Fighting Back

Fighting Back (1982)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: Lewis Teague

Starring: Tom Skerritt, Patti Lupone, Michael Sarrazin, Yaphet Kotto, David Rasche

From: Dino de Laurentiis Company

Unfortunately, this review will start off with death. Aside from Leslie Nielsen passing away yesterday, there’s also The Empire Strikes Back director Irwin Kirschner passing away today; now, besides Empire, the only movies I’ve seen from him are the James Bond movie that actually isn’t a part of the series called Never Say Never Again and the other is Robocop 2. Neither movie I think too highly of, to say the least, but I’m sure his other films are better than that and Empire will never not be awesome. So, RIP to him.

Also passing away recently was producer Dino de Laurentiis, who produced a variety of films from the 70’s up to recent times. His name became infamous as it got connected to such schlock as the first King Kong remake in the 70’s, a killer whale movie called Orca, the Flash Gordon remake, and some others. Yet, he also produced serious things, like Serpico, Death Wish, and Conan the Barbarian. So, his name shouldn’t be looked down upon if it’s attached to a movie.

This film, Fighting Back, is from him and released by Paramount. Now, Dino didn’t produce any of the Death Wish sequels, so it’s not a surprise that the same year the first sequel came out, he’d go back to the well himself and do something similar. This has never been released on even DVD, but it was on Netflix Instant. I don’t have that service but I was still able to track it down and watch the film.

The movie is about a typical Italian family, headed by patriarch John D’Angelo (Skerritt) who runs a deli in Philadelphia and sad to say for them, their neighborhood has turned to crap, with crime and other bad things ruling the day. He decides to live up to the title of the movie after having a ridiculously bad set of circumstances happen to him one after another. He and his wife were driving around one day when they interfered with a pimp slapping his ho! I kid you not. That lead to a car chase and an accident results in a miscarriage. Then, his mother walks in on a robbery and the robbers try to pry a ring off of her finger; it was stuck, so the entire finger gets cut off with shears! This all happens in the span of a day or two at the most. Reminds me of the Daniel Powter song Bad Day.

So, after all that John gets mad and he forms a neighborhood watch group that patrols the area and calls the cops in case they find something illegal happening. What ends up happening is that John and his group act more like vigilantes (especially when John sees the guy who ran him off the road), which gets the ire of the likes of local politicians, the police, and even a local African-American activist (Kotto), as the watch gets noticed as being a racist thing. Yep, the movie is button-pushing to the max. It's manipulative.

Yet, it's still very entertaining. It's a drama and there's drama things that go on. For example, a classmate of their son (who looks like around 12) is a user of heroin! But, there's also action that you see throughout, from barfights to a brawl in a chicken shack, and arms getting broken with baseball bats. It's audience-pleasing. So, it's not technically great, the story throws a lot out there in a "let's see what sticks on the wall" sort of thing, some things should not be looked at too closely... that said, it's still fun and if you enjoy movies like the first Death Wish or other stories concerning vigilantes getting revenge on their own when the law can't help them out, then it is a movie worth tracking down. I have no idea if it's still on Netflix Instant or not, but I'm sure that "less ethical" sites also have it available for download.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

RIP Leslie Nielsen

Instead of doing a review tonight, I'll note this sad bit of news. Rest In Peace. I'll have a review up tomorrow night, and also Tuesday night.

Lords of Dogtown

Lords of Dogtown (2005)

Runtime: 107 minutes

Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke

Starring: John Robinson, Emile Hirsch, Heath Ledger, Nikki Reed, Rebecca de Mornay

From: Columbia

Here is a random movie that actually has to deal with the surfing scene also, and is a feature film version of a popular documentary concerning some surfer boys who went into skateboarding and did a lot to change it from a fad thing to a now popular sport that has many fans and is a staple of such things as the X-Games.

Way back when I saw the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, which I guess was fine but for whatever reasons wasn’t as great as I was hoping it would be. Strangely (especially for me) I was more entertained by this movie version of the same story. To sum things up, you get to see the lives of young kids Stacy Peralta (who put together Dogtown And Z-Boys and wrote this movie), Jay Adams, and Tony Alva, who enjoy skating and surfing alongside a board designer named Skip Engblom (Ledger; I thought he delivered a very memorable performance here. Remember, this was long before The Dark Knight and around the same time as Brokeback Mountain; back in those days his acting skills didn’t always receive a lot of praise, fair or not). Skip polyurethane wheels for skateboards, which manage to greatly improve their usage. From that and the usage of emptied swimming pools one summer, those boys become great at that craft and forming a team called Z-Boys, representing Dogtown (an area of Santa Monica, California); they win competitions and all the boys receive a fair amount of fame. Not too surprisingly, jealousy and cash drive them apart, but various events cause them to patch things up.

