Review: "Testament" Still Testifies (Happy B'day, Lukas Haas)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 54 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Testament (1983)
Running time: 89 minutes (1 hour, 29 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  Lynne Littman
WRITER:  John Sacret Young (based upon the short story, “The Last Testament” by Carol Amen)
PRODUCERS:  John Bernstein and Lynne Littman
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Steven Poster
EDITOR:  Suzanne Pettit
COMPOSER:  James Horner
Academy Award nominee

Starring:  Jane Alexander, William Devane, Rossie Harris, Roxana Zal, Lukas Haas, Philip Anglim, Lilia Skala, Leon Ames, Lurene Tuttle, Rebecca De Mornay, Kevin Costner, Mako, Mico Olmos, and Gerry Murillo

DRAMA

The subject of this movie review is Testament, a 1983 post-apocalyptic drama.  The film is based on the short story, “The Last Testament,” which first appeared in print in 1981 and was written by Carol Amen.  Testament the film focuses on a woman and her small suburban American family as they struggle to survive after a nuclear attack.

Talk about a time capsule movie, I hadn’t seen the anti-nuclear war/proliferation or anti-nukes film, Testament, in 21 years, and found it quite by accident on Internet rental service, Netflix.  Back in the early 80’s, Testament really fit in with a time when so many people thought the U.S. and the USSR were going to destroy the world in an inevitable nuclear world war, each side seemingly primed for mutually assured destruction.  Still, the film’s drama remains potent because its story of a community devastated by a man-made horror is timeless.

Testament is the story of Carol Wetherly (Jane Alexander), who becomes the family matriarch and leader when nuclear bombs are detonated across the country, and her husband, Tom (William Devane), doesn’t make it home to their suburb of Hamlin from his job in San Francisco.  As neighbors and members of her family begin to die from the fallout, Carol takes in orphans and tries to keep what’s left of her family together.  When it seems that everyone’s fate is sealed by radiation poison and it seems that they’re cut off from the rest of the world (or what still exists of civilization), she tries to teach her children adult matters that they will never live to learn.

Testament was originally a made-for-TV movie that impressed executives at Paramount Pictures enough to get it released theatrically.  The fact that it played in theatres made Jane Alexander eligible for post-season film awards, and she earned 1984 Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for best actress.  She dominates this film, and the tragic post-war existence of the survivors is etched in her performance.

There are some moments in this film that will stay with me forever, such as Carol washing her youngest child, Scottie (Lukas Haas), who has profuse bleeding in his stool – totally heart wrenching.  Even at an hour and a half running time, the film seems a bit long, as if it makes its point halfway through the film and everything else is just morbid piling on.  Still, the film gets across two points – humans will struggle to survive, even under the most adverse conditions.  Secondly, we humans will hurt ourselves more than anything else on the planet could.  Although I think that leaders who make the decision to go to war don’t give a damn about such movies, Testament is good enough for those of us who do.

7 of 10
B+

Friday, April 8, 2005

Updated:  Wednesday, April 16, 2014

NOTES:
1984 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Jane Alexander)

1984 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Jane Alexander)

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Videodrome" Still Dazzles (Happy B'day, David Cronenberg)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 31 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Videodrome (1983)
Running time:  87 minutes (1 hour, 27 minutes)
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  David Cronenberg
PRODUCER:  Claude Héroux
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Mark Irwin (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Ronald Sanders
COMPOSER:  Howard Shore

SCI-FI/HORROR/THRILLER with elements of fantasy

Starring:   James Wood, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Les Carlson, Jack Creley, and Lynne Gorman

The subject of this movie review is Videodrome, a 1983 Canadian science fiction and horror film from writer-director, David Cronenberg.  Possessing elements of the “body horror” genre, this film focuses on a sleazy cable television programmer who acquires a new kind of programming for his station then, watches as everything, including his life, spins out of control.  The film received eight Genie Award nominations (once Canada’s top film award), and won four, including a best director honor for Cronenberg (who shared the win with Bob Clark of A Christmas Story).

Although the term “visionary director” is bandied about so often (even more so now with so many movie reviewers and film critics crowding information space via the Internet, print, and televised media), Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg is truly a visionary as displayed in his film Videodrome.

