GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957) (***)

16 09 2005
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

The title tells you straight out what historical episode this Western deals with. The film is quintessential 1950s Hollywood — bright colors, high melodrama and such a squeaky clean Wyatt Earp that you’d think he was visiting from the cast of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER. What makes the film fun and not something to laugh at from a 21st Century perspective is the performance of Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday and his interaction with Burt Lancaster’s Earp.

The film develops the unexpected friendship between moral lawman Earp and killing gambler Holliday. The film emphasizes a Western moral code that probably only existed in the movies. Earp kicks off the friendship when he rescues Holliday from a lynch mob. Throughout the film Holliday struggles with his raging desire for revenge and his promise to Earp to not kill anybody.

Read the rest of this entry »



THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE (1987) (*1/2)

16 09 2005
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

The main reason I wanted to see this film was because I wasn’t allowed to see it when I was a kid. I collected the trading cards and love them. The movie actually disappointed me. You might be thinking — well, what were you expecting. I was expecting something so bad that it was good. Some elements are like that, but the lead character story is just a mediocre after school special drama. It’s not completely awful.

Dodger (Mackenzie Astin, DREAM FOR AN INSOMNIAC) is a small 14-year-old who is always being bullied by Juice (Ron MacLachlan) and his gang. Sadly Dodger has the hots for Juice’s girl Tangerine (Katie Barberi). He works at an antique shop for eccentric owner Cap’n Mancini (Anthony Newley, 1967’s DOCTOR DOLITTLE), who has a mysterious garbage can in the shop. One day it gets tipped over and out come the Garbage Pail Kids, who are played by little people in costumes with animatronic heads.

Read the rest of this entry »



CLASS (1983) (**1/2)

16 09 2005
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

The film has a solid foundation, but what it builds on top seems to have been built with no blueprint. The film doesn’t know if it wants to be a more serious take on THE GRADUATE, a buddy flick or a teen sex film.

Jonathan Onger (Andrew McCarthy, ST. ELMO’S FIRE) is a high school student at a top boarding school. His roommate and best friend Skip Burroughs (Rob Lowe, AUSTIN POWERS) is from an extremely wealthy family and struggles to live up to his father’s (Cliff Robertson, SPIDER-MAN) expectations. After an embarrassing mishap, Jonathan is band from going to the school dance. So he ventures out to a bar were he starts up a heated affair with the much older Ellen (Jacqueline Bisset, DANGEROUS BEAUTY), who thinks Jonathan is a grad student. What Jonathan is surprised to learn after visiting Skip’s home on Christmas break is that Ellen is Skip’s mother.

Read the rest of this entry »



CATWOMAN (2004) (*)

16 09 2005
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

The film is a poorly executed foray down the clichéd road of superhero revenge tales. Patience Phillips (Halle Berry, MONSTER’S BALL) is a klutzy graphic designer for a huge cosmetics firm. She will be fired by her tyrannical boss George Hedare (Lambert Wilson, THE MATRIX RELOADED) unless she redesigns her campaign within 48 hours.

On the way to deliver her new designs, she overhears George’s maniacal wife Laurel (Sharon Stone, BASIC INSTINCT) talking about the deadly effects of the new beauty product the company is about to launch. Subsequently, Patience is killed and then is brought back to life by some cats, giving her superhuman powers and making her the next in line of free-spirited catwomen.

Read the rest of this entry »



BABY FACE (1933) (***1/2)

16 09 2005

This film recently appeared on TIME Magazine’s top 100 movies of all time list. It was an unusual choice because the film isn’t widely considered a classic. However, the simple tale works quite well and the provocative subject matter seems to jump off the screen with more daring just knowing the year in which it was made.

Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck, THE LADY EVE) is the daughter of a speakeasy owner, who pimps her out to his wealthy clients. After her father’s untimely death, Lily, along with her black friend Chico (Theresa Harris, OUT OF THE PAST), moves to the big city and sleeps her way to the top of a large bank. Her fling with the young executive Ned Stevens (Donald Cook, 1936’s SHOW BOAT) and then his boss J.P. Carter (Henry Kolker, HOLIDAY), who happens to be Stevens’ fiancee’s father, creates great scandal.

