First rewatch in decades for the movie that made me and everyone who saw it afraid to sit in a dentist's chair. 😨🥵 Dustin Hoffman plays Babe (!), a super-smart Columbia U. college student and marathonist-in-training with a troubled past (his father offed himself after being targeted by Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt) whose brother 'Doc' (Roy Scheider, unafraid to show his rockin' dad bod while in his undies) is a contraband courier for Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), a Nazi war criminal operating out of Uruguay. The unexpected death of Szell's brother forces Christian to expose himself by coming to New York, leading to covert American operatives putting the squeeze on Babe after Doc also comes to visit his baby brother. Screenwriter William Goldman (adapting his own novel), director John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy") and cinematographer Conrad Hall ("Butch Cassidy...," "Road to Perdition") put on a clinic about how to make a perfect NYC-set (with side trips to Paris and South America), 70's conspiracy thriller that only dabbles vital information when necessary. Only Marthe Keller as Babe's "girlfriend" feels wasted, but that's how Bechdel Tests rolled in the 70's. 😡 3.90 RETRACTABLE BARAKA WRIST KNIVES (out of five).
048.- THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004, KINO LORBER 4K UHD). Streaming on Paramount+.
First-time watch for this Jonathan Demme-directed remake of the 1962 Frank Sinatra-starring "Manchurian Candidate," and my first impression is that you need to have already seen the original to appreciate what this new one (is a 22-year-old remake 'new' anymore?) offers. Made at the height of the post 9/11 'War on Terror' mentality (back when we thought Bush/Cheney was as bad as it'd ever get...🙄😔), the filmmakers update the premise from nations trying to manipulate our elected officials to private corporations (Manchurian Global... get it?) using their access to government connections via their weapon/financial divisions. There are constant sound bites of negative TV news items in the background to further drill into viewers' minds the blurring of the lines between private and public institutions. Give credit to Demme and his writers for basically predicting back in '04 the paranoid, conspiracy and lie-dependent political reality we've been living under since 2016. 🫤😮💨
Great supporting cast (Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright, Dean Stockwell, Simon McBurney, Pablo Schreiber, Jon Voight, baby-faced Anthony Mackie, etc.), but Denzel Washington seems miscast as Ben Marco. Too meek and passive (even during the flashbacks to Kuwait and the brainwashing scenes) and very rarely (two scenes!) showing the fiery passion Denzel's characters are known for. Meryl Streep (a dead ringer for Angela Lansbury's fiery matriarch flexing behind-the-scenes power) and Bruno Ganz (as Denzel's techie friend) get my acting MVP's. 'It's fine,' but in this day/age it's depressing to watch the fantasy political reality of this film knowing what we're gonna watch on CNN every night for the next 2.5 years. 😓😶🌫️ 3.30 KAYAK DROWNING ACCIDENTS (out of five).
049.- THE DEAD MOTHER, aka LA MADRE MUERTA (1993, SPAIN, RADIANCE BLU-RAY). Streaming on TUBI, PLEX, AMC+, FAWESOME.
A home invasion by a shotgun-wielding thief kills a Spanish art restorer and leaves her young daughter wounded. 20+ years later that same criminal/murderer, Ismael (Karra Elejalde, aka Temu Antonio Banderas), recognizes the little girl he shot as grown-up Leire (Ana Álvarez), recuring patient at a clinic for the mentally challenged. Paranoid that Leire might recognize him, Ismael and his 'Bonnie' Maite (Portuguese-born Lio) kidnap Leire and tie her to a bedpost. What follows are 90 minutes of 'will he or won't he?' tension as Ismael's clearly smitten by Leire's innocence and beauty (🤢🤮), but is smart enough to know he's better off appeasing Maite by indulging her suggestion to ask for ransom. It's rare for a thriller to have the bad guy be the main character opposite a passive, non-verbal innocent when the conflict is all in the former's head. Co-writer/director Juanma Bajo Ulloa pulls it off but just barely; even then, he slips a couple of times into psych0sexu^l territory with Leire. 😱 A scene involving a nurse (Silvia Marsó's Blanca) trying to rescue Leire is Hitchcock-level good, and the pitch-dark humor of Ismael trying to get Leire to smile keeps things lively instead of gross. I'm conflicted, but have to settle for 3 BEER TAP HANDLE MURDERS RIPPED OFF BY 'SCREAM VII' (out of five). Your mileage WILL definitely vary on this one. 😟
BONUS: 050.- VICTOR'S KINGDOM, aka EL REINO DE VICTOR (SPAIN, 1989).