Max Renn (James Woods) is a low-level cable TV operator who runs a television station and is looking for new material when he stumbles upon a kind of “snuff film” and porno TV broadcast called Videodrome.  Max wants to acquire the rights to Videodrome, but has a hard time finding out who owns the rights or from where exactly the program’s signal originates.  He finally discovers the creator of Videodrome, only to learn there is a larger conspiracy involved, and that watching Videodrome also causes the viewer to experience strange hallucinations.

The film has the usual characteristics of a Cronenberg production:  bodily invasion and penetration, body alteration, hallucinations, rape paranoia, and altered realities.  While certainly heavy with sci-fi and horror themes, Videodrome is firmly rooted in everyday reality.  The film deals with how television and video images can physically, as well as mentally, alter and affect the human body.  Cronenberg’s most successful experiment in this film is to make the viewer as totally lost and confused as Max Renn is.  We truly don’t know anymore than he does, and he holds no clues secretly in head from the viewer.

The film’s third act is one of the most brilliant film portrayals of altered perception, as it becomes almost impossible to say what is the real world and what is imagination and hallucination.  Even more brilliant, Cronenberg creates this sense of detachment from reality without loosing the viewer.  We may never know what is meant to be “real,” as this film draws to its shocking finale, but we can’t look away.

Videodrome does drag a little in the first act, but Cronenberg is a smart filmmaker of smart films that unveil slowly and intelligently before our eyes.  It is a dazzling examination of how TV has and is changing humanity – truly a movie masterpiece of the late 20th Century.

9 of 10
A+

Updated:  Saturday, March 15, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "The Keep" Plays Keep-Away with Audience

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 154 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Keep (1983)
Running time:  93 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Michael Mann
WRITER:  Michael Mann (from the novel by F. Paul Wilson)
PRODUCERS:  Gene Kirkwood and Howard W. Koch Jr.
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alex Thomson (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Dov Hoenig and Chris Kelly with Tony Palmer
COMPOSER:  Tangerine Dream

HORROR/FANTASY with elements of a thriller

Starring:  Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Jurgen Prochnow, Ian McKellan, Gabriel Byrne, and Robert Prosky

The subject of this movie review is The Keep, a 1983 horror-fantasy film from writer-director Michael Man.  The film is based on the 1981 novel, The Keep, by author F. Paul Wilson.  The Keep the movie focuses on a group of Nazis and the Jewish historian they turn to for help after they inadvertently free an ancient demon from its prison.

During World War II, the German army is sent to guard a Romanian mountain pass.  The soldiers take up residence in an old, mysterious and uninhabited fortress, The Keep.  They unwittingly unleash an ancient evil that begins killing them.  Thinking that the deaths are the result of rebellious locals, Nazi commandos arrive to deal with the trouble.

However, the Germans eventually summon an ailing Jewish historian, Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellan), from a concentration camp.  The professor arrives with his daughter, Eva Cuza (Alberta Watson), to solve the mystery.  Arriving right behind them is a stoic stranger (Scott Glenn) with mysterious powers and who obviously knows something about what’s going on in the Keep.

I imagine that the novel from which this film is adapted is lively and wildly fantastic, but the movie is short and dull.  Apparently, the original version of this movie ran nearly three hours in length.

Director Michael Mann would eventually produce the seminal television series, Miami Vice, and would direct well regarded films like Manhunter, Heat, and The Insider.  With The Keep, he gives us lots of smoke, glaring lights, and an extended laser show.  There is little story and no plot, and the cast, which is very talented, is lost in a maze of nothing.  This movie is, at best, a series of vaguely related scenes taped together into something coherent but really, really boring.  The saddest thing is that this film really has the basic material to make an entertaining horror and fantasy film.  What happened?

