NEGROMANCER: The Home of "Trash in My Eye": National Film Registry

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Thursday, September 5, 2024

Review "TERMINATOR: JUDGMENT DAY" is Still Landmark and Bloated

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 41 of 2024 (No. 1985) by Leroy Douresseaux

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Running time: 137 minutes (2 hours, 17 minutes)

MPAA – R

DIRECTOR: James Cameron

WRITERS: James Cameron and William Wisher

PRODUCER: James Cameron

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Adam Greenberg (D.o.P.)

EDITORS: Mark Goldblatt, Conrad Buff, and Richard A. Harris

COMPOSER: Brad Fiedel

Academy Award winner

SCI-FI/FANTASY/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Earl Boen, Joe Morton, S. Epatha Merkerson, Castulo Guerra, Danny Cooksey, Jenette Goldstein, Xander Berkeley, De Vaughn Nixon, and Michael Edwards

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 American science fiction film and action-drama from director James Cameron. Also known as “T2” and “T2: Judgment Day,”, it is a direct sequel to the film, The Terminator (1984), and is also the second entry in the Terminator film franchise. Judgment Day focuses on a cyborg that travels from the twenty-first century to protect a boy from a more advanced and powerful cyborg.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day opens in the year 2029. Earth has been ravaged by the war between the artificial intelligence, Skynet, and the human resistance. This war started on August 29, 1997, also known as “Judgment Day,” when Skynet launched the United States' entire nuclear arsenal, which started a global war. Afterwards, humanity emerged to find a devastated world, one filled with the machines – called “Terminators” – that were programmed to kill humans. Resistance leader, John Connor (Michael Edwards), has lead humanity to the brink of defeating Skynet and its human-killing machines.

Using time machine technology, Skynet sends an advanced prototype Terminator – a T-1000 – back in time to the year 1997 in order to kill 12-year-old John Connor (Edward Furlong). The T-1000 (Robert Patrick) is made of a “mimetic poly-alloy,” a liquid metal that allows the Terminator to shape-shift. To protect his younger self, the 2029 John Connor reprograms a model 101 Terminator and sends it back to 1997 to protect young John. The 101 looks just like the T-800 that traveled from the future to kill John's mother, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), back in the year 1984.

Can Sarah, John, and the model 101 Terminator come together to stop the T-1000, especially after they become fugitives from the law? Or is this new Terminator simply to advanced and wily to be stopped?

As I write this review, it is Tuesday, September 3, 2024. In Terminator mythopoeia (not “mythology” and not “lore”), August 29th is “Judgment Day” and fans of the franchise make note of it. This year, “Judgment Day” carries a little more relevance because of the arrival of the new Netflix animated series, “Terminator Zero.” I am planning on watching Episode 1 soon, but I felt that I needed to watch T2 again. It is the only Terminator film that I have not previously reviewed, and I had not watched it in its entirety in about thirty years, if my memory serves me well.

The Terminator, T2, and the 2003 film, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, form a trilogy of sorts. In many ways, each film seems like its own thing, with the second and third films officially being sequels. However, these sequels feel like a hybrid of sequel, remake, and re-imagining. They contradict the original in some ways and both try to grapple with or correct the franchise's time-traveling shenanigans.

T2 is now acknowledged as being among the greatest science fiction, action, and sequel films in movie history. It is certainly a landmark film in terms of special visual effects and in the use of CGI (computer-generated imagery). The transformation and metamorphosis of actor Robert Patrick into the liquid metal, shape-shifting Terminator still wows, impresses, scares, and stuns me over thirty-three years after originally seeing the film. Some of T2's action scenes and sequences, especially the 18-wheeler tractor unit plunge off the overpass and the motorcycle crash into the helicopter still stop my breath. The film's director, James Cameron, made one of the most awesome (if not the most awesome) action films of the 1980s in The Terminator with what amounts to a micro-budget for an action and science fiction movie. With a one-hundred million dollars at his disposal of T2, Cameron and his crew and creative cohorts unleashed the most spectacular action scenes that had been seen in American film to that point.