Included in "The Dead Mother's" Radiance Blu-ray is the director's award-winning short film (38 min.), "Victor's Kingdom", which I personally found more fun and entertaining than the main feature despite both indulging in unpleasantness (r@pe, graphic violence, etc.). An old, fat pig of a father and his imagination-fueled young boy live in a big house where the daughter of the previous owner, Sara (Luisa Solaguren), works as a maid and companion to the kid by reading him fairytales about a valiant prince. Both Sara and the kid want to escape an unpleasant reality, and their wish is weirdly granted by a home invader who only steals food at night and doesn't want to harm anyone... until he realizes what the old man does to Sara at night when the kid is asleep. Weirdly wholesome and imaginative (the final bloody showdown is more comical than violent), "Victor's Kingdom" feels like watered-down "Amelie" meets a whimsical "Pan's Labyrinth." 3.5 ANTHILLS NEAR THE DINING ROOM TABLE (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 9! 051- INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU (1968, DVD). Also streaming on AMAZON PRIME, TUBI, MGM+, YOUTUBE.
There's a two-minute scene in "Inspector Clouseau" that is one of my favorites in the entire series (starts at 1:27:45) in which Clouseau (Alan Arkin) and his lady friend Lisa (Delia Boccardo) are locked in a boat. After a series of setbacks, Clouseau has a mental breakdown in which he questions why everything he does/touches turns into a disaster. The inspector is terrified he's about to die, and questions why his stupidity allowed his enemies to get the better of him. It's the 007 equivalent of one-off George Lazenby crying at the end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (released the same year, also by MGM), the moment savvy viewers realized 'Oh, this Lazenby fella is no Sean Connery, but he's doing stuff Sean wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.' As in "Diamonds Are Forever," when Peter Sellers came back to play Clouseau he ran away from the pathos Alan Arkin indulged in (for one brief 2 min. scene, mind you) that showed a side of the character never seen before, or since.
Aside from that anomaly, the problem with "Inspector Clouseau" is... EVERYTHING ELSE! 😵💫😵Arkin gives it a good try, but he's all mannerisms and accents without a human soul at its core... except in the above-mentioned scene. The plot sends Clouseau over to England to assist Scotland Yard find money missing from a train heist, a neat way to keep this Clouseau away from Sûreté and the Sellers/Edwards supporting cast. Since we're at the end of the 60's we get plenty of James Bond-inspired tech (a laser beam that Clouseau promptly uses to destroy Frank Finlay's office, speed boats that look like cars, etc.) that mostly falls flat. The gags-per-minute (GPM) ratio is high, but the laughter generated by them is tepid at best. There are funny moments here and there, but you have to be awfully patient waiting/looking for them amidst the laughter drought. "Inspector Clouseau" bombed in April of '68, probably because three months prior fans of the series got their fillings with "The Party." So MGM learned its lesson. Any future Clouseau feature had to have Peter Sellers in the role and Blake Edwards running things (sorry, Bud Yorkin). It'd take another seven years for that to happen... but that's a story for another review. 🙃🙂
ANIMATED INTRO OPENING: 3.40 RED, WHITE & BLUE CONFETTI STREAMERS (out of five). Not bad. Using assets from "The Inspector" cartoon series, Canadian animators do justice to the style and pace the series' opening credits are known for. Ken Thorpe supplies a decent alternate theme song and score, neither excellent nor terrible.
MOVIE RATING: 2 LAMPS CONSTANTLY SHUFFLED AROUND THE DESK (out of five). It's the black sheep of the franchise for a reason. If it didn't have the scene of Clouseau having an emotional breakdown I'd rank this even lower! 🥸
Dressed To Kill (1980) dir. Brian De Palma
ReplyDeleteA masterclass in the use of visuals and sound with an excellent cast including Dennis Franz as, you guessed it, an NYPD cop.