2 of 10
D

Updated: Friday, February 07, 2014


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Review: 1983 Version of "To Be or Not to Be" Still a Favorite

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 119 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

To Be or Not to Be (1983)
Running time:  107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  Alan Johnson
WRITERS:  Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan (based upon the 1942 screenplay by Edwin Justus Mayer; from a story by Ernst Lubitsch and Melchior Lengyel)
PRODUCER:  Mel Brooks
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Gerald Hirschfeld
EDITOR:  Alan Balsam
COMPOSER:  John Morris
Academy Award nominee

COMEDY/DRAMA with elements of music and war

Starring:  Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Tim Matheson, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd, José Ferrer, Ronny Graham, Estelle Reiner, Zale Kessler, Jack Riley, Lewis J. Stradlen, George Gaynes, George Wyner, and James Haake

The subject of this movie review is To Be or Not to Be, a 1983 comedy-drama starring Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks, who also produced the film.  Directed by Alan Johnson, To Be or Not to Be is a remake of the 1942 film, To Be or Not to Be, which starred Carole Lombard and Jack Benny.  In the 1983 film, a bad Polish actor is depressed that World War II has complicated his professional life and that his wife has a habit of entertaining young Polish officers.  One of her young officers, however, is about to get the actor and his acting troupe involved in a complicated plot against the Nazis.

Frederick Bronski (Mel Brooks) and his wife, Anna (Anne Bancroft), are impresarios of a Polish acting troupe in Warsaw, Poland circa 1939.  Their Bronski Follies, performed of course in the Bronski Theatre, is the toast of the city.  However, Germany invades Poland, and, arriving in Warsaw, the Nazis take the Bronskis’ stately home as their headquarters and also close the theatre.

Later, the Bronskis and their acting ensemble get involved with Lt. Andre Sobinski (Tim Matheson), a young Polish fighter pilot (who is smitten with Anna), in a complex subterfuge to prevent the Germans from getting their hands on a list of Polish underground fighters.  Things get more complicated when Nazi Colonel Erhardt (Charles Durning, in a performance that earned him an Oscar nod) orders the Bronski Theatre open again to perform for the Furher himself when Adolf Hitler visits Warsaw.

Real-life husband and wife Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft made a great comic team in To Be or Not to Be, a zesty remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 film classic starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny.  This film is, of course, filled with delightful musical numbers and a splendid array of costumes, clothes, and uniforms.  But what would a Mel Brooks film be without comedy?

Although Brooks did not direct To Be or Not to Be (the honor went to Alan Johnson), this is clearly a “Mel Brooks movie.”  It isn’t a parody or send-up of anything (as Brooks films are want to be).  It is, however, a witty and often dark farce marked by suave comedy and droll dialogue.  The Nazis are played for fun (Christopher Lloyd and Charles Durning make a comical duo), but their awful menace is always present.  The filmmakers managed to be both respectful and funny with history.  While To Be or Not to Be isn’t as funny as Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein, it isn’t far behind those two comic classics, and it is a fine comedy-historical in the vein of Brooks’ History of the World, Part I.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1984 Academy Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Charles Durning)

1984 Golden Globes:  2 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical” (Anne Bancroft) and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Charles Durning)

Updated:  Thursday, December 26, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "A Christmas Story" is Truly Timeless

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 4 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

A Christmas Story (1983)
Running time:  93 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  Bob Clark
WRITERS:  Jean Sheperd, Leigh Brown, and Bob Clark (based upon the book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash)
PRODUCERS:  Bob Clark and René Dupont
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Reginald H. Morris (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Stan Cole
COMPOSERS:  Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer

COMEDY/FAMILY

Starring:  Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, Peter Billingsley, Ian Petrella, Scott Schwartz, R.D. Robb, Tedde Moore, Yano Anaya, Zack Ward, Jeff Gillen, and Jean Shepherd (also narrator)

The subject of this movie review is A Christmas Story, a 1983 Christmas movie from director Bob Clark.  Although it was produced by an American film studio, MGM, some of the movie was shot in Canada.  A Christmas Story won two Genie Awards (then, Canada’s equivalent of the Oscars) for its direction and screenplay and was nominated in seven other categories, including “Best Motion Picture.”  In the film, a nine-year-old boy tries to convince his parents, his teacher, and Santa that a Red Ryder B.B. gun really is an appropriate gift for him.