On the other hand, back when I first saw T2 in 1991, I found it to be bloated. It is easily twenty minutes too long. As a character drama trio, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, and Edward Furlong as John Connor seem more melodramatic than genuinely dramatic. Much of the family unit feels contrived. Schwarzenegger and Furlong have moments that seem poignant, but there are other moments that are made weaker but Furlong's acting inexperience. That Hamilton had reshaped the soft body she had in the original film into a sinewy, muscular, warrior woman for T2 was and still is impressive. Her performance in this film, however, is loud, even when it should be quieter and more subtle.

I once said that T2 was a two-and-half out of four stars film. I don't know if it is nostalgia, but I like the film more now. Some of it is still landmark and superb, and much of it is very well executed. Still, I think Terminator 2: Judgment Day needed to be tamed, both in terms of it runtime and in the scope of the story. In 1991, it was a hugely discussed and anticipated film. Terminator 2: Judgment Day holds a special place in the filmography of its director, James Cameron. If it were a better film, it would be at the top, where Avatar is now.

6 of 10

★★★ out of 4 stars

Thursday, September 5, 2024

NOTES:

1992 Academy Awards, USA: 4 wins: “Best Sound” (Tom Johnson,Gary Rydstrom, Gary Summers, and Lee Orloff), “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” (Gary Rydstrom and Gloria S. Borders), “Best Effects, Visual Effects” (Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Gene Warren Jr., and Robert Skotak), and “Best Makeup” (Stan Winston and Jeff Dawn); 2 nominations: “Best Cinematography” (Adam Greenberg) and “Best Film Editing” (Conrad Buff IV, Mark Goldblatt, and Richard A. Harris)

1992 BAFTA Awards; 2 wins: “Best Sound” (Lee Orloff, Tom Johnson. Gary Rydstrom, and Gary Summers) and “Best Special Visual Effects” (Stan Winston, Dennis Muren, Gene Warren Jr., and Robert Skotak); 1 nomination: “Best Production Design” (Joseph C. Nemec III)

2023 National Film Preservation Board, USA: “National Film Registry”

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Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Review: 45 Years On, "ALIEN" is Still a Great Film

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 36 of 2024 (No. 1980) by Leroy Douresseaux

Alien (1979)

Running time: 117 minutes (1 hour, 57 minutes)

MPAA – R

DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott

WRITERS: Dan O'Bannon; from a story by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett

PRODUCERS: Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Derek Vanlint (director of photography)

EDITORS: Terry Rawlings and Peter Weatherley

COMPOSER: Jerry Goldsmith

Academy Award winner

SCI-FI/HORROR/THRILLER

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Bolaji Badejo, and Helen Horton (voice)

Alien is a 1979 American science fiction and horror film directed by Ridley Scott. It is the first movie in the Alien film series, which has entered its fifth decade and is comprised of prequels and a set of crossover films. Alien is also a multimedia franchise that includes comic books, novels, video games, and an upcoming television series. Alien focuses on the crew of a commercial spacecraft that encounters a deadly alien lifeform after landing on a mysterious moon.

Alien opens on the commercial towing vehicle, the Nostromo, which is returning to Earth. Its cargo is twenty tons of mineral ore that is being refined. It has a crew of seven in stasis (suspended animation): Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), 3rd Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and engineers, Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton).

The ship's computer, Mother (voice of Helen Horton), detects a mysterious transmission of unknown origin from a nearby moon and awakens the crew. The company that owns the Nostromo has a policy that the crew must investigate any transmission that indicates intelligent origin. After landing on the moon, Dallas, Kane, and Lambert head out to investigate the landscape, and they discover a derelict alien spaceship. What they find onboard that ship leads to a deadly encounter with an alien lifeform. The problem is that the crew does not know how dangerous the lifeform is, and not everyone on the ship is working towards the same goal.

20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox) is set to release Alien: Romulus (2024), the latest entry in the Alien film franchise. It is set between Alien and its sequel, Aliens (1986). I have already reviewed Aliens, so I decided to watch Alien for the first time in over three decades and to review it for you, dear readers.

There are generally three reasons that I fondly remember Alien. First, the Alien creature (now known as a “xenomorph”) was created and designed by the late Swiss artist, H. R. Giger (1940-2014). Alien was how I discovered Giger, and I became a huge fan of his. I sometimes paid premium prices for his art books, including those that focused on his work on Alien and his prior work that influenced the film.

