I Revisited Top Gun, And...

It's 80's dated yet still entertaining: 

Of course I've seen this 80's-tastic movie before; it's just that the last time had to be around 2008, when there was a revival screening of it at a Regal Cinemas in Orlando. As there is a sequel coming in the summer, might as well get on board and take flight with this again.

The movie is cheesy and slick entertainment, but I can still say this is fine. The lead is a reckless aggressive person who of course has a buddy in the Top Gun program, who of course has a skilled rival, and of course has a love interest. It's a stock story which has such things as a crises of confidence, motorcycles, gruff instructors at the academy, an enemy that is implied but never explicitly stated to be the Soviets and yes... like many 80's films, homoeroticism. It's not just “the volleyball scene”, which even back in '08 when I saw the movie theatrically w/ a small crowd, most of them started giggling right as that infamous bit started. For a long time, people have laughed at how that scene plays years after the fact.

Even I had to look up the movie's title, but the reason why anyone would know the otherwise obscure 1994 film Sleep with Me is that none other than Tarantino has a cameo as a random guy talking to one of the film's leads about how Top Gun is “one of the greatest scripts” because it is “a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality” where everyone else at the academy is gay while Kelly McGillis represents heterosexuality and several moments in the movie represent this opinion, including the ending line said by Iceman to Maverick, “You can be my wingman” (which QT either accidentally or on purpose for authenticity's sake gets wrong in the monologue). It is exactly the sort of speech you would expect from Quentin and for most of the time that YouTube has been around, there are multiple versions of that scene floating around.

As cliché and goofy as the movie is, at least it is a fun watch. Tom Cruise's charisma as Maverick of course goes a long way, and there are plenty of quality actors bringing those characters to life; some of them I actually forgot were in this, such as James Tolkan and Meg Ryan. Harold Faltermeyer creating a score incredibly of its time was a positive for me (along with a nice soundtrack) and naturally, all of the aerial sequences and dogfights you see are aces as it's real instead of phony CGI. Who knows if the sequel will be worthwhile but at least this-one of the biggest movies of the entire decade-is not too cringeworthy to enjoy in 2020, no matter if you interpret the story as intended or think it's about Maverick wrestling with his sexuality.

The Haunting of Sharon Tate

The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: Daniel Farrands

Starring: Hilary Duff, Jonathan Bennett, Lydia Hearst, Pawel Szajda, Ryan Cargill

From: Some companies which should probably be embarrassed

I was pleasantly surprised by the results from the Oscars tonight. Last night I viewed a movie that is almost as far away from an Academy Award winner for Best Picture that you can get: 

Sometimes I see a movie because I can tell a good story about it.

This being one of them came about due to a Facebook post, of all things. A young lady I know shared a post concerning an Instagram post that Hilary Duff made on the set of this film. Some people (including my friend) considered the post to be insensitive of Tate and her unborn child. I won't get into the whole rigmarole as it resulted in a discussion both of “being woke” and “cancel culture”; of course, this means that the thread was a total disaster. I only remarked that I knew of the rotten reputation this has due to several YouTube reviews I've come across. It wasn't something I was planning on ever checking out as this picture sounded downright offensive, the wrong kind of exploitation.

I understand why Sharon's sister Debra was aghast about this; besides the crass nature, the movie is a fictional look at a real life tragedy which actually goes supernatural at times and is based on a dream that Tate apparently had a year before her death where she was murdered, and that's what this is all about... her being haunted by various dreams & premonitions, pondering if she could change her fate, etc. Believe it or not, this artless schlock was actually pretentious. Then there's how this ends... appalling in numerous ways. Arguably even worse was the filmmaking craft you see here, or lack thereof. The outdoor scenes were obviously dubbed because they did not even have any sort of mics worth a darn, the CG is ghastly in quality, the script and dialogue is incredibly on the nose, and worst of all... it pays no respect to Sharon Tate, her friends, or all the people that were killed in August of 1969.

This has more in common w/ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood than you might expect; there's a film I did not love yet of course I can say that was a much better tale involving Tate and Margot Robbie was far greater than Hilary Duff, although Duff did not give the worst performance nor did she have the most laughable/befuddling accent... one guy sounded like a D-rate version of Dracula. Hollywood at least greatly presented Los Angeles in 1969 while Haunting is made on the cheap and you don't believe it was the year of Woodstock. At least Hollywood was not padded with multiple dream sequences, wobbly drone shots, ponderous scenes, real life footage that includes clips from the aftermath of the murder, potshots at Roman Polanski because we know in modern times that he's a creep, and a whole lot of boredom. This might sound entertaining if I gave a spoiler-filled review of the movie... but it's just so dull there's no campy laughs to be had.