Writer/director Bob Clark turned humorist Jean Shepard’s nostalgic view of the Christmas season in 1940’s Indiana into a classic holiday movie, A Christmas Story.  All nine-year old Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) really wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder 200-shot range model air rifle – a BB gun.

The adults in his life, even Ralphie’s parents, Mrs. Parker (Melinda Dillon) and The Old Man aka Mr. Parker (Darren McGavin), think that the Red Ryder BB Gun is not a safe toy, or as they keep telling him, “You’ll shoot your eye out!”  While waging an all-out campaign for his BB gun, Ralphie dodges bullies and deals with his little brother, Randy’s (Ian Petrella) food issues.  Even Mr. Parker has his struggles as he fights a series of never-ending battles with his neighbor’s large pack of dogs, his home’s troublesome furnace, and an endless number of blown fuses.

I’m not sure why this delightful little Christmas movie works, but it does.  The narration isn’t always good; sometimes it sounds unprofessional.  The directing is exceedingly ordinary, but that adds a certain realism to movie.  Perhaps, A Christmas Story’s success is based on how real and authentic it seems.  Although set in the early 1940’s, A Christmas Story feels timeless.  Set in a town based upon Hammond, Indiana, where co-screenwriter Jean Shepherd grew up (but filmed largely in Cleveland, Ohio), the movie looks like it could take place in “Anytown, U.S.A.”

Wonderful performances help create the ambience.  Darren McGavin, who plays The Old Man, is always a welcomed sight, and Melinda Dillon is pitch perfect as the ideal middle-American mom.  What is really surprising is how good the child actors are, especially the leads Peter Billingsley and Ian Petrella.  Maybe, it’s because the child actors in this movie are real kids who act like real kids, while child actors often seem to struggle with portraying what they actually are – children.  As Ralphie Parker, Billingsley personifies the kid who just wants one thing for Christmas so badly, knowing that he might not get it.

In the end, maybe Billingsley’s performance is what makes A Christmas Story an indispensable Christmas movie, but there’s also much more in this gem of a yuletide flick to love.

7 of 10
A-

Saturday, January 6, 2007

NOTES:
2012 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  National Film Registry

Updated:  Monday, December 23, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Octopussy" Not Quite an All Time High in Bond Franchise

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 55 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux

Octopussy (1983)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  U.K.
Running time:  131 minutes (2 hours, 11 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  John Glen
WRITERS:  George MacDonald Fraser and Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson (based on short stories and the characters created by Ian Fleming)
PRODUCER:  Albert R. Broccoli
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alan Hume (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Peter Davies and Henry Richardson
COMPOSER:  John Barry
THEME SONG:  “All Time High” – Lyrics by Tim Rice, music by John Barry, and sung by Rita Coolidge

SPY/DRAMA

Starring:  Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Kristina Wayborn, Kabir Bedi, Steven Berkoff, David Meyer, Anthony Meyer, Vijay Amritraj, Albert Moses, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Geoffrey Keen, and Robert Brown

This year is the 30th anniversary of the release of Octopussy, the 1983 James Bond film and British spy drama (specifically June 6, 1983).  Octopussy is also the 13th film in the James Bond film series, and the sixth time that actor Roger Moore portrayed fictional M16 agent James Bond, codenamed 007.

Octopussy is based on two short stories written by James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, “Octopussy” and “The Property of a Lady.”  ‘Octopussy” appeared in the James Bond short story collection, Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966).  “The Property of a Lady” was included in later editions of Octopussy and the Living Daylights.

In Octopussy the movie, 007 uncovers a terrorist plot tied to an international jewelry smuggling operation.  This is not a great Bond movie, but it is one I greatly enjoy, although I am not sure if I have watched it since it first appeared in movie theatres.

British agent 009 dies in West Berlin after being stabbed.  He is found wearing a clown costume and carrying a fake Fabergé egg.  James Bond, Agent 007 (Roger Moore) follows the trail of the fake egg to an auction of a real Fabergé egg.  There, Bond encounters Kamal Kahn (Louis Jourdan), an exiled Afghan prince.  Bond is attracted to one of Kahn’s associates, Magda (Kristina Wayborn), a beautiful young woman with a tattoo of a blue-ringed octopus on her back.

