niteman Reviews

The Dark Backward (1991)

Promising premise doesn't pay off.

[3/10 · 29 September 2000]

This movie starts with interesting set design and a promising premise, but fails to provide the cult-movie goods. Set in a gritty parallel universe where everything is owned by the "Blump" Corporation, it concerns a horrible stand-up comic who finds success when he grows a third arm out of his back.

All the potential for great cheese is here -- washed-up 80's star Judd Nelson, Wayne Newton, offbeat visuals and strange plot digressions, obese women in skimpy lingerie, necrophilia -- but it never pays off.

The pacing is the main problem. Each scene is excrutiatingly slow. Nelson's stand-up routines are supposed to be funny because they're pathetically not funny. But each performance drags on until it's not even tangentially funny, just boring.

Imagine someone telling you the longest, weirdest joke imaginable, full of smirky self-congratulation for how funny and weird he thinks it is. Imagine after a stultifying two hours of this, you never got a punch line. You've just saved yourself the trouble of watching The Dark Backward.

Everything You Know Is Wrong (1975)

Watch with your eyes closed . . .

[6/10 · 18 June 2000]

This "movie" is the brainchild of The Firesign Theater, and outfit best known for hilarious comedy albums like "Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand me the Pliers" and "We're all bozos on this bus." They are not known for their work in motion pictures, and Everything You Know Is Wrong demonstrates why.

Some of the material here is funny, but the visuals don't add to the comedy. It seems like the actors are just lip-syncing to a Firesign Theater record. It looks like a bad home-movie of someone's aunts and uncles karaoking comedy albums.

Note I said *some* of the material is funny. Some of it is quite aggressively not. Like Monty Python, Firesign Theater have two modes: when they're focused, they're sharp and funny, but sometimes they're just pointlessly bizarre. Unfortunately, after a promising beginning this movie falls into the latter category and wallows there. There's some sort of plot about an alien takeover, or something, but generally weird stuff happens for no particular reason. There's nothing here to equal Firesign's best stuff: no Nick Danger, no synthetic chinchillas, not even any bubonic plague.

If you're a fan of the group, you might want to see this, but you'll probably be disappointed. If you've never heard of Firesign Theater, grab "Shoes For Industry!", their greatest hits album, and start from there.

Love's Labour's Lost (2000)

Darn the critics, full speed ahead!

[8/10 · 16 June 2000]

Something about Love's Labour's Lost is causing critics to sniff and huff and puff like never before. The dance numbers aren't perfectly in sync and the music isn't perfectly performed, they sneer. Shakespeare and Gershwin don't mix. It's sheer fluff. It's bizarre.

Thus saith the critics. The forest that they're missing with their shrubs of discontentment is the overwhelming charm and infectuous fun of this silly little film. Yes, when Branagh and his cronies do a dance number it isn't lock-step choreography (one arm a little high, perhaps, one foot off the beat a bit). When Alicia Silverstone and her ladies-in-waiting cavort and giggle in a pool, they're not quite Esther Williams and company. Instead of picture-perfect Fred & Ginger, they look like real people dancing and singing because dancing and singing are fun. And unless you're Ebenezer Scrooge, The Grinch, or a movie critic, you'll have fun, too.

That's not to say the movie is just sloppy silliness. Branagh stages some gorgeous set pieces, including gondolas lit by Japanese lanterns, a prop-plane goodbye straight out of Casablanca, and a production number in which the film's silliest character kicks the moon like a big silver soccer ball. It's about a third Shakespeare, a third 30's musical, and a third Looney Tunes. What's odd is that the styles mix so well under Branagh's direction.

If you want a picture-perfect musical, rent "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" or some other dull thing. If you want perfect Shakespeare, rent Branagh's "Hamlet." If, however, you want a movie to make you believe in movies again -- if you want to kick up your heels, laugh out loud, and float out of a movie theater humming Cole Porter -- see this movie.

Prospero's Books (1991)

Tempest? Try Much Ado about Nothing.

[10 June 2000]

To ward off the criticism of film snobs, let me say two things: 1. I like Greenaway's work. I loved The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover; I know Greenaway's approach to film and it's fine by me. 2. I enjoy independent, art-house, and foreign film.