Read the rest of this entry »



APRIL FOOL’S DAY (1986) (**1/2)

16 09 2005

This film for most of its running time is a standard teen slasher movie. Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman, WAXWORK) is a rich girl who invites her friends to stay with her for a weekend at her remote mountain estate. Friends include: hot and mopey medical student Rob (Ken Olandt, LEPRECHAUN), Rob’s girlfriend Kit (Amy Steel, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2), conservative Texan Harvey (Jay Baker, SHAG), slutty Nikki (Deborah Goodrich, JUST ONE OF THE GUYS), jokester Skip (Griffin O’Neal, GHOULIES III: GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE), prudish bookworm Nan (Leah Pinsent, WAKING THE DEAD), perverted filmmaker Chaz (Clayton Rohner, TV’s INTO THE WEST miniseries) and hornball cornball Arch (Thomas F. Wilson, BACK TO THE FUTURE).

With such a big cast, you can expect the body count to be high. Muffy likes to play practical jokes on her friends, but when they start turning up dead it seems that Muffy has lost it… or has she.

Read the rest of this entry »



ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951) (***1/2)

16 09 2005
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

Based on the classic Lewis Carroll novel, Disney’s animated adventure is a cornucopia of craziness, saturated with silliness from the moment we enter Alice’s wonderland. For Carroll’s story, the lucidity of animation seems perfect, and the Disney animators are up to the task in this underrated gem.

Alice (Kathryn Beaumont, PETER PAN) is a young daydreamer who finds herself chasing a white rabbit with a pocketwatch (Bill Thompson, LADY AND THE TRAMP) down a rabbit hole into a strange new world. At first Alice is taken in by the nonsense of the land, but after some time becomes tired of the insanity.
Read the rest of this entry »



THE 47 RONIN PART 1 (1941) (***)

16 09 2005

Split into two parts, Kenji Mizoguchi’s epic samurai picture is the most well respected film to come out of Japan during World War II. Mizoguchi is considered one of the Japan’s best filmmakers of all time. The only other film I have seen of his is UGETSU, which is amazing. THE 47 RONIN is more of a political intrigue story than an action adventure epic like those of Akira Kurasawa.

Lord Asano (Yoshizaburo Arashi) attacks and mildly wounds court officer Lord Kira after he is insulted by the bureaucrat. Because Kira is a royal butt-kisser — literally — the officials rule that Lord Asano must commit ritual suicide. Lord Asano’s loyal samurai petition for their master to be spared while the motives of Chamberlain Kuranosuke Oishi (Chojuro Kawarasaki), Asano’s second in command, are brought into question.

Read the rest of this entry »



LAYER CAKE (2005) (***1/2)

16 09 2005
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

Matthew Vaughn, producer of LOCK, STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS and SNATCH, makes his directorial debut with this gangster tale, which has more in common with GOODFELLAS than the stylishly hip films he produced with director Guy Ritchie.

The film is narrated by an unnamed gangster, who in the credits is referred to as XXXX. The character is played by Daniel Craig (ENDURING LOVE), who is quickly building an A-list resume of solid work. He’s a drug dealer who likes to keep his operations hush-hush and wants to retire. He works for vulgar loudmouth Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham, GANGSTER NO. 1), who tells XXXX that the reason guys like him don’t ever get out of the business is because they make too much money for guys like himself. That doesn’t bode well for an early retirement.

Read the rest of this entry »



KONTROLL (2005) (***1/2)

16 09 2005
Check Out the Trailer
Check Out the Trailer

This hip flick from Hungary plays to an electronica beat that brings a cool vibe to the strange world discovered within.

The film follows control officers on the Budapest subway system whose job it is to make sure the passengers have purchased tickets. Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi) is the quietly cool leader of his loserish crew of control officers. The Professor (Zoltán Mucsi) gives sound advice to the hyper new guy Tibi (Zsolt Nagy). Muki (Csaba Pindroch) — a narcoleptic, which can be quite dangerous in his line of work — seems to be a guy who tries too hard to be cool. Bulcsú keeps a distance from everyone and we learn that he lives in the subway system, not ever going to the surface.

Read the rest of this entry »