Magda leads Bond to the mysterious Octopussy (Maud Adams), a wealthy woman who leads an octopus cult, of which Magda is part.  Now, Bond must discover the connection between Octopussy, Kahn, and General Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a renegade Soviet general, and why that connection may mean a deadly attack on NATO forces in Europe.

The James Bond movies in which Roger Moore played 007 are not like other Bond movies, especially the latter half of Moore’s tenure.  Moore always seems like he’s having a good time, half-smiling and with a wink and a nod to the audience.  The audiences at the time of these films initial theatrical releases apparently enjoyed Moore as Bond, as the movies were successful.

Octopussy, however, is strange, and not just because of the salacious title.  First, the subject matter – the threat of an act of nuclear terrorism, and especially the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union – was quite serious at the time because of its real world implications.  The movie is fairly violent, with several killings, and Bond even shoots a young soldier (who looks as if he is little more than a kid in his early 20s), point blank, right in the middle of his forehead, killing him.

At the same time, Octopussy is often humorous and sometimes plays like a spy comedy.  There is over-the-top silliness (like the Tarzan yell), some tongue-in-cheek humor (the gorilla and clown costumes), some gallows humor (the killing of a man in a clown costume), and some satirical humor (in the form of General Orlov, who seems as if he belongs in the film, Dr. Strangelove).

Octopussy is also a good-looking movie, especially because of the exotic Indian locales, in which much of the film was shot.  The interiors of Kamal Kahn’s “Monsoon Palace” and Octopussy’s hideaway are like that of high-end, luxury hotels.  All the costumes, from Bond’s attire and the military uniforms to the slinky and revealing wear of Octopussy and her harem, are eye-catching.

Octopussy’s villains aren’t great Bond bad guys, although Louis Jourdan’s suave turn as Kamal Kahn is a nice odd note.  But odd is the way to describe Octopussy, and that may be why it has a special place in my movie lover’s heart.  As a recommendation, I’d say, “Hell, see it for the girls and for Octopussy herself (nicely played by Maud Adams).”

7 of 10
B+

Friday, August 09, 2013

Review: "Trading Places" is Timeless (Remembering Denholm Elliot)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 83 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Trading Places (1983)
Running time: 116 minutes (1 hour, 56 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: John Landis
WRITERS: Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod
PRODUCER: Aaron Russo
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Paynter (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Malcolm Campbell
COMPOSER: Elmer Bernstein
Academy Award nominee

COMEDY

Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliot, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kristin Holby, and Paul Gleason

The subject of this movie review is Trading Places, a 1983 comedy film and satire from director John Landis. The film stars Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy as a snobbish commodities trader and a streetwise con artist, respectively, who plot revenge against two conniving millionaires who cruelly use them in a personal wager.

Rare is the comedy film that enjoys success across a broad spectrum of viewer types and still remain popular even two decades after its initial release. That is exactly the case with director John Landis’s buddy, comic caper Trading Places.

Mortimer (Don Ameche) and Randolph Duke (Ralph Bellamy), millionaire commodity brokers, have made a bet. Randolph believes that he can take a common criminal off the streets, Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), and make him into a successful businessman, the old nature vs. environment/nurture. Mortimer disagrees, siding with nature, and the brothers bet one dollar to whoever wins. To learn if even a man who has been brought up in the right environment and has gotten everything he wants can go bad, they pick their hand-chosen successor at Duke and Duke, the snobbish Louis Winthorp III (Dan Aykroyd), and frame him for a few crimes. He loses his job and winds up in jail. The Dukes give Billy Ray Louis’s home and job at Duke and Duke. When Billy Ray accidentally discovers the wager, the wily young con artist joins Louis, Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis) a hooker with a heart of gold who has befriended Louis, and Louis’s butler Coleman (Denholm Elliot) to turn the tables on the two callous Duke Brothers.

One of the things that makes this film so much fun is that it plays upon broad socio-economic stereotypes that are very familiar to audiences. What makes these almost stock characters work so well is a combination of excellent comic actors and a good comedic script. Dan Akyroyd is a very good actor, but he is mostly known as a comedian; combine good acting with a great sense of comic timing, and you have a great performance.

