming next.

Now, one year later, TIFF is back to kick off Oscar season. My long-term dream would be to join the hundreds of journalists, bloggers and movie fans with Twitter accounts currently attending the festival. It would be a joy to attend a premiere, interview someone as a professional from the industry and most importantly, review dozens of movies. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

A lot of my fellow students found internships in the Toronto area following the end of the semester. Some of these led to jobs, some didn’t. My internship was in the small town of Perpignan, in the South of France. Because classes ended in April and the internship began in late June, I found myself with no other choice but to move back to my mom’s apartment in Quebec City (where unfortunately most of the movies don’t play in the original language). The internship itself was great: I got to meet some of the best people I had ever had the pleasure of working with, I got to work as an interpreter, and I now have a published feature story (inperpignan.net).

Now the internship is over, I am home once again and like Alexis Bledel “Post Grad” I am vehemently trying to enter the job market. (Although my grandma is nothing like Carol Burnett.) I try to send job applications every day to any news agency, whether the job is in Rouyn-Noranda, Winnipeg, Montreal, or Tilsonburg. So far my only interview has been with the editor of AskMen.com in Montreal. He was very nice, but three weeks later I am getting the impression I didn’t get the job.

I still write about movies of course. The few people who read this blog know that once a week I review movies that are part of Empire magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Times. I try to make my reviews stand out by saying where and when I first saw these movies.

It was the idea of my Introduction to News Gathering and Writing teacher, Ken Wolff, to make my blog different. We all had to blog as part of our homework and I had been writing amateur reviews since early 2009. Ken pointed out that writing reviews on the web is too generic, so I should try to make it more journalistic. I suggested the list approach and he agreed that added something. Sometimes I am describing an experience, such as when I am remembering the first time I saw a truly groundbreaking movie, and sometimes the movie just so happened to play on TV one night. Life can be boring like that.

So, what are my hopes for next year’s TIFF? My ultimate goal would be that a year from now I will be living in Toronto, I will have a job with a reasonable salary, I will reunite with my friends from Sheridan and I will be able to work the festival. I don’t care if I work behind the scenes, in front of the camera, if I write about it or if they put me in charge of monitoring Twitter feeds. As long as I get to watch the movies and revisit the TIFF Bell Lighthouse I would be happy.

In the meantime, I can’t afford to give up. I will keep on sending resumes and cover letters every day until something happens. I can still keep track of the festival thanks to active bloggers like Roger Ebert, Grace Wang, the people at Movies.com and the people at Moviefone. Maybe next year, maybe the year after, or five years from now, I hope to join them.

Oh, and best of luck to everyone from JNM (Journalism-New Media) still looking for a job. I’ll see you around.

Empire List #435: American Psycho

2011-09-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

Five years before he donned a cape and played Batman, Christian Bale played a truly monstrous man in “American Psycho.” His Patrick Bateman is a vane, arrogant, misogynist Wall Street trader who loves to stare at himself while having sex with two prostitutes in his rich Manhattan penthouse. He values money above all else, dresses well, works out obsessively and uses more skin care products than some Hollywood actresses. Oh, and he occasionally kills people with axes, knives and chainsaws. As if working on Wall Street wasn’t bad enough.

The violence and depravity in this movie is legendary. Based on a 1991 novel by Brett Easton Ellis, the adaptation attracted the likes of David Cronenberg and Oliver Stone as directors and Leonardo DiCaprio as Bateman. Fortunately, the task of filming and performing the scenes of sex and violence fell upon the shoulders of Marie Harron (“I Shot Andy Warhol”) and Christian Bale. The result was a cult movie whose violent scenes were both brutal and somewhat comical.

This is not just my opinion. Back in College in Quebec City of few of my classmates would YouTube the scene where Bateman hacks Paul Allen (Jared Leto) to death with an axe to the sound of Huey Lewis and the News’ “Hip to Be Square.” Shocking the first time you see it, but they thought it was hilarious. A few years later I got in on the joke while living off-campus near the University of Sherbrooke. If it’s October and we’re only a few days away from Halloween, why not rent a movie filled with blood, depravity, naked women and Christian Bale running with a chainsaw?

Set in the 1980s, at a time when Wall Street was running unchecked and brokers thought they were masters of the universe (déjà fucking vu) Patrick Bateman barely stands out amongst the other coke-addled millionaires. A great scene defines how these men view each other when they compare their business cards during a boardroom meeting. Whoever has the most expensive card with the best ink wins (i.e. has the bigger dick).

Yet Bateman is clearly more unhinged than anyone in the boardroom. An early montage shows him exercising religiously while delivering a monologue about his diet and beauty regiment. Like a carefully oiled machine he plans everything in his day, including murder. When he kills Paul Allen, the winner of the better card contest, he has clearly thought this out. He has him sit on a couch surrounded by newspapers while he puts on a raincoat and enthusiastically talks about his love of Huey Lewis.