The second reason is the film's director Ridley Scott. I am a fan of Scott's work, especially his 1982 science fiction classic, Blade Runner, and his Alien prequel, Prometheus (2012).

The third reason that I fondly remember Alien is that it is one of the first films that introduced me to the Oscar-nominated actress Sigourney Weaver. Her most famous films appeared in the 1980s and 1990s, including such personal favorites as Ghostbusters (1984) and Galaxy Quest (1999).

That aside, the film is rather good, although I think that Ridley Scott takes many of his cues for the film's pace, tone, and execution from Stanley Kubrick's space epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). That is not necessarily a bad thing. Unlike some of the Alien sequels, Alien is a science fiction film that is also a classic horror film. It builds its scares not on action and violence, but rather on building a sense of mystery, creating an atmosphere of fear and desperation, and throwing a blanket of suspense over the entire thing. Of course, the chest-bursting scene is still chilling and mesmerizing.

Alien remains a great film because it demands that we be patient and enjoy our steadily mounting feelings dread and terror. The film is not perfect, but because it acts as if its audience is smart enough to enjoy a film without fast-paced action scenes and frenzied blood and gore, it is almost perfect. Alien is as good today as it was when it first debuted in theaters forty-five years ago (specifically May 1979). I am happy that Alien remains a thrilling film full of imaginative and inventive production design, SFX, and make-up and creature effects. Not showing any wrinkles, Alien has aged well.

9 of 10

A+

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

NOTES:

1980 Academy Awards, USA: 1 win: “Best Effects, Visual Effects” (H.R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder, and Dennis Ayling) and 1 nomination: “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (Michael Seymour, Leslie Dilley, Roger Christian, and Ian Whittaker)

1980 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Best Production Design” (Michael Seymour) and “Best Sound Track” (Derrick Leather, Jim Shields, and Bill Rowe); 5 nominations: “Best Costume Design” (John Mollo and Terry Rawlings), “Best Editing” (Terry Rawlings), “Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Role” (Sigourney Weaver), “Best Supporting Actor” (John Hurt), and “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Jerry Goldsmith)

Golden Globes, USA: 1 nomination: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Jerry Goldsmith)

2002 National Film Preservation Board, USA: “National Film Registry”

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Sunday, July 14, 2024

Review: "SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAAD ASSSSS SONG" is Still Beatin' Some White Ass

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 184 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song (1971)

Running time: 97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)

Rating: MPAA – X; re-rated R in 1974

EDITOR/WRITER/DIRECTOR: Melvin Van Peebles

PRODUCERS: Jerry Gross and Melvin Van Peebles

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Bob Maxwell

COMPOSERS: Earth Wind & Fire and Melvin Van Peebles

CRIME/DRAMA/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring: Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales, John Dullaghan, Johnny Amos, Mario Van Peebles, Megan Peebles, and Max Van Peebles

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a 1971 action-thriller, drama, and crime film from writer-director Melvin Van Peebles. It is considered a seminal black exploitation film or “blaxploitation” film, being one of the first that kind. The film focuses on a Black man who goes on the run after brutally beating two police officers, with help from other marginalized people and outsiders.

After saving a black protester (likely a Black Panther) by brutally beating the two cops who were brutalizing the protester, Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles), an apolitical sex performer goes on the run from the white pigs and other white law enforcement types. He heads for Mexico with help from the black community and disaffected Hell’s Angels, and he also meets many unique characters on the way to freedom.

Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback Baad Asssss Song is considered by many people to be the film that ushered in the blaxploitation film wave. With its emphasis on fighting “the man” (the white power structure, in particular corrupt city officials and policemen) and graphic and gratuitous sex, the film is the prototypical blaxploitation film. However, there is likely no other film like this one in its portrayal of police corruption and the of the racist attitudes that prevail among white law enforcement officials.