That being said: Prospero's Books is awfully hard to follow and to swallow. It starts like this: A camera follows an old man through a vast house. Naked people in masks walk around, a kid swings above a swimming pool, and there are plenty of genitalia and breasts on display. The old man sits at a desk, mumbles some lines of Shakespeare. Wind blows sheets of manuscript about. I thought it worked as a great introduction to a film, and eagerly waited to see what would follow it.

I watched an hour of the movie before I quit in disgust. It went like this: The camera follows an old man through a vast house, naked people cavort in masks, the swinging kid pees into a pool for a good 15 minutes (beating Austin Powers' record). Wind blows papers about. The old dude quotes some more Shakespeare. It doesn't GO anywhere -- I kept thinking these images must have meant something to the director, but they meant nothing to me.

Now, I'm all for esoteric, hard to understand filmmaking. I still don't "get" Barton Fink, I'm still pondering Dellamorte Dellamore and Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and that's all well and good. But those films were INTERESTING. You get the idea that something is happening, something worth understanding.

With Prospero's Books, you get the idea that a director has been amusing himself at your expense. Critics and snobs praise movies in this vein: "a daring, multi-layered approach to filmmaking. A film for people who like to be challenged by movies." This translates to: "It was boring, I have no clue what it's about, but it had naked people and was artily directed, so it must be good."

Well, I'm a fan of all kinds of movies, from foreign films to Wayne's World, and am therefore unafraid to say it: the emperor's buck naked, folks. Don't rent this unless you want to be frustrated and bored. If you want to see a stunning, creative approach to Shakespeare, rent "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" or "Romeo+Juliet."

Pitch Black (2000)

Oops -- WOW! -- Oops.

[7/10 · 27 February 2000]

Pitch Black opens with a long, slo-mo shot of a spaceship gliding by the camera. Oops #1: obvious Star Wars rip-off. It then presents us with a most improbable crash scene, in which the force of the landing blows out the ship's windshield but leaves the pilot remarkably unscathed. Oops #2. The crash scene is edited with MTV-on-Speed cuts, which are both impossible to follow and headache-inducing. Oops #3. By the time the spaceship actually touched down, I was regretting losing $4 on this movie.

Fortunately, things pick up speed in the middle. The visuals are gorgeous -- our heroes are on a planet with three suns, and the scenes are filmed in gorgeous washed-out blue and gold tones. The deceptively calm surface of the planet serves as a backdrop for introducing and fleshing out characters, who are all given more depth than your average cheap sci-fi cast. The tension climaxes with a gorgeous triple eclipse and the awakening of the underground dwellers of the planet, who look like a cross between Ridley Scott's Alien and a hammerhead shark. As the characters scurried around huddling behind their meager and failing light sources, bickering with each other, the suspense was thick enough that it was hard to breathe.

Unfortunately, the last half hour abandons any notion of story arc or plot in favor of killing of characters at random and twisting the plot in improbable directions. The most interesting character, Vin Diesel's hulking homicidal maniac, is reduced to arm-wrestling the aliens and spouting Batman and Robin quality dialog. By the last twist and the by-the-numbers ending, I was disappointed in the movie again.

Out of the movie's two hours, the middle hour is great and the surrounding hour is average to horrid. 50% is generally an F, but for the great visuals I'll give it a C.

Idle Hands (1999)

Stupid and Gory and Highly Entertaining.

[7/10 · 12 February 2000]

From a first-time director who has obviously seen Dead Alive, Evil Dead 1-3, and far too many Cheech & Chong movies comes Idle Hands, a movie that wears these and various other influences on its blood-soaked sleeve.

The lack of originality shouldn't stop a true horror fan, though. You could do a lot worse than this silly story about a boy and his demon-possessed right hand. There's a good deal of backhanded irony that make this a lot of fun to watch -- the main character, Anton, uses his asthma inhaler as a marijuana pipe, for example, and in one scene he meets the girl of his dreams, who fawns all over him even though he's covered in blood and twitching maniacally.