Beaten! 🥺😭🤪
ReplyDelete047.- MARATHON MAN (1976, 4K UHD)
First rewatch in decades for the movie that made me and everyone who saw it afraid to sit in a dentist's chair. 😨🥵 Dustin Hoffman plays Babe (!), a super-smart Columbia U. college student and marathonist-in-training with a troubled past (his father offed himself after being targeted by Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt) whose brother 'Doc' (Roy Scheider, unafraid to show his rockin' dad bod while in his undies) is a contraband courier for Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), a Nazi war criminal operating out of Uruguay. The unexpected death of Szell's brother forces Christian to expose himself by coming to New York, leading to covert American operatives putting the squeeze on Babe after Doc also comes to visit his baby brother. Screenwriter William Goldman (adapting his own novel), director John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy") and cinematographer Conrad Hall ("Butch Cassidy...," "Road to Perdition") put on a clinic about how to make a perfect NYC-set (with side trips to Paris and South America), 70's conspiracy thriller that only dabbles vital information when necessary. Only Marthe Keller as Babe's "girlfriend" feels wasted, but that's how Bechdel Tests rolled in the 70's. 😡 3.90 RETRACTABLE BARAKA WRIST KNIVES (out of five).
DISCLOSURE DAY (2026):
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if god loves us, but I know Steve does. Review later this week!
I’m still hoping this movie is about sexy aliens seducing Michael Douglas
Delete048.- THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004, KINO LORBER 4K UHD). Streaming on Paramount+.
ReplyDeleteFirst-time watch for this Jonathan Demme-directed remake of the 1962 Frank Sinatra-starring "Manchurian Candidate," and my first impression is that you need to have already seen the original to appreciate what this new one (is a 22-year-old remake 'new' anymore?) offers. Made at the height of the post 9/11 'War on Terror' mentality (back when we thought Bush/Cheney was as bad as it'd ever get...🙄😔), the filmmakers update the premise from nations trying to manipulate our elected officials to private corporations (Manchurian Global... get it?) using their access to government connections via their weapon/financial divisions. There are constant sound bites of negative TV news items in the background to further drill into viewers' minds the blurring of the lines between private and public institutions. Give credit to Demme and his writers for basically predicting back in '04 the paranoid, conspiracy and lie-dependent political reality we've been living under since 2016. 🫤😮💨
Great supporting cast (Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright, Dean Stockwell, Simon McBurney, Pablo Schreiber, Jon Voight, baby-faced Anthony Mackie, etc.), but Denzel Washington seems miscast as Ben Marco. Too meek and passive (even during the flashbacks to Kuwait and the brainwashing scenes) and very rarely (two scenes!) showing the fiery passion Denzel's characters are known for. Meryl Streep (a dead ringer for Angela Lansbury's fiery matriarch flexing behind-the-scenes power) and Bruno Ganz (as Denzel's techie friend) get my acting MVP's. 'It's fine,' but in this day/age it's depressing to watch the fantasy political reality of this film knowing what we're gonna watch on CNN every night for the next 2.5 years. 😓😶🌫️ 3.30 KAYAK DROWNING ACCIDENTS (out of five).
049.- THE DEAD MOTHER, aka LA MADRE MUERTA (1993, SPAIN, RADIANCE BLU-RAY). Streaming on TUBI, PLEX, AMC+, FAWESOME.
ReplyDeleteA home invasion by a shotgun-wielding thief kills a Spanish art restorer and leaves her young daughter wounded. 20+ years later that same criminal/murderer, Ismael (Karra Elejalde, aka Temu Antonio Banderas), recognizes the little girl he shot as grown-up Leire (Ana Álvarez), recuring patient at a clinic for the mentally challenged. Paranoid that Leire might recognize him, Ismael and his 'Bonnie' Maite (Portuguese-born Lio) kidnap Leire and tie her to a bedpost. What follows are 90 minutes of 'will he or won't he?' tension as Ismael's clearly smitten by Leire's innocence and beauty (🤢🤮), but is smart enough to know he's better off appeasing Maite by indulging her suggestion to ask for ransom. It's rare for a thriller to have the bad guy be the main character opposite a passive, non-verbal innocent when the conflict is all in the former's head. Co-writer/director Juanma Bajo Ulloa pulls it off but just barely; even then, he slips a couple of times into psych0sexu^l territory with Leire. 😱 A scene involving a nurse (Silvia Marsó's Blanca) trying to rescue Leire is Hitchcock-level good, and the pitch-dark humor of Ismael trying to get Leire to smile keeps things lively instead of gross. I'm conflicted, but have to settle for 3 BEER TAP HANDLE MURDERS RIPPED OFF BY 'SCREAM VII' (out of five). Your mileage WILL definitely vary on this one. 😟
BONUS: 050.- VICTOR'S KINGDOM, aka EL REINO DE VICTOR (SPAIN, 1989).