This guy was Dexter Morgan before “Dexter” became a TV show. Except unlike Dexter, we never really learn Bateman’s motivations. Just why does he randomly kill a homeless man in a dark alley? Was he jealous of Paul Allen’s success so he just had to hack him to death? Has sex become so dull to him that he needs to kill prostitutes in order to feel anything?

A scene in which an ATM asks him to feed it a live cat suggests he just might be crazy, plain and simple. But I don’t believe “American Psycho” is just about a psychopath. Otherwise Bateman would be just another murderer living in some motel hacking tourists.

The movie is about the excess that comes with money. Bateman and his friends define themselves by who can access the most expensive restaurant in the city, who has the biggest apartment and of course who has the most money in the bank. It’s all about them and to hell with the rest of the world.

Bateman’s murders are the just satirical exaggerations. It would be pretty shocking to find a Wall Street with corpses in his closet like Bateman, but it wouldn’t be surprising to find one with the same lifestyle.

Empire List #436: Beauty and the Beast

2011-08-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

Chances one of the first movies your parents showed you was a Disney movie. Disney is the safe choice: its movies always have cute and cuddly characters, moral lessons you can carry with you for the rest of your life, scenes depicting good triumphing over evil, and often, singing characters. Occasionally the Mouse House breaks new grounds in animation and gets a shot at an Academy Award for best film. “Beauty and the Beast” the 1991 version by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, is one such film.

I have to admit, the very first time I saw this movie parts of it scared me. In my defence I must have been around six years old and what the titular Beast got mad, I wouldn’t have liked to be sitting in his lazy-boy. It wasn’t even my choice. It was movie time in the first grade so of course the teacher went with the Disney catalogue and closed the curtains as we sat on the carpet. I am not sure if I even understood everything the first time since back then I was living in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and I was only beginning to learn how to speak English. What I am sure of is that I would have preferred “Aladdin” because nothing beats Robin Williams in genie mode. However, “Beauty and the Beast” does have its charms.

A prologue informs the viewers that “once upon a time” there was an enchantress disguised as a beggar woman who knocked at the door of a prince’s castle seeking shelter. He promptly told her to get lost, spurning her wrath and causing her to transform the prince into a hideous beast. The only way to lift the curse is for him to find true love before a magical rose loses all of her petals or else he will be a beast forever.

The Beauty comes in the form of Belle (Paige O’Hara), the daughter of an inventor in a French village. Belle loves her father, loves her books, and occasionally loves to spontaneously start singing in the streets to express how she feels about her life. What she doesn’t like is Gaston (Richard White); the pompous local hero who assumes the whole world loves him as much as he loves himself. He could have any woman in the village, but sets his sights on Belle believing she will immediately jump at the chance of being his obedient wife. What a dolt.

When Maurice, Belle’s father, leaves the village to take his latest invention to a fair, he gets lost in the woods and is attacked by wolves. He seeks refuge at the Beast’s castle and is surprised to be received by talking furniture, which are nonetheless very accommodating. Unfortunately the Beast (Robbie Benson) is furious at seeing they’ve let an intruder in the house and locks Maurice away in the dungeon. Led by Maurice’s horse to the castle, Belle convinces the Beast to let him go in exchange for her life.

Over time of course, the beautiful Belle manages the melt the cold Beast’s heart. It doesn’t hurt that the Beast owns a library the size of a theatre, leading to a great moment when he pulls the curtain to reveal the rows and rows of books much to her delight. Those are the parts that the girls loved. Isn’t that romantic? Being a guy I preferred the battle scenes in the third act when the jealous Gaston forms an angry mob with pitchforks and heads to the castle to slay the Beast. It never occurred to them they might get attacked by feather dusters, teacups, and wardrobes.

“Beauty and the Beast” is often praised for the dance number when Belle and the Beast dance in a computer-generated ballroom as the camera dollies around them in a simulated 3D space. Technically impressive, but my favourite musical number is when Lumiere (Jerry Orbach) the maitre d’ turned into a candlestick performs “Be Our Guest” for Belle in the dining room. He is so enthusiastic he manages to make the uptight clock-shaped butler Cogsworth (David Ogden Stiers) join in on the dance.

What was even more impressive was seeing all of this live on stage. During a high school trip to New York City I got to see “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway. I don’t care if you hate Disney, musicals, or even New York. You simply have to see this play for the costumes. You’d think it was impossible to make a clock costume with swinging pendulum inside, but they did it. Now, if only they could make “Aladdin he Broadway Musical” with Robin Williams…

Empire List #437: Spider-Man

2011-08-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

Growing up I used to watch two superheroes on T.V: Batman and Superman. To me Spider-Man was just this old cartoon from the 60’s with a cheesy theme song. So when I saw the first teaser trailer for Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” that was to come out in 2002 (infamously showing a helicopter caught in a web between the twin towers) I didn’t think much of it. “Spider-Man? Who cares?” Shows what I know.