The hero of the movie, however, is the always-great Seth Green as a stoner-turned-zombie with a bottle stuck through his head. Stoner comedy can sometimes be hard to sit through, but the laughs come fast and furious here.

Don't expect this movie to make much sense in retrospect. Don't expect it to have a serious commentary on the fleeting aspect of modern life. Don't expect it to make you a better person.

DO expect a certain amount of visual style, some very bloody killings (comical in their excess, like Dead Alive), a cameo by The Offspring covering "I Wanna Be Sedated," and to laugh until you fall off the couch (especially if you've been smoking what everyone in this movie smokes). If that's your idea of a good time -- and why shouldn't it be? Enjoy. You can rent Citizen Kane some other time.

Scream 3 (2000)

A fitting goodbye to a great series.

[8/10 · 12 February 2000]

Scream was a great, great horror flick. It took the cliches that horror movie fans have been enjoying (and bemoaning) for years and twisted them back on themselves, for the first time making a horror movie that acknowledged the existence of horror movies and their fans. Scream 2 was less of a thrill; it had some great scenes and set pieces, but faltered in the denoument, giving us a laughable finale instead of a scary one.

Scream 3 gets back to what made Scream great. What sets this series apart is the intelligence factor, and Scream 3 doesn't dissapoint. Plots get turned around and eat their own tails, everyone's a suspect, and in the end the answer is both completely obvious and impossible to predict. It dovetails perfectly into the first two, expanding the mythos without cheating the audience.

The director and screenwriter are savvy enough to realize that just hearing some guy's distorted voice over the phone isn't that scary anymore, so they look elsewhere for suspense and scares, and find plenty of both. There are great scenes involving Sidney Prescott's supposed mental problems, they're both frightening and make perfect sense -- wouldn't you be a little ding-y if all your friends were killed by a series of psychopaths?

I won't say anything about the plot, because the less you know, the better. Just make sure you've seen the first two before you go in, or you'll be completely lost. I'm sure non-horror fans won't like this one (witness the critical beating it's been given), but anyone who's looking for a good scare will find it here.

Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

Will you enjoy this movie?

[8/10 · 12 February 2000]

First, if you're over 30, you're right out. You're too far out from high school to take this movie seriously.

Now, there are two types of people under 30. The first category are the teen-movie lovers -- those who laughed out loud at American Pie, boogied to 10 Things I Hate About You, and even misted up at the unlikely finale of She's All That. It doesn't matter that some of the dialog is campy, the events don't make too much sense, the sentiments aren't profound, and sometimes the hijinks don't resemble anything that ever happened in any high school anywhere. The movies are good fun, a nice reminder of a simpler time.

For these people (myself one of them), Can't Hardly Wait is great. It's funny, it's got Seth Green, a personal hero, and it has great intertwining plot lines held together by photogenic actors and actresses. Bug-eyed Ethan Embry is at his best here, as is Melissa Joan Hart as a yearbook-obsessed kook and little Charlie Korsmo, all grown up, as the resident geek who finds fame lip-synching "Paradise City." All of the stock characters are represented -- the jock, the nerds, the beautiful cheerleader, the shallow "best friends," the white wanna-be homeboys -- but, as in American Pie, are given enough human dimension that they're plausible and fun to watch. The movie's entertaining from start to finish, refreshingly irony and angst-free, and the ending is cute as can be.

The other type of people under 30 are those who take their movie-watching very seriously. They don't have time for fun, silly movies, and they viciously rip them apart because they aren't perfect. They hated American Pie because it had semen humor, they loathed 10 Things because it "blasphemed" Shakespeare, and they wouldn't think of buying a ticket to a movie called "She's All That." That sort of person should avoid this movie like the plague. If it's playing at a party, leave the room, you're only going to spoil it for the people born *with* a sense of humor.

So, all you category-one youngsters, enjoy Can't Hardly Wait. All you category-twos -- lighten up, start slow (maybe Breakfast Club), and sooner or later you'll learn to enjoy life.

The Road to Wellville (1994)

The Road to Nowhere would be more accurate. . .