I am not quite sure how accurate the movie is to real life (I’d hope so given that one of the boys wrote it), but it’s an entertaining tale about the history of a hip sport and how some teenage males managed to play a role in the 70’s to make it the success it is today; there’d be no guys like Tony Hawk, Chad Muska, or Bob Burnquist (yep, back in the day I enjoyed playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on my Nintendo64. Other than that I don’t watch skateboarding and I sure as heck don’t try to do it myself, me with my little to none athletic ability) and it wouldn’t be an X-Games staple. The movie is well-made and not only do you get to see some drama, but also of course there’s the skateboarding action and there’s a soundtrack filled with cool 70’s tunes.

By the way, I didn’t mind that there were some attractive ladies in the cast, including Nikki Reed (director Hardwicke directed her in the great Thirteen in ’03 and I’m sure that connection is why she was cast in the Twilight series, the first one helmed by Catherine) and America Ferrara. Speaking of her, it reminds me of when I saw the movie on the big screen back in ’05. It wasn’t a crowded screening by any means, but a group of young teenage girls were there along with one “father figure” type. I presume they wanted to see it because the lead boys in the movie were “cute” or what have you. There’s a scene where Ferrara’s character (a minor one) takes off her shirt and a boy gets to see her large breasts encased in a bra. This was back when America wasn’t so thin. I thought she looked fine back then, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, a girl went, “Whoa!” to the sight of a shirtless Ferrara. I thought a similar thing!

I'll be back a week from today with a new review. Things may be hectic with Thanksgiving coming up and all that, but I'll still have a new review then.

The Endless Summer

The Endless Summer (1966)

Runtime: 95 minutes

Directed by: Bruce Brown

Starring: Actual surfers such as Michael Hyson and Robert August, narrated by Bruce Brown

From: Bruce Brown Films

Here’s something a little different from me: a documentary, and something even odder… a surfing film. I briefly reviewed one, which I saw at a screening at Universal Orlando when I was the only person in the auditorium. It’s known as Bustin’ Down The Door, from 2008. I reviewed it many months after I had seen it that one time, so that’s why it wasn’t my best. I’ll have to try and track that down one of these days. I haven’t even found it on the streaming video sites. I mean, to be perfectly honest, that’s how I watched this movie… so sue me!

The aforementioned Bustin’ was about some 70’s surfers whose impact was so great they changed surfing forever, whether or not you consider it to be for better or for worse in that it got commercialized. This movie is different. It’s back in a simpler time where some dudes did it more for fun and that indescribable rush rather than any cash prize. Bruce Brown had done small-time surfing movies before, but this is seen as his best. Accompanied by appropriate groovy surf music and calm narration, you follow some surfers search for “the perfect wave” as they are lucky to travel the entire world looking for one; you also see them interact with the locals.

Given that they are surfers and they have quite the awesome laid-back lifestyle where they live on the beach and whenever they can they can ride the wave (at least that’s the stereotype), it’s no surprise that you have goofy and droll humor. It works perfectly for this, trust me. I wish I had that sort of lifestyle, but as my athletic ability is about 0… sigh. It is a sport that you rarely get to see on TV so I’m sure that’s why there are many different surfing documentaries out there throughout many different decades and this is the second one I’ve seen but I’m sure that all of them look at things in a unique way, so as I possibly watch more and more of them, that will be neat to see how they differ.

If you want to see a quaint and nice movie with some daft humor and of course some pretty scenery, then you should enjoy it. It is also a nice look at how being a surfer is, at least back in the carefree 60's. It’s on YouTube in 10 parts. It’s not difficult to find.

I'll be back Sunday night with a new review.

A Special Diversion

No movie review tonight. I am too ticked off to do so. Instead I’ll talk about a movie website which stooped to a new low today.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but for the past few years I’ve looked at the forum at CHUD.com. I don’t really read the articles on the site itself, as it’s mainly stuff written by (and I’m using a quote that was posted anonymously on the bottom of the page of the offending article; you see, stupidly all of the articles have *anonymous* commenting. How asinine is that?) “hip latte-drinking faux intellectual f*******s”. It’s a hipster site with hipster writers that think they’re oh so witty when they’re just pompous assbags that aren’t entertaining to read at all. They think they're great, writing smug articles while listening to awful garbage like Sonic Youth or The Pixies. I've never liked hipsters; I prefer more "real" individuals. The forum itself, I only looked at a few threads at most. Those threads are great, but still most of the board I just ignored.

Well, I’ve been irked by the site as of late. The hipster smugness has increased, there are some stupid hypocritical new rules on the forum, and then today… oh today… I follow CHUD on Twitter. This afternoon I see that they posted an article about a proposed Spiderman musical. That’s not the horrifying part, although the idea of that even taking place is befuddling. Instead, it was what the article was titled. Here it is.