This “young lady I know,” I did not go into specifics on why this movie has made so many mad, even though I had practically had everything spoiled beforehand; I just brought up how I heard it was tasteless. Because reasons, The Haunting of Sharon Tate would be something real upsetting to her so I am glad this is something she will avoid. Also brought up was how the same director just released a Nicole Brown Simpson picture that by all accounts is even worse than this, which is a big reason why Haunting did not get the lowest of the low ratings from moi; of course, she was appalled. The thing I most do not understand is that the director is Daniel Farrands, who created two tremendous documentaries in Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th; I highly recommend both. I cannot comprehend why his fictional movies being such slapdash affairs that are so poor in quality, not to mention the gross nature of those films or how the scripts are total amateur hour. He DID write Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers... but from what I understand, neither version of the movie came close to what his original script was.

The main reason why I saw this was that it was free on Prime; perhaps one day I'll discover for myself if The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson is as much an atrocity as all reviews have said it is... it is something I'll never look forward to, that is all I can say for certain.

Ace In The Hole

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Runtime: 111 minutes

Directed by: Billy Wilder

Starring: Kirk Douglas (RIP), Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady

From: Paramount

I give Ace in the Hole the highest possible rating. See why below:

This movie stings and is as venomous as a rattlesnake.

After Kirk Douglas had passed away at the age of 103 on Wednesday, I knew my next movie would be something starring him; Spartacus has been seen a few times by me before (and reviewed a few years ago) so this seemed like the next obvious choice to go with.

I heard this was rather cynical and misanthropic but I was blown away with how this movie turned out. Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, a down on his luck newspaper reporter who by happenstance ends up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He talks his way into a job and even admits he has been let go from major newspapers in the past for indiscretions on his part. It's not long before the movie reveals just how rotten and reprehensible a person he is; Tatum wishes for bad news to happen so he has something to write about and circulation can increase. What a stroke of luck then that he stumbles upon a man named Leo who is trapped in a cave after it collapses on him while he is looking for Native American pottery. It is a horrifying sight to see how Tatum manipulates Leo and the people in the rural New Mexico area (including his family) for his gain and nothing more.

You'll get pretty mad at seeing his behavior and how others are destroyed by his actions. Although, I also got mad at seeing how others were corrupted by greed... Leo and his family operate a small shop in the middle of nowhere and because of the collapse becoming a national story, their business is great. If it's not appalling enough that Chuck is teamed with a neophyte reporter that soon becomes corrupted and his ideals come crashing down, it's how people showed up outside of the caves and treat the event as a must-attend get-together, as if it's a giant party... solely due to the media's portrayal of the event as a bad news story worth the public's attention. Ace in the Hole showed that Chuck wasn't the only one who was rotten & reprehensible.

The movie says a lot about such topics as greed, capitalism, the human propensity for the love of tragedy and (especially) the power of the media, including its ability to be manipulative. I am not a “fake news!” sort of guy and I have no problem with most media. However, tabloid journalism I am no fan of as I don't care for gossip or tawdry discussion of vapid celebrities and all the cable news networks in the United States (not just the usually-loathed Fox News) are more about entertainment than actual journalism and they should not be anyone's source to learn about the world's events. Thankfully not everyone you see in Ace is a poor human being or someone manipulated by this tragedy; therefore, this acerbic movie is not a punishing sit. Rather, this is incredibly powerful as you are horrified at how everything spirals out of control and you worry about Leo's fate.

As this was a film Billy Wilder made at Paramount, naturally it was a high-quality and high-class production both in front and behind the camera; many of the exteriors were actually shot in rural New Mexico. The cast was full of quality actors but it was Douglas who was a tour de force in such a detestable role. The movie has lost little of its power over the past 7 decades as regrettably, its themes are not a thing of a past and not only did it make for a memorable episode of The Simpsons back in the 90's (when the show was worth a damn) but it wouldn't take much updating to have a remake. Not that I usually love such things... to be frank, the general public today could learn a lot from viewing Ace in the Hole's messages.