[2/10 · 12 February 2000]

Not funny, not coherent, not worth watching. The Road to Wellville doesn't make any sort of sense -- it flits back and forth between three equally nonsensical plotlines, and, after about six hours, ends. It does feature a great deal of nudity, but that's hardly an excuse for wasting precious natural resources like John Cusak, Anthony Hopkins, and Dana Carvey.

If you want to see Cusak in a comedy, rent Grosse Point Blank. If you want loads of gratuitous nudity, rent Beach Babes from Beyond. There is no excuse whatsoever for watching this film -- it's time out of my life I can never have back.

Oleanna (1994)

Prepare yourself for discussions and dissensions.

[8/10 · 22 January 2000]

This is a movie not without faults -- the dialog at the beginning is stilted, William H. Macy's performance is not without its weak spots -- but in spite of those quibbles, is a compelling, intriguing film.

The movie centers on the relationship between a student and a professor at an unnamed university. She goes to him for extra help in his class (but she may be just trying to set him up for a sexual harrassment lawsuit). He tries to help her with her studies (but may be trying to dominate and have innappropriate relations with her at the same time). As the relationship turns into a struggle, the viewer finds him/herself switching sides early and often. The tension in the film becomes the viewer's tension; during the final scenes you'll barely breathe.

The tagline is right -- whatever side you choose, you're wrong. I've seen this movie lambasted as being anti-feminist, lauded for being pro-feminist, hated for being anti-establishment, pro-establishment, racist, sexist, etc. In reality, it is all and none of these things. Oleanna is a mirror that forces us to examine and discuss our own convictions. That it accomplishes this while still being an exciting film makes it worth seeing more than once.

Boogie Nights (1997)

Size Does Matter

[6/10 · 15 January 2000]

I would love to report that Boogie Nights is a great film. Clearly, many IMDB users believe it is. Indeed, for the first two hours, it is engrossing, beautifully and originally shot, and contains great performances by Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham, Julianne Moore, and Mark Wahlberg.

What happens to Boogie Nights is a bad case of director's overindulgence. As the movie grinds into its third hour, Anderson runs out of ideas and the cracks in the characters begin to show. Wahlberg goes from tortured to merely whiny. A botched drug-deal subplot comes out of nowhere and Tarantinos around for awhile before going *back* to nowhere; if it weren't for the characters, you'd think it was from another movie. My friends kept turning to me and saying "Is it over *now?* How about *now?*" Not even the sight of an obvious prosthetic in Wahlberg's fly felt like a payoff.

Anderson is a wizard with visuals and excellent with casting, but needs to take a few lessons in storytelling (there is practically no plot to speak of) and work with a judicious editor. Until then, he's merely good, with gusts up to genius.

The Matrix (1999)

What's all the fuss about?

[7/10 · 29 December 1999]

Having finally seen the Matrix after hearing people sing its praises for months, I confess I'm a bit baffled as to why it's so popular. It was a good film, yes -- slick visuals, cool effects, nice fight sequences, interesting ideas -- but nowhere near a *great* film, and certainly undeserving of the brou-ha-ha it's been getting.

Great science fiction films are original, they provide a new visual or mental language for the viewer or present old ideas in new ways. Films such as Blade Runner, Alien, Star Wars: A New Hope, and 2001 are examples of that sort of filmmaking. The Matrix is not. The visuals are an uneasy mesh of Blade Runner and Alien, the idea that our world is an illusion was most recently explored in the far superior Dark City, and the mythology smacks of Star Wars. Even though the movie does provide plenty of eye candy, it pays homage to the point of theft.

The movie is also overlong, divests most of its plot twists in the first 30 minutes, relies too heavily on extended slo-mo fight scenes (How many spent rounds do we need to see floating slowly to the ground?), and frequently trips over its own internal logic. But if there is a weak point around which all else seems insignificant, it's Keanu Reeves. His pipe cleaner body and sunken chest don't fit his role as kung-fu master, and when he strikes a 'manly' pose he just looks silly. His acting talent is on par with his other work, which means he says "whoa" and looks blank a lot. It's a dangerous thing to base a movie around a non-entity like Reeves -- even when his character has his (cliched) is-he-dead-or-isn't-he scene, I couldn't bring myself to care.