DeleteIncluded in "The Dead Mother's" Radiance Blu-ray is the director's award-winning short film (38 min.), "Victor's Kingdom", which I personally found more fun and entertaining than the main feature despite both indulging in unpleasantness (r@pe, graphic violence, etc.). An old, fat pig of a father and his imagination-fueled young boy live in a big house where the daughter of the previous owner, Sara (Luisa Solaguren), works as a maid and companion to the kid by reading him fairytales about a valiant prince. Both Sara and the kid want to escape an unpleasant reality, and their wish is weirdly granted by a home invader who only steals food at night and doesn't want to harm anyone... until he realizes what the old man does to Sara at night when the kid is asleep. Weirdly wholesome and imaginative (the final bloody showdown is more comical than violent), "Victor's Kingdom" feels like watered-down "Amelie" meets a whimsical "Pan's Labyrinth." 3.5 ANTHILLS NEAR THE DINING ROOM TABLE (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 9!
ReplyDelete051- INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU (1968, DVD). Also streaming on AMAZON PRIME, TUBI, MGM+, YOUTUBE.
There's a two-minute scene in "Inspector Clouseau" that is one of my favorites in the entire series (starts at 1:27:45) in which Clouseau (Alan Arkin) and his lady friend Lisa (Delia Boccardo) are locked in a boat. After a series of setbacks, Clouseau has a mental breakdown in which he questions why everything he does/touches turns into a disaster. The inspector is terrified he's about to die, and questions why his stupidity allowed his enemies to get the better of him. It's the 007 equivalent of one-off George Lazenby crying at the end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (released the same year, also by MGM), the moment savvy viewers realized 'Oh, this Lazenby fella is no Sean Connery, but he's doing stuff Sean wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.' As in "Diamonds Are Forever," when Peter Sellers came back to play Clouseau he ran away from the pathos Alan Arkin indulged in (for one brief 2 min. scene, mind you) that showed a side of the character never seen before, or since.
Aside from that anomaly, the problem with "Inspector Clouseau" is... EVERYTHING ELSE! 😵💫😵Arkin gives it a good try, but he's all mannerisms and accents without a human soul at its core... except in the above-mentioned scene. The plot sends Clouseau over to England to assist Scotland Yard find money missing from a train heist, a neat way to keep this Clouseau away from Sûreté and the Sellers/Edwards supporting cast. Since we're at the end of the 60's we get plenty of James Bond-inspired tech (a laser beam that Clouseau promptly uses to destroy Frank Finlay's office, speed boats that look like cars, etc.) that mostly falls flat. The gags-per-minute (GPM) ratio is high, but the laughter generated by them is tepid at best. There are funny moments here and there, but you have to be awfully patient waiting/looking for them amidst the laughter drought. "Inspector Clouseau" bombed in April of '68, probably because three months prior fans of the series got their fillings with "The Party." So MGM learned its lesson. Any future Clouseau feature had to have Peter Sellers in the role and Blake Edwards running things (sorry, Bud Yorkin). It'd take another seven years for that to happen... but that's a story for another review. 🙃🙂
ANIMATED INTRO OPENING: 3.40 RED, WHITE & BLUE CONFETTI STREAMERS (out of five). Not bad. Using assets from "The Inspector" cartoon series, Canadian animators do justice to the style and pace the series' opening credits are known for. Ken Thorpe supplies a decent alternate theme song and score, neither excellent nor terrible.
MOVIE RATING: 2 LAMPS CONSTANTLY SHUFFLED AROUND THE DESK (out of five). It's the black sheep of the franchise for a reason. If it didn't have the scene of Clouseau having an emotional breakdown I'd rank this even lower! 🥸