Eddie Murphy’s star as a movie actor was rapidly rising at this point in his career, but he was already a quite accomplished player in the cast of “Saturday Night Live.” The Murphy here is still the brash, streetwise, fast talker bursting with the kinda of “black comedy” that both black and white audiences love – you know, the sassy and mouthy Negro who always has a come back or something smart-alecky to say. That Murphy is mostly gone and rarely makes a film appearance now almost 20 years into Murphy’s film career, but looking back, one can see that he makes Billy Ray Valentine both hilarious and loveable – the guy you can root for and with whom you can almost identify.

Kudos also go to longtime screen veterans Bellamy, Ameche, and Elliot for bravura performances that take stock characters and give them flavor and delightful personalities. We also get the added gem of seeing Ms. Curtis in a role that didn’t require her to run from a knife-wielding murder. Up to this point in her career, Ms. Curtis had become the new "Scream Queen" of horror films.

If you haven’t seen this film, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you’ve seen it once before, you should be at least on your tenth viewing.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1984 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score” (Elmer Bernstein)

1984 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Best Supporting Actor” (Denholm Elliott) and “Best Supporting Actress” (Jamie Lee Curtis); 1 nomination: “Best Screenplay – Original” (Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod)

1984 Golden Globes, USA: 2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical” and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical” (Eddie Murphy)

Review: "Strange Brew" is a Strange Blend (Hapy B'day, Max von Sydow)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 89 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux


The Adventures of Bob and Doug Mckenzie: Strange Brew (1983)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Canada
Running time: 90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTORS: Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas
WRITERS: Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas and Steve De Jarnatt
PRODUCERS: Louis M. Silverstein
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Steven Poster
EDITOR: Patrick McMahon

COMEDY with elements of sci-fi

Starring: Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis, Max von Sydow, Paul Dooley, Lynne Griffin, Angus MacInnes, Tom Harvey, Douglas Campbell, Brian McConnachie, Len Doncheff, and Mel Blanc (voice)

The subject of this movie review is The Adventures of Bob and Doug Mckenzie: Strange Brew, a 1983 Canadian comedy film. Also widely known as Strange Brew, the film stars Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (who also both direct the film) and features Max von Sydow as a villain.

Brothers Bob (Rick Moranis) and Doug Mckenzie (Dave Thomas) are two beer-guzzling Canadians who luck upon a goldmine – an unlimited supply of beer – when they land jobs at the Elsinore Beer brewery. However, the two “hosers,” end up helping the beautiful Pam Elsinore save the brewery from her conniving Uncle Claude Elsinore (Paul Dooley) and the diabolical Brewmaster Smith (Max von Sydow), who plans on using his own concoction, a strange brew of Elsinore Beer to control the world. Hijinks ensue in this very loose, nutty, and slightly surreal reworking of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The Adventures of Bob and Doug Mckenzie: Strange Brew or just Strange Brew (for the movie’s American release) was born out of a skit, “The Great White North” that appeared on “SCTV,” (1976-84) a Canadian sketch comedy television series that also aired in the U.S. (1981-85). The skit featured Bob and Doug, two brothers meant to parody Canadian culture. Eventually, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas’ characters actually became icons of the very culture they were mocking, and the “brothers” appeared in commercials and made cameo appearances on TV and in films. Before the act’s popularity faded, they also released two comedy albums, The Great White North: Bob and Doug Mckenzie and The Great White North: Strange Brew. Moranis and Thomas also played a variation of Bob and Doug when they provided the voices of the characters “Tuke and Root,” talking moose in the 2003 Disney animated feature, Brother Bear.

The SCTV skit also became the movie Strange Brew, which is unabashedly one of those intentionally “stupid movies” that are supposed to illicit laughter because they’re actually funny in their stupidity. Strange Brew is sometimes hilarious, often funny, and mostly entertaining. Actually, it is a bit surreal – almost a mixture of comedy and light drama – a farcical thriller. It’s a strange comedy/sci-fi/horror blend like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Strange Brew has long had cult status, and it’s a must see for serious fans of film comedies. The brothers are likeable, and the supporting cast is decent and also notable for an appearance by famed actor, Swedish-born actor, Max von Sydow.