Heavy Trip

Heavy Trip (Hevi Reissu) (2018)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Juuso Laatio/Jukka Vidgren

Starring: Johannes Holopainen, Samuli Jaskio, Antti Heikkinen, Minka Kuustonen

From: Several Finnish companies

Featuring symphonic post-apocalyptic reindeer-grinding Christ-abusing extreme war pagan Fennoscandian metal.

I've known of this since before it came out in the United States; it's gotten pretty good buzz in some circles yet because I am me, I put off something that's been on Prime for months as I am me. In addition, sometime in the first half of 2020 I'll FINALLY post a Top 10 of movies I've seen for 2017 and 2018. Absurd, yet I will get those completed. This stands a decent chance at being on the 2018 list. As for the death metal that you get to hear in Heavy Trip, the “Cooking Monster vocals” are something which don't appeal to me, although the music itself I can respect as it must be difficult to craft such a brutal sound. To clarify, the metal from the 70's through the 90's is pretty rad, such as Priest, Ozzy, the silly hair metal from the 80's, some of it in the 21st century is cool (such as symphonic metal), I like thrash and Slayer's Reign in Blood is a stone cold classic, to briefly mention but a few of all the opinions I can share about the genre.

This covers a quartet of misfits who live in a small Finnish town and have had a band for 12 years... which has only played in a basement of a slaughterhouse, has no original songs and don't even have a name until in the middle of the film they decide upon IMPALED REKTUM. They finally get a chance to perform in public but there are many complications across the way as they try to win the respect of the squares in their village. Now, this does poke fun at the more ludicrous elements of the death metal genre yet it was done in a loving, respectful way that doesn't thumb its nose at the outcasts we follow. Along the way, we see the (few) friends they have, their judgmental enemies... and me discovering that 80's Chevy vans were sold in Finland. It does take a good amount of time before the actual trip takes place; as an aside, the plot description here and elsewhere... it gives away too much. Try not to look at it beforehand.

The movie was not only funny throughout as we see the absurdities of Impaled Rektum's journey to success, all the band members are easy to root for as awkward, different underdogs who try to succeed as outsiders; one even attempts a romance with a blonde florist... who has a gruff police officer dad. It was a fun journey as the situation becomes more and more absurd. Each member of the band is different, all having their quirks and concerns as they all work “normal” jobs. Even if you aren't a fan of death metal, not much from Impaled Rektum is heard and the score/soundtrack is either rock that is not as heavy, or not rock at all. At times there is lovely Nordic scenery to look at.

For those that love even some of the comically large number of permutations of metal out there-something the movie adroitly pointed out-this should be a must-see.

The Great Race

The Great Race (1965)

Runtime: 160 minutes

Directed by: Blake Edwards

Starring: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn

From: Warner Bros.

Why not view a screwball comedy, even if it's 160 minutes long?

This movie played late last night on Turner Classic Movies and as I like screwball humor, its length was not too much of a concern. I easily got through the 197 minute version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, after all. Blake Edwards made this as a tribute to the silent movies... to me it was more like a live action Looney Tunes cartoon, which is fine also.

Tony Curtis plays The Great Leslie, a showman who always dresses in white and does dangerous stunts. His rival is Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon), clad in black and who always tries to thwart those attempts or tries to top his opponent, to no avail. Leslie is assisted by Keenan Wynn, while Fate's partner is Peter Falk. The heroes are low-key while Lemmon and Falk... “over the top” doesn't even begin to describe those performances. Anyhow, both sides decide to join a New York to Paris auto race, where of course they drive West instead of East. Oh yeah, it's the turn of the 20th century and the plot is based on there actually being a 1908 New York to Paris race, back when there were hardly any roads to speak of and automobiles were in their infancy. In addition, Natalie Wood is also there as a suffragette who

Of course this has its ups and downs and some segments I did not love as much as others. Even then, I was never bored with a genre effort that I normally prefer be much shorter and for me, the biggest risk was being fatigued by something that was usually pretty LOUD and unsubtle. All that said, I can still say this was pretty good. This had enough laughs throughout to where I was never annoyed or bored. Every main player was funny and Lemmon had a dual role where he also played a foppish prince of a fictitious country that uses a Cyrillic alphabet and he laughs like Pee Wee Herman; curious. For what was the most expensive comedy of all time at this point, naturally everything is big in scale, including all the locations visited & some epic stunts and bravura moments that are borrowed from famous scenes of old; e.g., like a barroom brawl held in a place that wasn't a bar at a dusty old saloon and other scenes I dare not spoil here.