In short, it's a fun movie, a nice action film posing as a sci-fi film, but don't rent it if you're looking for something that will make you think, or something that you haven't seen before.

Rockula (1990)

Break out the wine and enjoy the cheese

[3 September 1999]

Gleefully cheesy movie that features Toni Basil, Thomas Dolby, Bo Diddley, and the furry eyebrows of Dean Cameron. Centuries-old vampire starts rock band to impress woman and overcome centuries-old curse. Along the way, we're treated to classic vampire rock and rap, a bit of blues, and even some Sheena-Eastonish prancing and pouting by Tawny Fere. Not a great movie by any estimation, but a good party flick.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

A haunting, beautiful movie.

[9/10 · 19 August 1999]

The first thing I noticed about the movie was that the music was creepier than even the X-Files theme, which is a definite accomplishment. The second thing was that M. Night Shamlyan's has a great eye for setting up shots and knows exacly when to end a scene. The third thing was that my heart was pounding and I could barely breathe. There are some truly unsettling, suspenseful scenes here, all centering around an amazing performance by the movie's 11-year-old star.

The movie works on so many levels -- and the last five minutes make it effectively two movies, the one that you've been watching and the one that you *weren't* watching, that slipped by under radar. Definitely one to see twice.

Not just freaky, not just suspenseful, but beautifully crafted and graced with standout performances from Osment and Willis. The summer's only other successful horror movie, The Blair Witch Project, worked because it took place in a recognizable reality. In essence, 6th Sense makes its own reality and gently, subtly drags the viewer into it. There are revelations that hit with near-physical force, and there are moments of sheer masterly filmmaking as well. Definitely worth a full-price ticket.

The Haunting (1999)

Stay away from the house!

[1/10 · 26 July 1999]

Some genuinely creepy moments in the first few minutes, then it all goes to hell. De Bont has forgotten that horror lies in subtlety and suspense -- you can't put a scarier image on the screen than the one the viewer creates in his mind. But De Bont tries like hell, and ends up throwing out one bad computer generated special effect after another. After the third or fourth ghostly face in the sheets, you'll be giggling. By the time Liam Neeson is confronted with a huge face (in the ceiling, for a switch) and doesn't even blink, you'll be laughing out loud. The house twists and turns and creaks -- except it really doesn't; it's all in a computer, and it's obvious.

The end, with its lethal combination of terrible acting, horribly cheesy special effects, and utterly clueless sappy screenwriting (I don't want to spoil it, but it does feature Lili Taylor beating the hell out of a stone gryphon with a candlestick), will have you either rolling in the aisles or walking out of the theater.

The movie is boring when it tries for suspense, funny when it tries to be scary, and braindead when it tries for drama. It's a great, big, blunt object of a movie, and by the time it beat me over the head with the hundredth dumb line of dialog and the thousandth cheap special effect, I was down for the count.

If you're looking for a laugh -- eh, go see South Park. As long as we keep supporting crap like this, we'll keep getting fed more of it.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

An impressive film with a bad marketing campaign

[9/10 · 17 July 1999]

Eyes Wide Shut is ill-suited for the summer movie corridor. It has no explosions, no running, shouting, or a single gunshot. What it has are long scenes in which characters talk to one another. Slowly and carefully. The problem is that the film is marketed as having white-hot sex scenes and plenty of gratuitous nudity, while it has neither. There is plenty of naked flesh, don't get me wrong, but in exactly the opposite way that the ads make it appear. This is not a movie about being sexy and naked -- it's a movie about how flesh is just another part of being human, so what is all the fuss about? The marketing campaign is misleading, and led to disappointment in the audience that I saw the movie with, who were just looking for some skin.

The tension in the plot and the issues that the film discusses aren't telegraphed to the audience, they're hinted at in the dialog. There is no neat resolution at the end, life simply goes on. You may watch the whole film and think "that wasn't about anything!" Then think about what you've seen and realize it has a great deal to say.

The film is a meditation on sexuality and how it relates to marriage, death, and money. It's a fascinating commentary on modern life, and a rare movie that dares to examine sex as impassionately as any other issue.