Structurally, the film has a bare and simple plot, and the script is absent of story and character development. In a many ways, the film itself is more impressionistic than literal, while the theme is literally against white oppression and (evil) white cops. Van Peebles in collaboration with Earth, Wind, and Fire, the R&B group who would go on to have huge crossover success on the pop charts provide a constant musical backdrop for the film. So sometimes, this movie seems like an overly long music video. In spite of its narrative shortcomings, Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song is bold stroke in using film to not only communicate messages and ideas, but to also be used as a means of protest. The film is the work of an artist/firebrand; one must open up to feelings, experiences, emotions, and thoughts that are alien in order to get to the art, and when you get it, Sweetback will be like nothing else.

7 of 10

B+

★★★½ out of 4 stars

EDITED: Sunday, July 14, 2024

NOTES:

2020 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

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Thursday, September 28, 2023

Review: "American Graffiti" is Still Crusin' to Rock 'n' Roll 50 Years On

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 45 of 2023 (No. 1934) by Leroy Douresseaux

American Graffiti (1973)

Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)

MPAA – PG

DIRECTOR: George Lucas

WRITERS: George Lucas and Gloria Katz & Willard Huyck

PRODUCERS: Francis Ford Coppola and Gary Kurtz

CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Jan D'Alquen (D.o.P.) and Ron Eveslage (D.o.P.)

EDITORS: Verna Fields and Marcia Lucas

Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/HISTORICAL/MUSIC

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Wolfman Jack, Bo Hopkins, Manuel Padilla Jr., Beau Gentry, and Harrison Ford

American Graffiti is a 1973 coming-of-age, music-driven, comedy and drama film directed by George Lucas. Lucas, who co-wrote the screenplay with the husband and wife team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, based the story on his experiences in the cruising, and street-racing, and rock 'n' roll cultures of his youth. American Graffiti focuses on a group of teenagers and their adventures over the course of one summer night in 1962.

American Graffiti opens in the Summer 1962. The location is California's central valley, apparently in and around the city of Modesto. There, through a series of vignettes, we watch as a group of teenagers enjoy the last evening of their summer vacation.

For recent high school graduates and friends, Curtis “Curt” Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) and Steve Bolander (Ronny Howard), this is their last night in town before they board a plane the next day and go “back east” for college. Steve doesn't believe that he can achieve the goals his wants by staying home, even if leaving means parting from his girlfriend, Curt's sister, Laurie (Cindy Williams). However, Curt, who has recently received scholarship money from a local business group, isn't sure that he wants to leave. Besides, tonight, he wants to chase the mystery woman who has caught his eye, a blonde driving a white Ford Thunderbird.

Curt and Steve's two friends are also having a big night. The first is John Milner (Paul Le Mat), the central valley drag-racing king. He has just learned that someone wants to challenge him for his crown, a confident ladies' man named Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford). Meanwhile, the second character is the unpopular, but well-meaning Terry “The Toad” Fields (Charlie Martin Smith), who has just come into possession of Steve's car. He is supposed to protect it until Steve returns from “back east” for Christmas. Tonight, however, Terry hopes the car will help him land a date. Meanwhile, in the background, the popular disc jockey, Wolfman Jack (himself), plays an array of rock 'n' roll hits.

As “DVD Netflix” prepares to shutdown, I've been racing to catch up on certain films that I have never seen or have not seen in a long time. I recently decided to sample some films in which 2023 is the fiftieth anniversary of their original theatrical releases. That includes such films as Walt Disney's Robin Hood, (hopefully)Woody Allen's Sleeper, and the Bruce Lee classic, Enter the Dragon.

As a kid, I was aware of American Graffiti long before I ever saw it. I was and still am a huge fan of American Graffiti director, George Lucas's most famous film, Star Wars (1977). So, as a kid, I read every article I could find about Star Wars, and they often mentioned his two earlier feature-length films, THX-1138 (1971) and American Graffiti. [I also vaguely remember the release of the sequel, More American Graffiti.]

I also knew that a few film and television stars that I liked had starred or appeared in American Graffiti, specifically Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and Harrison Ford. Besides that fact that American Graffiti was a George Lucas movie, Ford was the other reason I most wanted to see the film.

I finally first saw American Graffiti on television, and though my memory is hazy on the facts, I'm sure I saw it at least a few years after the release of the sequel. I remember liking it, enough that I planned on watching it again. Decades later, this recent viewing is the first time that I've seen the film since that first viewing.