Months after 9/11 I had moved from Lima, Peru to Santiago, Chile and was starting over yet again in a new high school. This was to be my last year in South America before going back to Canada. “Spider-Man” had been released in North America months before and was being hailed as one of the summer’s biggest hits so it was probably worth the admission price after all. Back then I used to hang out with just a few expatriates from Quebec so me and another Quebecer went to see it with our parents. Call it one last evening out before leaving it all behind.

This being a superhero movie, we go through the usual sequence of events when dealing with the hero’s origins. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is a high school kid from New York bitten by a genetically engineered spider while visiting a science lab. Back at his house in the suburb he tells his aunt May (Rosemary Harris) he is feeling sick and goes upstairs to collapse in his room. The next morning he wakes up pumped up and with six-pack abs. That spider must have been on some steroids.

After experimenting with his newfound strength, Peter realizes he can climb walls, shoot spider webs out of his arms and jump ten feet in the air. Much like a normal person, he chooses to use his strength for personal gain and competes in a wrestling match to earn some extra cash. The cash will be used to buy a car to impress the “girl next door” Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), who will later play the role of “girlfriend in distress.” He wins the match (during which Sam Raimi’s old friend Bruce “hail to the king” Campbell has a cameo) but the manager won’t give him the money. A burglar then robs the place and out of spite, Peter lets him get away. Unfortunately, the same burglar later shoots Peter’s uncle (Cliff Robertson). From then on, it’s time to fight crime in New York.

A superhero is only as good as its villain and “Spider-Man” has one that reminded me of Batman’s Joker with his mad cackling. Willem Dafoe, always a good casting choice, plays Norman Osborn, a scientist and CEO of a company that provides weapons for the army. His latest project is a strength-enhancement serum, which so far has had the unfortunate side effect of making rats crazy. To salvage his contract and save his company Norman tests the serum on himself. Yeah, that’ll work. The serum turns him into the demented Green Goblin, who flies around the city skyscrapers with a glider equipped with grenades, machine guns, and rocket launchers.

That’s pretty much it. Spider-Man and the Green Goblin will of course face off at the end of the movie while Mary Jane’s life hangs in the balance. As a superhero movie, “Spider-Man” didn’t bring anything new to the table, but I found Willem Dafoe to be great not just as a maniac, but as a man slowly losing his mind. There is a great scene when he his alone in his penthouse and he hears a voice echoing in the room. When he realizes the voice is coming from inside his head, he begins talking to himself in the mirror, changing facial expressions every time the Goblin takes over.

Another scene-stealer is J.K Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, the editor of the Daily Bugle where Peter gets a job as a part-time photographer. With a cigar always nearby, Larry King suspenders, and a pencil moustache, this guy makes it his personal quest to unmask Spider-Man and demonize him in his paper. Who cares if he saves people, just as long as it sells paper? Fox News would love this guy.

Two things happened after this movie came out. First a couple of girls in school started calling me Spider-Man. Not unwarranted, but I would have preferred Batman. Second, superhero movies started coming out just about every summer. We’ve had a lot of good ones (“Spider-Man 2,” “Iron Man,” The Dark Knight,” “X2: X-Men United”), some so-so (“Hulk,” “The Punisher,” “Daredevil”) and some utter disasters (“Catwoman,” “The Spirit”). Next summer, exactly ten years after the first “Spider-Man” movie, the studio will restart the franchise with a whole new cast and director. I guess they’re hoping to repeat history. My biggest complaint about all this: no Sam Raimi in the director’s chair means no Bruce Campbell cameo.

Empire List #438: The Lost Boys

2011-08-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

Before Joel Schumacher went ahead and temporarily ruined the Batman franchise for all of use, he actually directed a terrific horror movie. The decade was the 80s, the cast included Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, and the monsters were vampires. Despite featuring one of the most overexposed movie monsters of our time, “The Lost Boys” stands out in the genre for its combination of horror, comedy, and great effects.

This being a cult film from the 80s, I first heard about it from movie websites and magazine articles. Mostly the articles complained about how the sequels that came out decades later were simply not as good as the original. Ever noticed that whenever a studio waits twenty years to make a sequel, it’s never as good as the original? Looking at you “Indiana Jones 4.” I got to see the original in this franchise when it was playing on TV on Halloween. I don’t know about the sequels, but this movie does seem pretty hard to top.

The film begins when Lucy Emerson (Diane Wiest) a just-divorced mother moves to the coastal town of Santa Clara with her two boys, Michael (Jason Patric) and younger brother Sam (Corey Haim). As they drive through town, the Doors’ “People are strange” is playing in the background. Appropriate, as their destination is filled with the sort of strange people you usually see on California beaches. They move into the house of their grandfather (Barnard Hughes) who among other things, practices taxidermy. Enjoy your new home, boys.