There's also an appropriate Henry Mancini score and while this sort of comedy will naturally not appeal to everyone, it at least entertained me in being so damn zany.

Caliber 9 and Black Dynamite Are Both Great Movies

That is all.

Kindergarten Ninja!

Kindergarten Ninja (1994)

Runtime: 78 minutes

Directed by: Anthony Chan

Starring: Dwight Clark, Juan Chapa, George Chung, Suzanne Stanke, Vinny Cerrato

From: Pegasus Films

Last night I revisited the poliziotteschi Caliber 9 and it is something I still dig quite a bit. Thursday night was this... talk about completely different. Believe it or not, this motion picture is relevant for the weekend: 

Yes, this is a real movie... made by D.A.R.E.!

For you (American) football fans, the star of this movie is Dwight Clark, the late San Francisco 49ers star who was on two Super Bowl winning teams in the 1980's and as the 49ers are playing against the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday in Super Bowl LIV (or as I like to call it, Super Bowl Olivia), what better time to finally view something I've had on disc-which is a glorified DVD-R-for awhile now? I am not even sure where I heard about this first... perhaps it was Letterboxd. Before I go on, I need to explain the concept of D.A.R.E. It is a program where elementary school kids are taught the evils of drugs by police officers. It was actually a thing in my school way back when... I understand it is not as much a thing now, as the program doesn't work. Personally, I hardly knew anything about speed at the age of 10 and allegedly, the main thing the program did... give knowledge of various drugs to young children!

Clark plays BLADE STEEL-despite the name, not an 80's pro wrestler or adult actor; rather, he was... a football player-who is a “bad boy” and has to do community service at a community center after being arrested for driving in his Mercedes while drinking a Bud Light, w/ a cooler of beer in the back seat and a 20 year old girl in the passenger seat. From Heaven (actually, some park in the San Francisco Bay area) you have God asking Bruce (as in, Bruce Lee!) to save Blade for the purpose of Mr. Lee becoming an angel. This is done after Bruce engages in martial arts w/George Washington and Charlie Chaplin... no kidding. Somehow, this isn't the strangest iteration of Bruce Lee... look at the movie The Dragon Lives Again for something really bizarre. Note that Bruce's face is never shown clearly, is only referred to as “Bruce”... and after about the 10 minute mark, he disappears! Instead, Bruce's blind student (not known as Zatoichi but might as well have been) is the one who teaches Mr. Steel. Should Bruce really get his wings in this case?

Anyhow, the community center class is not just full of kindergarten students... but who cares, as the title being Kindergarten Ninja was one of the reasons I even tracked this down. Of course, with Zatoichi teaching him karate, Blade turns his life around and he comes to enjoy his interaction w/ the children. Perhaps Bruce should have tried saving Michael Vick, Aaron Hernandez or Antonio Brown... back on track, there is a villain. HECTOR MACHETE has kids sell drugs in the neighborhood, which results in martial arts showdowns with his goons getting their asses kicked by Steel. Now, this is incredibly low-budget and there are hilariously bad screen wipes that even George Lucas would object to.

That said, I can't get too mad at this wacky production. After all, it's usually tongue-in-cheek; one example is that when Machete first appears, a flashing “Bad Guy” credit appears on screen. The action scenes are acceptable and at least I could laugh at most of the bad actors. One thing I was not expecting was that kids would get beat up, but they do; even more of an eyebrow-raiser... Clark doing karaoke of Edwin Starr's 25 Miles at his own restaurant and he beats up thugs during this performance, yet it happens. Even with this promoting a program that don't work, this has good intentions, promotes some nice messages and much to my surprise, more often than not the actual comedy at least made me chuckle. 

Dwight Clark passed away in 2018, unfortunately due to ALS that he believed was due to concussions he got in his playing days. After he retired from the sport he was in executive roles behind the scenes for the 49ers then the Cleveland Browns. As an actor he was not bad and he looked the part so perhaps he could have starred in legit B-action movies during the 90's. Overall, I was relieved this was not intolerable and infantile like it very well could have been; this was easier to get through than I expected.