I still like it a lot. I'm still a fan of Ford, Howard, and Dreyfuss, and along the way, I became a fan of some of its other young stars, including Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, and the recently-deceased Bo Hopkins (1938-2022). The truth is that I'm crazy about the Hollywood icon, Harrison Ford, and, as for as I'm concerned, any movie with Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith as actors is cinematic porn. [Both Howard and Smith are also film directors.]

Watching the film this time, I was initially annoyed by Lucas' method of telling this story in a series of vignettes that constantly moved from one character to the next. The film essentially has four plots that revolve around one of four characters, Curt, Steve, John, or Terry. It took me nearly half the film to realize that the vignettes allow Lucas to depict and to reveal each one of these four young men's goals, conflicts, and fears. This depiction of their inner selves makes them more interesting to me. Not only did I root for them, but I also wanted to know more about them. I wanted to know what was going to happen to them, both in the immediate and far future.

American Graffiti apparently helped launch a wave of nostalgia for and interest in the culture and times of the 1950s and early 1960s or at least an idealized, trouble free, white-washed version of it. The film apparently renewed the ABC network's interest in what would become one of its most popular sitcoms, “Happy Days” (1974-84). That long-running and popular television series also presented an idealized, trouble free, white-washed version of the 1950s and early 1960s.

Thus, as much as I enjoyed this viewing of American Graffiti, and as much as I'm interested in its characters, I done with it. I'm not done with its lovely soundtrack – played in the background so that both the characters and audiences can hear these early classics of rock 'n' roll. These musical recordings make this special night in the summer of 1962 really special. Still, American Graffiti is an ode to George Lucas' memories. It is a cinematic dream he fashioned from the varied experiences of his privileged youth. I don't really relate to it the way I do other films that are also far from my experiences – such as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) or Licorice Pizza (2021).

I wouldn't call American Graffiti a great film, so much as I'd call it a unique and important American film. Why is it important? Well, American Graffiti is a prime example of the fantasies that the Hollywood dream factory can make of real moments in time. It's George Lucas' story – his story – presented as a fairy tale about one unforgettable night that will never be repeated.

8 of 10

★★★★ out of 4 stars

Thursday, September 28, 2023

You can buy the American Graffiti film and soundtrack at AMAZON.

NOTES:

1974 Academy Awards, USA: 5 nominations: “Best Picture” (Francis Ford Coppola and Gary Kurtz), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Candy Clark), “Best Director” (George Lucas), “Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced” (George Lucas Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck), and “Best Film Editing” (Verna Fields and Marcia Lucas)

1975 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Supporting Actress” (Cindy Williams)

1974 Golden Globes, USA: 2 wins: “Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical” or “Most Promising Newcomer – Male” (Paul Le Mat); 2 nominations: “Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical” (Richard Dreyfuss) and “Best Director - Motion Picture” (George Lucas)

1995 National Film Preservation Board, USA: “National Film Registry”

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Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Review: "ENTER THE DRAGON" and Bruce Lee Are Still Kicking Ass 50 Years Later

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 43 of 2023 (No. 1932) by Leroy Douresseaux

Enter the Dragon (1973)

Running time: 102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)

MPAA – R for martial arts violence and brief nudity

DIRECTOR: Robert Clouse

WRITER: Michael Allin

PRODUCERS: Fred Weintraub, Raymond Chow, and Paul Heller

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Gilbert Hubbs (D.o.P.)

EDITORS: Kurt Hirschler and George Watters

COMPOSER: Lalo Schifrin

MARTIAL ARTS/ACTION

Starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly, Ahna Capri, Kien Shih, Bob Wall, Angela Mao, Betty Chung, Geoffrey Weeks, Marlene Clark, Peter Archer, Ho Lee Yan, and Bolo Yeung with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yeun Wah

Enter the Dragon is a 1973 martial arts and action film directed by Robert Clouse and starring Bruce Lee (1940-1973). An international co-production between the United States and Hong Kong, the film debuted one month after Lee's death on July 20, 1973. Thus, August 19, 1973 was the fiftieth anniversary of the film's American release. Enter the Dragon focuses on a Shaolin martial artist who travels to an island fortress to compete in a martial arts tournament and to also spy on the tournament's benefactor, a mysterious drug lord.