While exploring the boardwalk by the beach Sam meets Edgar and Alan Frog (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), two young boys who apparently live alone and operate their own comic book store. The Frog brothers warn Sam the reason why so many people go missing at night in Santa Clara is the local vampire problem. They even advertise themselves as vampire hunters and give Sam tips on how to spot the blood sucking demons. Of course Sam shrugs off their warnings and goes off his merry way thinking they have read one too many comic books.

It turns out the Frogs warned the wrong brother. During Michael’s exploration of the town, he meets Star (Jami Gertz) a beautiful woman who hangs out with a local gang led by David (Kiefer Sutherland, years before he became Jack Bauer). David’s gang likes to party all night and live life on the edge. They race around town in motorcycles with total disregard for the safety of others or their own. They even hang under a bridge and dare Michael to let go. That should have given him a clue right there. Then they offer him a drink of something from a wine bottle, but it isn’t red wine.

Soon Sam begins to notice changes in his brother and thinks maybe these crazy Frog brothers might not be so crazy after all. When he returns to them, they explain the vampires have a leader, who once killed, will release the others from their curse. Suspicion fall on Max (Edward Herrmann) a local businessman who unfortunately is dating Sam’s mom. This leads to some funny moments during a dinner scene when the brothers try to expose Max with garlic and mirrors.

“The Lost Boys” knows all the clichés about vampire movies and plays with them. With all the sunlight in California, how would vampires survive in the daytime? Simple: they hang upside down in a cave like giant bats. Also if you shoot a vampire with holy water from a water pistol, will it burn its face? Worth a shot.
The production team placed a lot of effort into the cinematography. Most notably when the vampires are flying and the audience gets a P.O.V shot as the camera descends from the sky and heads for a potential victim. Kudos should also go to the make-up department. These are not the glittery vampires from “Twilight.” When they get burned by sunlight or impaled with wooden stakes, their skin gets toasted and the blood flows profusely. Some of the fights in the third act reminded me “Evil Dead II,” another cult classic from the 80s.

With all of these brutal gory films that came out during that decade, sometimes I feel sorry I was born in 86 and missed it all. From what I read the fashion was horrible, but the music and movies were awesome. The decade that gave us John Hughes also gave us Indiana Jones, the first “Die Hard,” and “Ghostbusters.” “The Lost Boys” is in good company.

Empire List #439: Grosse Pointe Blank

2011-08-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

One of the most immoral things you can do in life is kill someone. If you kill people for money than you are trying to win the award for immoral person of the year. However, what if you were a killer who can rationalize his actions and you see murder for hire as a job no different than selling furniture? Now imagine you have been invited to your high school reunion. That is the premise for George Armitage’s “Grosse Point Blank” (1997) starring John Cusack as the hitman. A wise casting choice since Cusack gained prominence playing romantic leads in 80s teen comedies. What if that same character came back to this John Hughes universe but his job was to kill people?

This is one of those movies that I have watched progressively over the years. I missed it at the movie theatres, but I saw bits and pieces of it while living in Chile. Eventually I decided to watch the whole thing and found it in a Montreal HMV store as one of those double features the store uses to get rid of its old movies. It came with “High Fidelity” another Cusack hit, although a much different kind of comedy. I love the way this particular movie manages to create scenes of brutal violence and still make you laugh. It’s pretty surreal to see Dan Aykroyd barging into a house, guns blazing, while singing “I’ll be shooting you around the mountain when I come.”

Cusack plays Martin Q. Blank who begins the movie by assembling a sniper rifle inside an apartment building. There is no pressure for him in this, as he is also having a phone conversation with Marcella (Joan Cusack) his secretary. She informs him he has received an invitation to his 10-year high school reunion in Grosse Point, Michigan. “Don’t play with me, you know what I do for a living,” he says before shooting another killer riding a bicycle across the street.

Back at the office Marcella insists destiny seems to be saying he has to go home. After botching a recent assignment, Martin has to take an additional contract for his employer and the assignment just so happens to be in Michigan. After an awkward talk with his reluctant psychiatrist Dr. Oatman (Alan Arkin) about the pressures of his job, Martin agrees he might need a time off.

Unfortunately it won’t be a quiet weekend. Rival hitman Grocer (Dan Aykroyd) wants to form a hitman’s union to control the competition. So many freelancers running wild since the fall of the Soviet Union you see? Scorned by Martin’s refusal to join and the fact that he keeps losing jobs to Martin, Grocer rats him out to the government. Two National Security agents (Hank Azaria and K. Todd Freeman) follow Martin and wait for him to doing something illegal to take him out. In case that doesn’t work, Grocer also rats him out a Basque terrorist called Felix LaPoubelle (Benny Urquidez) who wants Martin dead. Incidentally, “LaPoubelle” means “the trash” in French. That guy must really love his family, because I would have changed my last name years ago.