The directing and cinematography alone would be worth the price of admission without the social commentary. The sets are an integral part of the movie; they breathe and glow and live. Kubrick was a master director, and he uses long shots and dissolves to great effect. Cruise and Kidman are at their best, and the supporting cast is also strong. It's Kubrick's magic work with the camera that holds the film together.

All in all, definitely worth seeing for the un-uptight. It's possible to watch this film and actually think about it for hours afterward. That's something you won't get with the Wild, Wild West.

Notting Hill (1999)

Startingly original, nicely familiar Romantic Comedy.

[9/10 · 7 June 1999]

Unlike soft-focus confections like "You've Got Mail" (which was more about the love between a consumer and large corporations than Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan), Notting Hill has a bit of an edge to it which serves the movie well. Grant and Roberts get to zing each other with all sorts of wonderfully hilarious dialog before the inevitable happens, and the cast of supporting characters (including a wheelchair-bound first love and a sad-sack stockbroker) keep the movie grounded and the sap quotient to a minimum. Perhaps the most astonishing thing, however, is the camerawork. The director takes some chances -- jump cuts, one exceptional scene in which four seasons swirl around Grant's character as he walks down a London street -- that pay off big time. This is a movie that was basically presold. Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts are huge box-office draws, and the words 'romantic comedy' and Julia Roberts together are pure gold. It is refreshing, therefore, to find a well-written script, great performances from all involved, and some creative risk-taking.

All in all, an excellent romantic comedy, a great date movie, and if you're single like me, another great excuse to stare at the bottle of sleeping pills and wonder how many it would take.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Are movie critics working for the dark side?

[9/10 · 20 May 1999]

I kept hearing that The Phantom Menace was something of a disappointment -- the characters were thin, the plot was sketchy, the special effects not so special. Fortunately, I discovered that the critics were, as usual being over-critical.

The Phantom Menace is phenomenal. Sure, the weaknesses that plagued the first three films are here as well -- corny dialog, cheesy aliens, one-too-many coincidences -- but the strengths are stronger than they've ever been. The light-saber duels crackle and zing, moving almost faster than the eye can follow, a heady blend of fencing and martial arts. A series of historical meetings "R2-D2, this is C3PO) gives you goosebumps. The planets are lush and beautiful, and colorful characters fill every frame.

But above all, Lucas' storytelling makes The Phantom Menace. You'll find yourself thrown into a complex plot that involves the Trade Federation, a crumbling Republic, and a grab for power by a Senator who we know will become an Emperor. We sense forces stirring underneath the surface of the film, knowing that what we're seeing is the tip of a very large iceberg. And in the midst of these massive forces are a young queen, a little boy separated from his mother, and a brash teenage Jedi who is in way over his head. Critics say the human element has been largely ignored, but I'm not sure what movie they were watching.

In short, it ain't perfect, but it will blow you away. At the very least, for two and a half hours, you'll feel like a ten year old again. And that's worth the price of admission.

The Mummy (1999)

Indiana Jones Lite

[8/10 · 12 May 1999]

The Mummy is, at heart, an adventure serial from the 1930's, which means it is in the same genre as the Indiana Jones films. While it never achieves the excitement and awe that those movies brought to the big screen, it has its moments.

The cast, for the most part, is outstanding. Brendan Fraser plays another variation on his hunky-cartoony persona, swaggering and swashbuckling like an old pro. Rachel Weisz is great as the feisty love interest, sort of a Lara Croft for the 1930's. The chemistry between the two is real, and their dialog is witty and exciting.

Arnold Vosloo makes a somewhat disappointing mummy, however. He never seems very menacing -- largely because he looks more like a high school math professor than a mighty lord of the undead, with his doe eyes and pudgy face.

Whether or not you like the special effects in the film will depend largely on how you feel about computer animation. There are some shots, particularly of the mummy, that look like low-grade "Hercules&Xena" quality effects, a surprise since the effects were done by Industrial Light&Magic. Some of it works, some doesn't, and it all would have looked better with models and makeup (but I'm old fashioned).

Regardless, the movie is cheery, exciting, and fun. There is an element of "Army of Darkness" style camp which is good for laughs, but it also delivers some good old-fashioned thrills and chills.