6 of 10
B

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Review: "Lianna" is a Great and Groundbreaking Film That Should Not Be Lost (Happy B'day, John Sayles)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Lianna (1983)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – R
EDITOR/WRITER/DIRECTOR: John Sayles
PRODUCERS: Jeffrey Nelson and Maggie Renzi
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Austin De Besche
COMPOSER: Mason Daring

DRAMA

Starring: Linda Griffiths, Jane Hallaren, Jon DeVries, Jo Henderson, Jessica Wight MacDonald, Jesse Solomon, John Sayles, Stephen Mendillo, Betsy Julia Robinson, Nancy Mette, and Maggie Renzi

Lianna was acclaimed independent filmmaker John Sayles second feature directorial effort. It’s the story of Lianna (Linda Griffiths), a wife and mother of two children who falls in love with another woman. Her marriage to Dick (Jon DeVries), an English professor, isn’t a happy one since Dick is mostly arrogant towards her and cheats on Lianna with his female students. Lianna eventually falls in love with her professor Ruth (Jane Hallaren). The relationship is not only a revelation for Lianna, but it’s also an awakening of long dormant feelings she’s had since she was in her early teens.

Lianna leaves her marriage for Ruth, and that throws her life into a kind of tailspin. The philandering Dick feels sexually betrayed, while Lianna’s children, Spencer (Jesse Solomon) and Theda (Jessica Wight MacDonald), are curious, hurt, and confused. Lianna’s friends and associates are not hostile to her because of the change, but they’re either distant or ambivalent. Things get a little hairy when Ruth starts to take up a prior lesbian relationship that still has life in it. That drives a wedge between her and Lianna, who often succumbs to bouts of loneliness.

The performances are wonderful and rich, though they seem a bit stiff early in the film. I give most of the credit to Sayles, who has a knack for getting us in close to the characters, giving us an intimate view of their lives. His method, although unobtrusive, is actually kind of controlling. He has an intense focus on being true to the writing and letting the actors play out what they pick up from the written page. This is his way of making us focus on the drama. His filmmaking is free of eye candy and pyrotechnics, so he leaves the audience only the bare bones of drama, which is quite a meal in itself.

Another great thing about his films is that they seem so real. It’s as if a John Sayles picture is actually a peak into the lives of real characters. There is no phoniness in his films, and the questions raised by each film have no easy or obvious answers. Still, Sayles has way of making us glue ourselves to the picture, and Liana is one of his best efforts. It’s also a non-sensational and rather matter-of-fact look at a straight married woman in the throes of a burgeoning attraction to the same sex.

Lianna is scandalous without the noise, and it’s passionate without being tawdry. Most of all, it is human and real while still being drama. I wish that Sayles would have given us a deeper look at the impact of Lianna’s affair with another woman on her children, but what Sayles does give us is quality work.

9 of 10

A+

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Review: "Return of the Jedi" is the Ultimate Summer Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 139 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Return of the Jedi (1983)
Running time: 134 minutes (2 hours, 14 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR: Richard Marquand
WRITERS: Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas; from a story by George Lucas
PRODUCER: Howard Kazanjian
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alan Hume (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: Sean Barton, Duwayne Dunham, and Marcia Lucas
COMPOSER: John Williams
Academy Award winner

SCI-FI/FANTASY/ACTION/ADVENTURE

Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Sebastian Shaw, Ian McDiarmid, (voice) Frank Oz, (voice) James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Alec Guinness, Kenny Baker, and Denis Lawson

Return of the Jedi is a 1983 epic science fiction film and is the second sequel to the film, Star Wars (1977). It is also the concluding film in the original Star Wars trilogy. Personally, Return of the Jedi is the one for which I am most nostalgic.

The original Star Wars saga concluded with Return of the Jedi (also known as Star Wars Episode VI – Return of the Jedi). As the film begins, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) lead a charge to rescue Han Solo (Harrison Ford) from the gangster Jabba the Hutt, a giant, nasty, slug-like creature.