Despite the life and death situation, Martin has other things on his mind. Mainly, will Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver) the girl he abandoned before prom night, ever forgive him? She does, but not before confronting live on the local radio station where she works as a DJ. After more pleasant reminiscing, Martin decides to amend the past and asks Debi to be his date to the high school reunion. It promises to be an interesting evening to say the least.

In terms of comedy, this is not the funniest movie ever made, but it is probably one of the best comedies about a contract killer. It deals with Martin’s situation in clever ways. Worried about what to say when people ask him about his job, he decides to tell the truth. People assume he is joking and get in on the joke. Even Debi’s father (Mitchell Ryan) tells him “Good for you. It’s a growth industry.”

A lot of humour is also found at the reunion itself. I have never been to a high school reunion, because I have been to too many high schools, but I imagine the one depicted in the movie is pretty accurate. You have the same cast of characters: the jocks, the nerds, the bullies, and the outcasts. They have grown older, fatter, but not very wiser. Martin’s best friend Paul (Jeremy Piven, from before Entourage) complains the girls who were ignoring him in high school are still ignoring him at the reunion. Such is life.

Empire List #474: Enter the Dragon

2011-07-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

Before Tony Jaa, Jet Li, and Jackie Chan there was Bruce Lee. The man has been dead since the 1970s yet say his name and images of martial art fights spring to mind. He died way too early leaving behind only a handful of films, a few of them unfinished. Fortunately, Robert Clouse’s “Enter the Dragon” was completed before his death on July 20, 1973. As far as martial arts films go, it is one of the best and features the master in top shape.

Whenever I write for this blog I try to describe the impression I had when I watched the film for the first time. Sometimes it’s a memorable moment, such as watching a game-changing movie on the big screen. This however, is a rather ordinary moment since I watched “Enter the Dragon” yesterday evening on TV in my mom’s apartment in Quebec City. Life is ordinary sometimes.

Yet when it comes to Bruce Lee movies I still have a personal movie anecdote. About two years ago my brother bought a DVD box set of Bruce Lee’s films for Asian studio Golden Harvest. Nice item to have for any film buff, although I found the films to be lacking in terms of story. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I have the box set, but the stories seemed somewhat repetitive: Bruce Lee plays a martial arts experts, bad guys go after him or his friends, and he beats the bad guys to a pulp while screaming like an animal. The dialogue is ordinary, the acting fair, and the production values varied in quality.

“Enter the Dragon,” the first martial arts film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio, is an entirely different beast. Once again Lee plays a martial arts expert (called Lee) fresh off a Shaoling temple in Hong Kong. A British intelligence officer called Braithwaite (Geoffrey Weeks) wants him to participate in a martial arts tournament organized by a crime lord. Braithwaite’s organization knows the crime lord is into drug smuggling and prostitution but they have no proof. So they need Lee to travel to the island where Han (Shi Kien) is holding the tournament, confirm he is a criminal and the cavalry will swoop in to save the day.

Of course the fight needs to be personal for the hero and Lee has two reasons to be mad at the evil Han. Firstly, he was once a Shaolin student and has disgraced their tradition with his evil ways. Secondly, Han’s bodyguard O’Hara (Robert Wall) attacked Lee’s sister, resulting in her suicide. Time for some roundhouse kicks.

One thing that sets this movie apart from other Bruce Lee movies is the supporting characters. One his way to the island, Lee meets two fellow martial arts experts, both of them Americans. Roper (John Saxon) is a playboy and a gambler who left the America with a pile of debts. Williams (Jim Kelly) is an African-American who beats two racist police officers outside of his martial arts school. He looks like he wandered off from a blaxploitation movie and gets one of the movie’s best lines: “Man, you’re straight out of a comic book.”

That line is actually well deserved since he is talking to the villainous Han, although he is not out of a comic book. He is clearly copied from the early James Bond films: Han has a hideout on an island, an army of henchmen wearing the same uniform, a room filled with torture devices, and sharp knives he can attach to the hole where his hand used to be. Oh! He also has white kitty cat.

This all may be unoriginal by today’s standards, but it is highly entertaining. As with all martial arts films, the third act must have prolonged battle scene between the hero and the henchmen followed by a fight between the hero and villain. That last fight takes place in a hall of mirrors where Han is fighting with metal claws that belonged to either Freddy Krueger or Wolverine. Hard to tell, but the point is they are very sharp, adding to the tension.

This may be the best movie Bruce Lee ever made and one of the best in the genre. Yet there is one fight that you find on his earlier films but not in this one: a fight between Lee…and Chuck Norris. Yes. That happened. I am glad I have my DVD box set because that fight alone deserves to be on film, even if it’s not in Bruce Lee’s best movie.