No one will ever mistake The Mummy for a masterpiece -- it's too slick, too post-modern, and at times embarrassingly silly (like the beginning, where characters stand around spouting plot exposition as if they're pitching us the movie). But it's well worth the 6 or 7 dollars to see on the big screen.

Complex World (1991)

It's a complex world, but a perfect movie.

[10/10 · 25 April 1999]

For any fan of twisted musicals like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and This is Spinal Tap, Complex World is a great find. The plot loops around in giddy swirls, helped on by genuinely bizarre songs from The Young Adults -- songs like "Christmas in Japan in July," "Do the Heimlich," and "Kill Yourself." These Adam-Ant-on-crack songs are supplemented by original tunes by writer-director Jim Wolpaw, which range from advocating paving New Jersey to denying women food so that the men of the world have enough to eat. The plot is impossible to describe, but it's a twisted, hilarious film. If you can find it, see it.

Analyze This (1999)

Lots of laughs.

[28 February 1999]

Following, as it does, such sensitive-mobster movies as Gross Pointe Blank and The Don's Analyst, Analyze This loses points for originality but makes up for it in laughs. Billy Crystal as the psychiatrist and Robert De Niro as the gangster have a great chemistry. It's fun to watch these veteran actors play off each other, to watch De Niro become a sensitive guy and Crystal try to act tough. Lisa Kudrow is also very good as Crystal's oft-rebuffed, neurotic bride, and look for a great cameo from Saturday Night Live's Molly Shannon.

In all, a very funny movie. It suggests, very convincingly, that everyone is a little crazy. Crystal has issues with his father, his fiance has separation anxiety, and even the mafia bosses are suffering from inferiority complexes. The only flaw is that the movie never addresses any one issue for very long -- it fails to explore Crystal's relationship with his father, among other things, and non-crucial scenes get left by the wayside -- but I laughed all the way through it. Perhaps not a must-see, but a definite solid hit for a Friday or Saturday night.

Shock Treatment (1981)

Second time is no charm...

[26 February 1999]

The real 'shock' in Shock Treatment is that the same team who brought us the brilliantly demented Rocky Horror Picture Show were responsible for this film. The plot makes absolutely no sense (even less than the first), the brilliant kinkiness of RHPS is conspicuously absent, the characters are flat and some casting choices are unfathomable: who thought that a short, dark-haired contralto looked or sounded like Susan Sarandon?

Even worse, the songs are sub-standard. "Denton, USA" is an obvious Time-Warp ripoff, but at least stands out. The rest blend into one another and only the occasional horrible rhyme ("oh, knife drawer, won't you help me to face life more?") sticks out. They are apropos of nothing, don't advance whatever plot there is, and are filmed in 80's video cliches. By the end, I wasn't sure what was going on and why I even cared. Apparently, Richard O'Brien only had one good musical in him.

First Knight (1995)

Swords, sorcery, and some really bad acting.

[2/10 · 24 February 1999]

In the fine tradition of schlock fantasy films like the Beastmaster and Deathstalker series comes "First Knight." Like those films, it features bad accents which rapidly fade, sets and matte-paintings that LOOK like sets and matte-paintings, and several machines that obviously run on electricity. It's a shallow retelling of Arthurian legend that eschews the things that make Arthurian legend exciting -- all the magic is trimmed away and it becomes nothing more than a soap-opera in tights. Even the directing is utterly clueless. The battle scenes are filmed in a "Cops" style shaky-cam that is not only jarring but slightly nauseating.

The odd thing about First Knight is that it sports some top-shelf actors doing bottom-shelf acting. Julia Ormond is perpetually dazed as Guinevere, Richard Gere plays Kevin Costner as Lancelot, and in the worst shock of all, Sean Connery can't seem to muster up a single emotion or facial expression. A telling scene is when he interrupts L&G in the act of love, and merely stares blankly at them, looking more bored than anything else, which was basically the audience reaction as well. Even Arthur's death is so poorly acted and terribly filmed that it elicited laughs from the entire audience.

If you're looking for a good retelling of Arthurian legend, see Excalibur. If you're not at all picky, or merely a rabid and indiscriminate Richard Gere fan, First Knight will at least hold you over.