Enter the Dragon opens on the grounds of a Shaolin temple and introduces Lee (Bruce Lee), a highly proficient martial artist, martial arts instructor, and Shaolin monk. Braithwaite (Geoffrey Weeks), a British intelligence agent, approaches Lee about spying on a crime lord and drug kingpin named Han (Shih Kien). Braithwaite convinces Lee to attend the high-profile martial arts tournament that Han is holding at his private island fortress. Attending the tournament would be a good cover as Lee has already been invited. Before he leaves for Han's island, Lee learns that the man who murdered his sister, Su-Lin (Betty Chung), is Oharra (Bob Wall), one of Han's bodyguards.

While traveling to the island, Lee meets two friends who have also been invited to the tournament. Both are martial artists and Vietnam veterans. They are Roper (John Saxon), a white man who is deep in debt because of gambling, and Williams (Jim Kelly), a black man with deep ties to the martial arts in his community.

Once on the island, Lee begins to gather evidence of Han's drug trafficking, but Han is no ordinary criminal. His tournament is no ordinary martial arts tournament, and Lee, Roper, and Williams are about to discover just how dangerous Han and his tournament are.

Enter the Dragon is considered one of the most influential action films of all time. The film's success contributed to the mainstream worldwide interest in the martial arts, and it continues to inspire filmmakers and storytellers to this day. In addition to film, the influence of Enter the Dragon can be seen in television productions, video games, comic books, and Japanese manga (comics) and anime (animation). It revolutionized the way Asians, Asian-Americans, and even African-Americans are portrayed on screen, especially in action and martial arts films. The film also had an impact on mixed martial arts (MMA), including on the clothes and uniforms that MMA fighters wear.

Enter the Dragon is obviously a huge influence on the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter video game franchises. The original Mortal Kombat film, 1995's Mortal Kombat, borrows numerous story elements from Enter the Dragon, so much so that it would not be incorrect to call 1995 film a re-imagining of Enter the Dragon.

Obviously, Bruce Lee is magnetic in this film. Decades after his passing and the arrival of this film, Lee still seems like a natural born movie star. In this film, he is both subtle and graceful and over-the-top and explosive as needed, but yet he made space for the rest of the cast to shine. John Saxon is both world-weary and witty as the underutilized Roper, and Jim Kelley, the first African-American martial arts film star, had enough screen time to turn this into his breakthrough role.

Rich in atmosphere, Enter the Dragon is at times odd and eccentric, and it would have been better served by another ten minutes of storytelling – at least. However, those last twenty or so minutes of the film were like nothing ever seen in American films at the time, and today, still seem revolutionary. Here, Lee is a coiled cobra, striking like lighting. He is both time and lightning in a bottle, unleashing his energy while blowing the minds and expectations of the audience. Fifty years after its original theatrical release, Enter the Dragon is ageless and timeless, and, while the earthly Bruce Lee is long since gone, the cinematic Bruce Lee is eternally youthful and alive and kicking.

10 of 10

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

You can buy a 50th anniversary 4K copy of ENTER THE DRAGON here at AMAZON.

NOTES:

2004 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

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Thursday, June 15, 2023

Review: "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW" is Always Waiting For Us

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 25 of 2023 (No. 1914) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)

MPAA – R

DIRECTOR: Jim Sharman

WRITERS: Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien (based on the original musical play by Richard O'Brien)

PRODUCER: Michael White

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Peter Suschitsky (D.o.P.)

EDITORS: Graeme Clifford

COMPOSER: Richard Hartley

SONGS: Richard O'Brien

MUSICAL/COMEDY/SCI-FI and FANTASY/HORROR

Starring: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, Peter Hinwood, Jonathan Adams, Meat Load, and Charles Gray

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 comedy-horror and musical fantasy film directed by Jim Sharman. The film is written by Sharman and Richard O'Brien and is based based on the 1973 musical stage production, The Rocky Horror Show, for which O'Brien wrote the music, lyrics, and book. Both the film and stage musical pay tribute to the science fiction and B-movie horror films that appeared in theaters from the 1930s to the 1960s. The Rocky Horror Picture Show follows a newly-engaged couple who, because of car trouble, seeks shelter at a castle-like country home that is populated by bizarre guests and an even more bizarre host.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show introduces a naive young couple, Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon). It is late November, and the couple are attending the wedding of their friends, Ralph Haphschatt (Jeremy Newson) and Betty Monroe (Hilary Labow), at Denton Episcopalian Church. Brad and Janet get engaged after the wedding and decide to celebrate with their high school science teacher, Dr. Everett Scott (Jonathan Adams).