Empire List #440: Akira

2011-07-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

The least you can say about the Japanese people is that they are a resilient bunch. They were bombed twice with nuclear bombs at the end of World War II, their economy was left in ruins, and their empire was crumbled by the new emerging American one. How did they recover? They became the world’s best provider of electronics. Read the end credits of any Nintendo game, most of the names are Japanese. But video games weren’t enough. They also emerged as a global influence on comic books and cartoons with manga and anime. If you are ever interested in learning about these two art forms, you couldn’t do better than Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 anime movie “Akira,” based on his own best selling two-part manga.

I saw this movie as part of my Friday night film club at the University of Sherbrooke in the fall of 2008. That night OMASUS (Obscure Movie Appreciation Society of the University of Sherbrooke) was showing a double feature comprising of “Blade Runner” and “Akira.” Appropriate, since “Akira” has shades of an animated “Blade Runner.” Both films feature a dystopian future, massive cities, and a-many flying vehicles. This was one of my first anime movies so I didn’t quite know what to expect. In retrospect, I am still not sure of what I saw.

Since our club president is as big a film fan as I am, he chose to show the movie in the original Japanese with English subtitles. That never bothers me, and it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. “Akira” is a visual treat, featuring 1980s hand-drawn animation that depicts a sprawling metropolis of the future, bike chases, satellites firing laser beams, and a character that morphs into a gigantic blob of skin and muscle.

The plot as a whole is difficult to describe, but it begins simply. In the far-off future of 2019 (not so far-off anymore), a bike war is taking place in the city of Neo-Tokyo. Young Shotaro Kaneda (Mitsuo Iwata) and his best friend Tetsuo Shima (Nozomu Sasaki) are racing across the streets at night on hover bikes, while fighting a rival gang that wears clown masks. Suddenly Tetsuo crashes his bike when he almost runs over what looks like a boy, except the boy has grey hair and wrinkly skin. Then things start to get really interesting

Army helicopters arrive to capture the boy. With them is a girl in a hover chair with the same condition as the old boy, who convinces him to come along peacefully. The troops are led by Colonel Shikishima (Taro Ishida), an imposing figure who has a lot on his mind. It turns out the colonel was part of an army program that 31 years ago performed medical experiences on Akira, a boy with extraordinary mental powers. The result of the experiment was the destruction of Tokyo, and the beginning of World War III. And wouldn’t you know it, the colonel discovers that the hospitalized Tetsuo has similar powers to the late Akira, whose remains are buried under an Olympic stadium.

Fearing that Tetsuo could repeat history, the army decides to capture him and kill him if need be. Bad idea. As his powers grow, Tetsuo loses control and wipes people out in fits of anger. Shooting him doesn’t solve the problem it makes it worse.

Meanwhile, Kaneda learns the fate of his friend and decides to rescue him. He joins forces with a terrorist faction, tries to flirt with Kei (Mami Koyama), one of their members he met in prison, and infiltrates the massive government building where Tetsuo is held. Unfortunately, by the time he reaches him Tetsuo is no longer his friend.

Tetsuo goes mad with power and develops a god complex. He wants to make Kaneda pay for every time he looked down on him or made him feel unworthy of the gang. He also learns the fate of Akira and decides to unearth his remains at the stadium to gain as much power as possible. Then the destruction increases exponentially.

The army does everything it can to stop him, but Tetsuo is seemingly indestructible. Scientists scramble to understand what their readings are telling them. Religious nut-jobs run into the streets saying it’s a sign of the end. Chaos reigns in the streets. The colonel stages a coup against the government. Tanks fire everywhere. It’s a load of fun.

By the time we reached the last frame and the dust settled I wasn’t quite sure of what I had just seen. As amazing as the story might be visually, the third act does get confusing when it goes into overdrive. The conclusion also left me confused, but at least I thoroughly enjoyed the ride getting there.

This film definitely fit its cult status and I am glad I saw it with other film fans. I have read that Hollywood has been trying to make their version of the movie for years. Best of luck to them. I would hate to be the guy writing the script for this crazy story. Could be worth it for the wide shots of New Tokyo, or as it will undoubtedly be the case, New Manhattan.

Empire List #441: Being John Malkovich

2011-06-19T09:10:00.003-07:00

You know the old saying “you can’t make this stuff up”? Writer Charlie Kaufman comes up with movie ideas that are so ludicrous they simply have to be made up. If you look at some of his writing credits, it’s a miracle any of his movies ever got made. How did he pitch the script for “Being John Malkovich” and got Spike Jonze to direct it? “A man finds a portal into the head of John Malkovich and is then ejected into a New Jersey turnpike. Oh, and the portal is located in the 7 ½ floor of an office building in New York City.” If I had been the Hollywood producer listening to that pitch, I would probably have had a few follow-up questions.