Batman & Robin (1997)

Joel Schumacher takes the franchise from bat to worse.

[1/10 · 12 February 1999]

While he was making this movie, director Joel Schumacher was quoted saying many things that struck fear into the hearts of bat-fans everywhere. Things like "when I think of Batman, I think extreme sports," and "wait till you see the costumes -- they're practically wearing nothing," and "I want to return to the roots of the old Batman television series." Was Schumacher seriously planning to take Tim Burton's brilliantly dark vision and reduce it to leather-clad S&M freaks spouting campy one-liners while snowboarding? Sadly, he was.

Where to start? There's so much to dislike. George Clooney plays Batman as, well, George Clooney, the same character he's played in every appearance to date. His Batman smirks when he should scowl, his Bruce is insufferably arrogant. Chris O'Donnell (Robin) takes his cue from George and swaggers and preens, going from whiny brat ("I want my OWN car!") to juvenile-in-heat in every scene. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze physically resembles and has all the acting talent of a 1983 Buick, and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl plays up her valley-girl schtick to a ridiculous end -- ending up seeming even more clueless than she did in Clueless. The only characters who retain any sort of dignity are Alfred, as always, and Uma Thurman's Mae West-ish Poison Ivy.

The script, for I assume there was one at least at some point, is composed of the worst indulgences of Uber-Hack Akiva Goldsman . Goldsman doesn't write dialog, he writes one-liners, as if his goal would be to have every line in the film appear on a bumper-sticker or a T-shirt. For example, in the comic books and animated series, Mr. Freeze is a tragic character prone to long monologues about his internal suffering (Patrick Stewart was considered at one point for the role, and would have been perfect). But Goldsman diminishes him to a role far more cartoony than the cartoon, spouting insufferable dialog like "Everybahdy Freeze!" and "All right, be cool." Schwarzenneger, apparently, doesn't get the joke, because every single line is delivered straight, ignoring any pretense of comic delivery, bringing to mind a high-school play more than a major motion picture. The first two films, and the third to a limited degree, explored Batman's psyche and that of his villains, asked questions about why and how the characters are how they are. This script has all the depth and emotional subtext of an acne medication commercial.

Even the props in the movie are all wrong. The Batmobile now has no canopy, leaving the driver's head exposed (given the speed of the thing is supposedly 100 mph, it's not terribly practical). It also looks in most scenes as if it's going about 20 mph, tops; I kept expecting a bicyclist to pass it and spoil the illusion. In the end of the film, Batman is dressed in a silver suit -- perfect camouflage for a nocturnal creature, eh? And, perhaps most unforgivably, Batgirl has no hood -- just an aesthetically pleasing domino mask which leaves her hair loose, all the better for the enterprising villain to grab and rip out.

All of which could have been at least mitigated by some decent directing -- but alas, that was not to be. Schumacher includes several shots from Batman Forever in this film, perhaps to tie the two together, perhaps because he's out of ideas: Batman and Robin running towards the camera, the chest emblem, vinyl-clad buttocks, and codpiece of each character as they suit up, and the entire opening sequence are all cribbed from Batman Forever. He also bravely defies gravity and logic, letting our heroes fall all the way from the upper atmosphere and freezing Robin in sub-zero temperatures -- all without suffering so much as a scratch.

None of it makes any sense, none of it is particularly watchable -- it's not even good for camp value. The only salvation of the franchise will be to put it back in the hands of a competent director and a scriptwriter who is capable of writing an actual script. Until then, Bat-fans are better off watching the animated series on the WB to see what can be done with the character, in the hands of talented artists.

Laserblast (1978)

Sometimes, movies HURT.

[4 January 1999]

Like a kick to the collective groin of sci-fi fans everywhere, Laserblast burst onto the scene in 1978 with a resounding thud that still resonates to this day. With its terrible acting, eerily smooth-chested star, cheesy special effects, the inexcusable presence of Eddie Deezen in a supporting role, and the complete lack of any coherent plot, the film is nigh unwatchable. If you must see Laserblast, make sure to rent the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode rather than the original tape, or you will be unable to laugh your way through the pain. You have been warned.