Yes, the title actually is: “The Spiderman Musical: The Worst Thing To Hit NYC Since Flight 175?” Now, I am not an expert on the subject matter but it was easy to infer what it was referencing, and yes, after looking online, Flight 175 was the plane that crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Seriously, CHUD used cheap heat in order to get attention and more page views, since by George the site NEEDS more page views and that is paramount over everything else. They actually thought it was OK to piss on everyone who was affected by September 11th just so that they’d get people to look at one of the vapid and stupid articles. Talk about offensive.

Me, I wasn’t even offended at the joke itself; it wasn’t too funny. It’s the idea that they’d use September 11 for comedy AND the way they used it for attention. Why would you even do such a horrible thing? Thousands of people were affected by what happened. I had relatives who lived now that far from the World Trade Center (one of them worked only a few blocks from there). None of them were harmed when the buildings went down, but Christ, how callous and heartless do you have to be? Why risk offending so many people for something so trite?

After I saw that garbage, it makes me not want to look at the site ever again. As is, I don’t feel like looking at the site anytime soon and if you decide to look at the link I provided, I hope it’s the last time you look at it yourself. Don’t support sites that think it’s acceptable to act this way. Hell, I even made a post on the forum and used my birth name (my handle on there isn’t my birth name) in a post where I got pretty mad and stated the obvious of it being offensive crap. Amazingly, I seem to be the only one on the forum who at least is willing to state the truth about it being tasteless. Everyone else is either complacent with it, or in some cases, the asshole who came up with the article and headline (some douche whose name doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned) actually got praised for being so “edgy” or what have you. I spit upon that guy and anyone who defends him! And I’m happy to do so to honor all of those who lost their lives in 9/11 or anyone who was affected by the tragedy.

That REALLY has left me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Even now, hours after I first saw the headline, my blood is boiling. So, my next review will be up on Thursday and I should be in a better mood then. But until then, here’s a middle finger, directed straight at CHUD.com.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex * But Were Afraid To Ask

Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex * But Were Afraid To Ask (1972)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Woody Allen

Starring: Woody Allen (but of course), Gene Wilder, Burt Reynolds, Tony Randall, Lynn Redgrave

From: United Artists

Here is something interesting: an anthology film from Woody Allen where you not only get his trademark “unique” humor but also vulgarity, and while it’s based on a nonfiction book of the same name, it’s only in the loosest sense. Instead of a “sex manual” that the book was, the movie was a series of sketches that not only talked about such things as transvestites, flashers, bestiality (!), and S&M, but also spoofs Italian new wave movies, horror flicks, and more. It’s a movie I’ve seen a few times and I’m always amused by it, even though it certainly is uneven at times. It’s easiest to break down what the seven segments are:

1. Do Aphrodisiacs Work? Woody plays a court jester and he gives an aphrodisiac to the Queen (the late Redgrave), with comic results.

2. What Is Sodomy? Gene Wilder plays a doctor who falls in love with an Armenian patient he meets one day. Problem is, the partner… is a sheep!

3. Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching An Orgasm? This is the spoof of Italian movies of the time period. I mean, from the way it’s shot to the fact that all the dialogue is in Italian. Woody plays a smooth lover (or at least a character that wants to be smooth) who can’t get his wife off, to be blunt. The solution to the problem is rather interesting.

4. Are All Transvestites Homosexuals? A middle-aged guy experiments with wearing women’s clothes… but it turns out much worse for him than he could have imagined.

5. What Are Sex Perverts? It’s a spoof of a 50’s era game show, where a panel has to guess what a guest’s sexual perversion is. Would you believe that one of the guys on the panel is REGIS PHILBIN? It’s true. Since the movie came out, his appearance in that role takes on great humor in of itself. Sure, he was known at the time for being a TV host, but not like in his Live With Regis and whoever days.

6. Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate? Woody and a young blonde meet up with a crazy mad scientist (played by veteran horror movie actor John Carradine, part of the ill-fated Carradine acting family), and things get really loony from there.

7. What Happens During Ejaculation? The last-and arguably-the best segment, you see what happens in the human body during a night of romance. You see what happens in the brain, with it being controlled by Randall and one of the operators is good old Burt. You also see some sperm getting ready for “deployment”, including Allen.

Like I said, it’s uneven, but if you think you would enjoy a quirky take on adult subject matter, then track this down. I'll be back Monday night.

The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Runtime: 128 minutes

Directed by: John Sturges

Starring: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, etc.

From: MGM

My apologies for this being a few hours late. I was busy today.

