Chinatown

Chinatown (1974)

Runtime: 131 minutes

Directed by: Roman Polanski

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman, John Huston, Burt Young

From: Paramount

Here is a movie that including the viewing I had of it a few days ago (I got it for free from the local library), I’ve only seen twice, but it is an undeniable classic amongst so many people, and I agree with the general opinion on it.

Go here for a nice (if high-brow) brief analysis of the movie and some reasons why it’s considered great and some of the elements that make it so, such as the cinematography and how it’s plotted. If you don’t know anything about it, I will not reveal too much and instead I’ll deliver a bare-bones version. JJ Gittes (old Jack himself) is a gumshoe detective in LA in the mid 1930’s, where you have stuff like The Great Depression and a drought taking place. He gets hired by the wife of the chief engineer of the city’s Water and Power company to spy on him as she believes he is cheating. But, from there it’s much more complex (yet still easy to follow) as it’s actually a scam put on by someone, Jack gets involved with Evelyn (Dunaway) and you have much intrigue as you follow along with Gittes in trying to figure out what is going on; I will say that a major topic of the film is water and how it’s a powerful commodity and it can make people much money if they can manipulate it a certain way. That part of it reminds me of Quantum of Solace, and it could have been down well in that flick, but believe me it wasn’t. Then again that entire film was a miss and a major disappointment; I may talk about that one of these days. It is done to perfection in Chinatown, though.

These days it is easy to view Nicholson in a parody manner and think that his recent performances are just him playing himself, but even if that’s true you can’t forget how he was and how he delivered so many quality performances worth watching and enjoying. From what I’ve seen, this is clearly amongst his best-ever performances as a sleazy but still caring detective. The rest of the cast also does a great job with their roles and you have some surprises along the way, the biggest being near the end. I won’t reveal it but it comes out of nowhere and is quite shocking and puts a different twist on things. It’s something you should see, especially if you are a fan of mystery/film-noir flicks. Don't be put off because it's from Polanski, a guy who is infamous for obvious reasons (and I won't get into the controversy over him possibly finally going to jail for what he apparently did over 30 years ago; one part of his life makes a revelation in the movie all the more creepy), but instead enjoy the last movie he ever made in America and appreciate how despite some serious faults he's still one hell of a director.

Sometime soon I’ll see the movie’s sequel, The Two Jakes, which I understand is not that great. I don’t think we’ll ever see the proposed third movie with JJ Gittes, which involves the freeway system and the company known as Cloverleaf; yeah, Who Framed Roger Rabbit borrowed quite a bit from that planned third movie. WFRR is something I only fully appreciated when I saw it a few years ago and I could appreciate how while it was live-action and animation combined seamlessly, it was great as a story that was a classic film-noir from the olden days. That is something you should see if you haven’t viewed it recently/through adult eyes.

Meet The Feebles

Meet The Feebles (1989)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: Peter Jackson (yes, that Peter Jackson)

Starring: A bunch of puppets and some people in giant costumes

From: Wingnut Films

It’s still amazing to me that Peter Jackson has made a hugely successful trilogy of films (none of which I’ve seen and I have not too much in the way of interest in ever seeing them) and then did a remake of the famed King Kong and now has out The Lovely Bones, a big-budget flick with wildly divergent opinions as to its quality. I say that because before he hit it big, he made a trio of out-there movies that frequently are extremely graphic and have warped senses of humor, and yet manage to be quite awesome. They are 1987’s Bad Taste (easily found via Google Video), 1992’s Braindead (i.e. Bad Taste, probably the bloodiest movie ever made), and this one, a film about *puppets* who do a variety show-it’s obvious what it’s a parody of-and on their show they’re like the Muppets but off-screen they have their own world and it’s probably every taboo you can think of, from S&M to sodomy to drug use, perverts, paternity suits, and muckraking reporters.

There are a number of little stories in the film but the main ones are that the day is a big one (yeah, it mostly takes place during one day), as if their performance that night is great, they’ll get a fancy new TV contract, and a hedgehog named Robert (who speaks like Elmer Fudd) is there as it’s his first day on the job as part of the show’s chorus. From there you see how the characters act off-camera and it’s positively not for all tastes; if you have an out-there sense of humor and can laugh and enjoy off-color subjects, then this is for you. But, it’s not one of those gross-out fests where they’re as vulgar as possible with no skill involved at all. There’s a lot of legit humor here which just so happens to be usually on the vulgar side. There are even some musical numbers, and they’re all well-done. It’s unique and I think it’s a great time and it’s another one of those films that I can watch multiple times with no problems, and there aren’t too many of those around. It moves very quickly and there's never a dull moment.

Note, though, that the movie can be found on DVD released by several different extremely small companies, and the version I rented from college way back when and the one I have on DVD, the print is in rather horrid condition. It adds to the surreal experience, but oddly enough, on YouTube you can easily find the movie broken up into 10 parts, and there the print looks much better. So, that may be the way you want to see it. If you have any programs to download videos off of there… but not that I would ever condone such actions…

I’ll be back by this time next week with at least one new review.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes (2009)


68% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 186 reviews)

Runtime: 128 minutes

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Robert Maillet

From: Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow/Silver Pictures

Here’s something I was going to mention for the last review but I’ll state it here instead. Pro wrestling was obviously inspired by The Road Warrior. Besides the famous Road Warriors (i.e. Legion of Doom) tag team, there’s Lord Humungus and how there was a masked wrestler in the Southeast known as Lord Humungous, and then his outfit was clearly the inspiration for the costumes for another great 80’s tag team, Demolition.