I first heard of this movie when I saw the trailer on TV during one of my summer vacations in Quebec City. My first thought was, that is one weird movie. My second was “who the heck is John Malkovich?” Eventually I saw “Con Air” on VHS and then I knew. Then around 2009, when I was living off-campus at the university of Sherbrooke, I saw that “Being John Malkovich” was available on iTunes rentals. By then I got curious and since I had really liked Spike Jonze’s and Charlie Kaufman’s other collaboration “Adaptation,” I thought it was worth checking out.

John Cusack plays Craig Schwartz, an unemployed puppeteer in New York City. His wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz, hiding under bushy hair and a lot of make-up) is so obsessed with pets she has animal cages in their apartment. In an attempt to get out of his rut, Craig gets a filing job at LesterCorp, located on the 7 ½ floor of the Martin Flemmer Building. That strange architectural design is explained during an orientation video presented by the company owner, Dr Lester (Orson Bean).

Despite the low ceiling, the offices of LesterCorp are apparently like any other boring modern offices. Craig even tries an office romance with fellow employee Maxine (Catherine Keener) but is quickly rejected. He becomes interesting in her eyes when he discovers a hidden door behind one of the filing cabinet. The door reveals a dark tunnel that seems to go on forever. Curious, Craig crawls through the tunnel until he sucked inside and finds himself looking at a table through the eyes of actor John Malkovich. Fifteen minutes later he falls somewhere in New Jersey.

Instead of asking questions to management or getting his brain checked, he tells Maxine about the portal and together they decide to charge people $200 for the experience of looking through the eyes of John Malkovich. Then things start to get weird.

Not only does Craig end up telling Lotte about the portal, but also Lotte ends up falling for Maxine while in Malkovich’s body. Craig becomes jealous, locks up Lotte in one of her animal cages, and dates Maxine through Malkovich. And you thought Internet dating was weird.

What is amazing is how these characters all deal with these situations. They all seem to inhabit this alternate universe where somehow it makes perfect to charge people to go inside somebody’s head. Wouldn’t any of the people going into Malkovich’s think about telling somebody about this? That would make for a confusing Tweet: “I am now going inside John Malkovich.”

You have to give Malkovich credit though. The script makes him jump through some pretty weird hoops as people turn his head into their own personal amusement park. Meanwhile John Cusack evolves from an under-achieving puppeteer to a power-hungry manipulator who thinks Malkovich should become his new puppet.

The movie is definitely worth watching for two sequences in particular. The first is when Malkovich discovers the portal and demands to go inside. What happens when you go inside your own head? Think about the effect that happens when two mirrors face each other. The second sequence is when two characters enter the portal at the same time and start fighting inside Malkovich’s subconscious. As they fight they jump through some of Malkovich’s memories, changing the setting every ten second. That must cause one massive headache.

As creative as the movie is, and as good as the performances are, by the end I thought the same thing I thought the first time I saw the previews: this is weird. It’s not just the concept; it’s the characters and the way they behave. I just didn’t buy the romance between Lotte and Maxine. It felt forced and I felt sorry for Malkovich for being used as a puppet in their little game. Plus, why a portal into that guy’s head, of all people? You want to make it interesting? How about a portal into the head of Bruce Campbell? I’d pay for that.

Empire List #442: Atonement

2011-06-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

Joe Wright’s “Atonement” (2007) is a war drama focusing on three people who have their own personal drama to deal with as the world falls apart. Keira Knightley plays Cecilia Tallis, a young woman living in an upper class mansion in the British countryside. James McAvoy is Robbie Turner, the housekeeper’s son who can’t keep his eyes off her. Saoirse Ronan plays Briony, Cecilia’s younger sister, who will destroy their lives. The worst part is, it was all a big misunderstanding.

This was yet another one of those movies I had to wait until the DVD came out so that I could watch it in the original English version. For a while that became my game plan for big Hollywood movies. If the movie theatres in Quebec wouldn’t release them in English, I would wait a couple of months and then rent three of them per week during my summer break from university. It’s a shame, because “Atonement” is beautifully shot and deserves a big screen.

The whole drama begins with a small mistake, leading to a huge misunderstanding. Robbie clearly wants to be with Cecilia, but this being England in 1935, he decides to write her a letter to tell her how he feels. He goes through several drafts, including an unfiltered one in which he explicitly writes what he wants, sexually. He then writes a decent one, puts it in an envelope, and gives it to Briony so that she will give it to her sister. The problem: he sent the sexually explicit letter. This is why you should always double check before you send your mail.

Much to his surprise when Cecilia reads the letter she is shocked at first, but not insulted. I guess the thought was “hey, I am game if you are.” So the two of them get together before dinner in the library. Unfortunately, Briony read the letter and sees the two of them in the library. Since she is only thirteen years old she believes Robbie is raping her sister. That same evening in the mansion’s woods Briony finds her cousin Lola (Juno Temple) who actually has been raped. Briony tells the police she saw Robbie do it and gives the letter as proof.