Here is a movie in a genre I haven’t really talked about before, the western. The only serious western I’ve talked about so far is The War Wagon, starring John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. This movie, though, is one that I’ve seen a few times before, as it’s great stuff. I just now need to see the movie it’s a remake of, Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 movie The Seven Samurai. I have it on a VHS tape, taped off of a Turner Classic Movies broadcast taped months ago, but as it’s a 3 ½ hour movie, I need a free afternoon and the motivation to watch it.

This movie can be found online but the version on Google Video appears to be a few minutes short; besides, you’re better off viewing it on a nice TV, between the nice Mexican scenery and the great score from Elmer Bernstein.

The plot is pretty simple but there’s more to it than meets the eye. People in a small Mexican town are harassed by Calvera (Wallach) and his bandits for supplies such as food; this happens a good amount of times throughout the years. Finally, the people of the town get fed up and some of the guys volunteer to go up north to the United States for help. They meet up with a cowboy named Chris (Brynner) and their plan is for Chris to get six other men to go down to Mexico to protect them from the bandits and to train the citizens to fight. He recruits a manly bunch of men, including Vin (McQueen), Bernardo (Bronson), Britt (Coburn), and a few others.

All of them have their own issues and problems and you get to experience that throughout. Sure, there’s fun and well-done action but a lot of it is getting to know the characters and their problems and why they are in the position they are. They don’t find the position of “gunslinger” being as honorable or cool as it may sound. Can they get it together to fight off against the bandits in a struggle that turns out to be more of a hassle than they first expected?

The movie is great stuff. It’s great old-fashioned entertainment with a lot of cool lines and snappy dialogue throughout, with enough time given to all of the seven to show off that while they’re cool, they also have foibles and difficulties. A few of the people in the cast ended up becoming big stars, and for good reason. What an awesome cast of many men… guys that you can idolize. Many of the big stars of today just don’t compare. They’d get their asses kicked in a brawl, I swear!

If you enjoy movies with manly men, westerns, and/or want to see some famous names from the past early in their careers, this is a must-see. I’ll be back Friday night with a new review.

Tango & Cash

Tango & Cash (1989)

Runtime: 104 minutes

Directed by: Andrey Konchalovskiy

Starring: Sly Stallone, Kurt Russell (no relation, I swear), Jack Palance, Teri Hatcher

From: Warner Brothers

First off, I have to mention that my November movie plans have changed already. The movie that I was going to review next… I’ll wait for that to either hit the dollar theatre joints or I’ll just wait for it to come on DVD. I won’t get into why; it’s just better that way. The next movie I’ll review will be in a genre I haven’t really talked about on here before: the western. This movie, though, is an action/comedy buddy movie, but with an emphasis on the humor.

Tango & Cash is a movie I’ve known about for years but I didn’t feel like watching until a few minutes ago when I bought the DVD used. I watched it and was amused by it, even though it was in widescreen and not anamorphic. Basically, on one of those old TV’s it just looks bad and the black bars dominate things. Then it was released on Blu-Ray and as of course that is anamorphic, things are greatly improved. However, I didn’t rush out and buy it, as I wanted to save my money and there were more important things to purchase. One day, though, at Target it was on sale for real cheap so I finally got the Blu-Ray and last month I watched it.

This is a movie that had a troubled history (the director listed here did most of it, but due to the usual “creative differences”, was replaced) and there were squabbling about how it should turn out… while it is evident while watching it that there are times where things are rushed or just doesn’t seem quite right, somehow the movie works with its goofiness, charm, and near-constant one-liners, something that I usually would detest but for some reason it happens to work with this film.

The plot is that Stallone is Ray Tango, a prim and proper cop who dresses in suits and often checks his stocks. Russell is Gabe Cash, a gruff cop who enjoys wearing blue jeans. They both on their own go after drug dealers. Yves Perret (Palance, overacting in a delicious manner) is a major drug dealer and he’s upset at both cops for ruining his business. So he comes up with quite the plan. Instead of killing them and making them martyrs, they get set up to look like dirty cops that killed an FBI agent, necessitating them going to jail. That’s exactly what happens and it takes some help, but they escape and despite their many differences they have to work together to try and bring him down. Sly’s lady friend Kiki (Hatcher) gets involved too.

As I mentioned, the movie is more comedy than action, although the action you do see is entertaining and not poorly done. Some familiar faces from 80 genre movies appear, such as James Hong, Brion James, and the unique-looking Robert Z’Dar, possessor of a one of a kind face. The plot moves along pretty quickly. There’s a great-looking proto-SUV assault vehicle that gets used by the heroes, to great effect. And, the one-liners come often. If you don’t like that sort of thing, the movie may not be for you. Then again, that sort of thing isn’t always for me either and yet whether it be due to the stars or because the majority of them are actually amusing, it worked for me. So, if you can see it in Blu-Ray and you enjoy action comedies with the emphasis on the latter, check this out.

I'll be back Monday night with a new review.