However, the fight against the Empire also continues. The Rebel Alliance has received sensitive data about the Empire’s new Death Star satellite, so our favorite rebels head for the Forest Moon of Endor on a mission to cripple the Death Star’s defense systems. But Luke must once again confront his father, Darth Vader, (David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones), the evil face of the empire, and Darth Vader’s master, The Emperor (Ian McDiarmid). Are the heroes walking into a carefully orchestrated trap, and will they win the day?

As with the other two original films, Return of the Jedi is a thrilling ride in the tradition of matinee serials, or serialized adventures in general. The film moves at a fast, brisk pace, and the script tightly and concisely moves through the plot. The film has two glaring weaknesses. First, some of the acting is terrible, and in a few scenes the actors deliver the dialogue with a total lack of inspiration. Secondly, the inclusion of the new characters, the Ewoks (basically a tribal group of human dwarf-size teddy bears), is a painfully obvious attempt to sell toys, because that’s what the Ewoks are – toys and merchandising.

Otherwise, Return of the Jedi is a very entertaining film; it is the least in terms of quality of the original trio, but it’s still great and fun entertainment. It gets better with age, especially when one considers that as the closing shot gives way to the credits, this signals the end of an era – the original cinematic run of the original Star Wars films.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1984 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Special Achievement Award” (Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston, and Phil Tippett for visual effects); 4 nominations: “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (Norman Reynolds, Fred Hole, James L. Schoppe, Michael Ford), “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” (Ben Burtt), “Best Music, Original Score” (John Williams), and “Best Sound” (Ben Burtt, Gary Summers, Randy Thom, and Tony Dawe)

1984 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Special Visual Effects” (Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston, and Kit West); 3 nominations: “Best Make Up Artist” (Phil Tippett and Stuart Freeborn), “Best Production Design/Art Direction” (Norman Reynolds), and “Best Sound” (Ben Burtt, Tony Dawe, and Gary Summers)

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"Nate and Hayes" Sailed Familiar Tides

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 185 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux


Nate and Hayes (1983)
Running time: 99 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR: Ferdinand Fairfax
WRITERS: John Hughes and David Odell; from a screen story by Lloyd Phillips and David Odell; from a story by Lloyd Phillips
PRODUCERS: Rob Whitehouse and Lloyd Phillips
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tony Imi
EDITOR: John Shirley

ACTION/ADVENTURE/HISTORICAL

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Michael O’Keefe, Jenny Seagrove, Max Phipps, Grant Tilly, Peter Rowley, Reg Ruka, Bruce Allpress, and David Letch

Soon-to-be-wed missionaries, Nathaniel “Nate” Williamson (Michael O’Keefe) and Sophie (Jenny Seagrove), take passage to their new home aboard The Rona, the ship helmed by the infamous buccaneer, Captain Bully Hayes (Tommy Lee Jones). Sophie takes a liking to Capt. Hayes, so Nate is glad to be rid of him when they arrive at the island where Nate’s aunt and uncle are missionaries.

Shortly after Hayes drops them off, however, the villainous Ben Pease (Max Phipps), a slaver, attacks the island and spirits away Sophie. Barely surviving the attack, Nate reluctantly joins forces with Hayes and his motley crew to track Pease and recover Sophie. Nate and Hayes’ quest takes them to the island of Ponape for a grand showdown with Pease and Count Von Rittenburg (Grant Tilly), a German officer in league with Pease. Oh, there’s an island full of natives standing between Nate and Hayes rescuing Sophie.

A young man and his bride-to-be find obstacles on their road to marriage, and most of them are on the high seas. Then, they meet a scruffy pirate who helps them… If this seems like a description of Walt Disney’s highly-successful Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, that’d be only half right. 20 years before Pirates, there was Nate and Hayes, and while Nate and Hayes didn’t have Pirates’ big budget, supernatural shenanigans, N&H does have PotC’s comedic chops and is also a fine, family-safe pirate movie. A fun action flick, it’s darn good entertainment, though not a great pirate movie. There isn’t great acting, but the cast gives performances that would outshine just about any made-for-TV adventure on the high seas. I enjoyed seeing Nate and Hayes today as much as I did all those years ago in a darkened, small town movie theatre.

6 of 10
B

Friday, August 25, 2006