Robbie is sent to prison but four years letter he is given a get-out-of-jail-free-card in the form of enrolment in the British army. It is now 1939, Hitler is taking over Europe, and the army needs every man it has, even convicts. Meanwhile, both Cecilia and Briony (now played by Romola Garai) are nurses in London, but they are no longer on speaking terms. Cecilia blames her for Robbie’s prison term and Briony now knows she was wrong to do what she did. Her goal in life is to now repair the damage she has done and hopefully receive forgiveness.

Director Joe Wright is not only telling a very powerful story, but is telling it with wondrous camera skills. This movie is famous for a continuous 5 minute and 5 second shot as Robbie and other soldiers arrive at the seaside town of Dunkirk, France. Dunkirk, for those who weren’t listening during social studies class, was the town where the allied troops retreated when it became clear Hitler was going to take over France. British, French, and Belgian troops all converged to the town with the goal of getting the hell out of there before the Nazis bombed the place. Suffice it to say the place was crowded, which is perfectly illustrated as Wright’s camera follows Robbie and his men as they walk on the disorganized beach.

Having taken a course in shooting and editing, I can’t imagine the logistical problems that Wright had to deal with while shooting a scene with that many extras for five minutes. Everybody needs to be at exactly the right spot, the lighting needs to be perfect, and you have to capture the right sound. This guy is good.
Between the war drama and the tension between the three leads, who all give excellent performances, this makes for one powerful story. The third act features Vanessa Redgrave as an older Brionny who, years later, is still dealing with the consequences of a childhood mistake. It’s a short but strong performance that provides a knockout of an ending.

Empire List #443: Dog Day Afternoon

2011-06-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been flipping through your TV channels and suddenly you run into a media circus? Those are a lot of fun. The name fits incredibly well too. A circus implies entertainment, clowns, a ringmaster and an audience. However, the media part of the equation implies cameras and possibly a global audience, no matter how silly or violent the situation might turn out to be. That is the situation in which Al Pacino’s character is plunged into in Sydney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon” from 1975.

I must have been around ten when I first saw this movie and I remember being dumbstruck by how crazy the situation got with each passing minute. My family and I had recently moved to Santiago, Chile and I guess dad was just flipping through the TV one evening when the show started. I wouldn’t exactly call it a family movie, but I was entertained, that’s for sure.

It all starts simply enough. Al Pacino plays Sonny Wortzik who, along with his partners Salvatore “Sal” Naturile (John Cazale) and Stevie (Garry Springer), tries to rob a bank in Brooklyn in broad daylight. Things don’t go as planned. Stevie panics and runs out. When Sonny and Sal get to the vault it is almost empty. They decide to leave, but the phone rings. To Sonny’s surprise the call is for him. There is a cop on the other end of the line who asks him what he thinks he’s doing. Sonny takes a look across the street and suddenly there are cops everywhere. Then the fun begins.

Sonny and Sal decide to stay in the bank and use the customers and bank employees as hostages. The police assumed the robbers would surrender when they saw they were surrounded so they are unprepared to negotiate with hostage taker. Soon the FBI shows up and it’s not long before the press arrives. Then a crowd gathers to watch the action live. Sonny and Sal now have an audience. Time to make crazy demands such as pizzas, doctors, and a plane to the tropics.

As the day goes by the police tries to find out more about Sonny in an attempt to reason with him. They contact his ex-wife and put her on the phone with Sonny, who ends up having a shooting match with her. Then they figure out the reason he needed the money in the first place was a for a sex-change operation. Not for him, but for his wife Leon (Chris Sarandon) a pre-operative transsexual. That part I had trouble understanding. Again, I was ten. Well, I guess I was going to learn about these concepts someday.

Looking back at this movie today, I find incredibly prophetic in terms of the power of the media. When Sonny walks outside he challenges the police by chanting “Attica, Attica” in a reference to a prison riot that killed 39 people. The cameras capture everything. The crowd loves it; Sonny becomes their hero, and news network want to interview him for the ratings.

But then again, people just love a good show. Remember how many people tuned in when they thought that kid was stuck inside that balloon the United-States? How about all of those miners stuck inside that mineshaft in Chile? By the end of that event the media was digging into those people’s lives, finding about their hobbies, their ambitions, and even their mistresses. I should know: I was researching these guys during one of my journalism classes.

Can you imagine an event like the bank robbery in “Dog Day Afternoon” happening today? By the end of the first hour anybody with an Internet connection and a laptop would have found out about Sonny’s ex-wife, his children, his transsexual wife, and most likely his weight and height. And you know what else? If Sonny were smart he would have been tweeting during the whole thing. By the end he might have more followers than Lady Gaga.