Well, there’s a wrestling connection here too with this flick. Robert Maillet was a former wrestler, best known as being briefly in the WWF in the late 90’s as Kurrgan. He was pretty awful, even considering he’s a legit 7 feet tall guy, but I wonder why he didn’t become an actor sooner, as his interaction here with Downey reminded me of Bond vs. Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me, and indeed, if he wanted to be he could be the Richard Kiel of our generation.

But, besides that and the interesting musical score that seemed to fit the Victorian England setting pretty well, I didn’t care for this flick too much.

The main things were that I didn’t like the characters nor the story; those are kind of major things, so that’s that. I couldn’t stand the Holmes character at all, as he was a drugged up drunk loser who was totally reprehensible; I don’t care about anyone saying that’s how Sherlock was in the novels, as I haven’t read them and I’m sure most people know him from those old British movies. I have no idea why Watson kept on being by his side even though Sherlock almost always treat him like crap; it almost seemed like a battered wife sort of thing… seriously, not that I noticed it myself as I’m not a deviant like that, but others on messageboards have stated that there was a gay subtext between Holmes and Watson and given that, amongst other things, Sherlock for no reason at all dicks around and tries to prevent Watson from marrying his wife to be, so maybe they’re on to something there… so yes, I didn’t like any of the characters, not just the main ones.

Then, the story… it’s actually supernatural, which caught me off-guard (I didn’t pay much attention to the trailers), and it becomes more and more preposterous as it goes through a series of set-pieces (rather than any sort of plot that moves fluidly, it goes from one set-piece to another) and the ending… it is SO ridiculous and laughable. Sherlock is a bright guy, yeah, but he knows an encyclopedia’s worth of information on a variety of things SO broad and vast that just so happen to be a part of the story, and the fact that he just so happens to know all of this, it’s rather convenient and not something that I can believe. Besides the fact that Sherlock is an 1880’s version of an MMA fighter, he apparently also has mind-reading abilities and can see into the future and past; that’s the only way I can explain some parts of the story, and I have an easier time believing that the story was one thing rather than the way it turned out (to state it as vaguely as I can without spoiling anything). So, I didn’t like the story either. Mix in some action that can be hard to follow sometimes due to the God-awful new way action scenes are usually filmed where you rarely can make out what’s going on, and some rather horrid acting from Rachel McAdams where I couldn’t tell most of the time whether her character was supposed to be sarcastic and Holmes wasn’t supposed to know it, whether she was sarcastic and he WAS supposed to know she was BS’ing, or what, but it wasn’t a good performance from her at all (the other performances in this film were fine, I thought). That one performance didn’t help matters.

So, once again I’m baffled as to the high praise it’s gotten from many places, as like with District 9, it just turned me off and I didn’t like it, although at least it didn’t make me as mad as District 9 did. But, I recommend that you don’t see it. Check back this time next week for at least one new review.

The Road Warrior (i.e. Mad Max 2)

The Road Warrior (1981)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: George Miller

Starring: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Vernon Wells, Kjell Nilsson

From: Warner Brothers-Kennedy/Miller Productions

Here is another movie I got on Blu-Ray, which like with Rambo and Doomsday I rented from the local Blockbuster (it’s the only place I know of in town to rent stuff; the local Movie Gallery closed down, which I only found out a few days ago, after it was long gone; I’m bummed, as I would have liked to have gone in there and grabbed some DVD’s for extra cheap). This one is The Road Warrior, known as Mad Max 2 elsewhere around the world. It was called that in the U.S. as most people had never seen the original Mad Max yet.

The plot is simple yet effective. The greatly named Max Rockatansky is now a loner, roaming around in the Australian desert; we learned via opening narration that the world went to hell in a handbasket, so there’s that. Max is in his sweet ride, his only companion an awesome Australian Cattle Dog (wait until you see how the dog keeps a certain person at bay from possibly harming his master). In what can be applied to current times, gasoline is in short supply so acquiring it any way possible is the way of life in the desert. After the narration things start off immediately with a car chase with Max and several bikers, which Max wins, but we see the wildly-dressed gang (w/ Wez, played by Vernon Wells) later. Then, he stumbles upon an odd gyro pilot (Spence) who tells him about an encampment of random oddballs that staked their claim to an oil pump, making them the target of the gang that has Wez; their leader is Humungus (Nilsson), a huge masked man that nonetheless speaks rather intelligently and isn’t the gravelly-voiced or grunting sort of villain. They want the oil and gasoline, but the people of the encampment refuse the offer, so the threat escalates. Under duress, Max helps them out, and you’ll see whether or not his assistance will allow them to move to the Gold Coast area of the country.

The movie-a rather interesting take on the Western-is pretty great and holds up almost 30 years later. It’s filmed very well, the pace is pretty quick, and the action stuff is tremendous, especially the final 20 minutes or so, where you wonder how they did some of the stuff without computer aid and without several stuntmen being maimed or even killed. Without giving too much away, it turns out that a part of Doomsday manages to crib pretty heavily from the final 20 minutes of The Road Warrior. Also, there’s humor throughout, some of it pretty dark, but it’s always entertaining, no matter how odd it may seem at times. It’s easy to see why this made Gibson a worldwide star with this great turn as an anti-hero who you nonetheless cheer for. It’s especially nice on Blu-Ray. Sure, there aren’t too many features on it, but for a few bucks it was a very nice rental, at least.

Check back around this time next week for at least one new review.