In Brad's car, the duo are en route to Scott's house on a dark and rainy night when they get lost and then get a flat tire. Needing a telephone to call for help, the couple walk to a nearby castle. There, they find the place in the throes of a rowdy party. The guests are both flamboyantly dressed and bizarre. What is even more bizarre however, is the host, the transvestite scientist, Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), who is about to unveil his latest creation. There are two things of which Brad and Janet are unaware. The first is Frank-N-Furter is from the planet “Transsexual,” located in the galaxy “Transylvania.” The second is that at some point in the future, their story will be narrated by a noted criminologist (Charles Gray).

When The Rocky Horror Picture Show was initially released in the United States in the early fall of 1975, it was not well-received by either critics or audiences. However, by the spring of 1976, the film's infamous cult following began, thanks to midnight showings, first in and around New York City, and then, spreading throughout the U.S. Soon, fans in costume were performing alongside the film.

Dear readers, I must admit that I have never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theater. I first saw it in the late 1980s via a Japanese import or bootleg copy at the science fiction, fantasy, and gaming convention, CoastCon (I believe), in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was a wild screening, and I freaked out when audience members jumped out of their seats and started performing bits from the film.

As some of you may know, Netflix is shutting down its DVD-by-mail service – currently known as DVDNetflix or DVD.com. I decided to spend some of these final months on this beloved service re-watching favorite films and well as trying some older films that I have never seen. Watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show seemed like the right thing to do as a sendoff to the service that I used to build my movie review blog, Negromancer.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is indeed a tribute to science fiction, B-movie, and monster films. There are references to such films as Universal Pictures' Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), RKO's King Kong (1933), Hammer Films' The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Fox's The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and MGM's Forbidden Planet (1956), to name a few.

However, Rocky Horror's punk rock fashions, colorfully dyed hair, corsets, torn fishnet stockings, glitter, androgyny, and sex and violence are more important than its haunted mansion, secret labs, rival scientists, and sci-fi angles. For me, this film is about having a good time and being liberated. Sometimes, the film may seem like it is being outrageous for the sake of being outrageous, but one of its final songs personifies the film for me, “Fanfare/Don't Dream It, Be It.” It's okay to look like you want to and to be what you want to. And yes, it's okay to be turned on by both Susan Sarandon in her unmentionables and Barry Bostwick in his Jockey classic Y-front briefs.

I can certainly point to Tim Curry's legendary performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, but everyone, from the filmmakers, cast, and crew to the artisans, craftsman, and technicians that brought the sets and costumes to life, made The Rocky Horror Picture Show memorable and, for many, unforgettable. I can't forget the songs, so I need a soundtrack album. Meat Loaf makes the most of his short time on screen. The narrator turns out to be hoot. Even the passing of DVDNetflix won't stop me from seeing this show again. The music, the songs, the cast, and the setting seem as if they will never let me forget that part of me belongs, at least for a little while, at The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

8 of 10

★★★★ out of 4 stars

Thursday, June 15, 2023

NOTES:

2005 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

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Thursday, October 27, 2022

Review: Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (Countdown to "The Fabelmans")

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 64 of 2022 (No. 1876) by Leroy Douresseaux

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Running time: 135 minutes (2 hour, 15 minutes)
MPAA – PG
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
PRODUCERS: Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Vilmos Zsigmond (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Michael Kahn
COMPOSER: John Williams
Academy Award winner

SCI-FI/ADVENTURE/MYSTERY/DRAMA

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Terri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film follows an everyday blue-collar worker from Indiana who has a life-changing encounter with a UFO and then, embarks on a cross-country journey to the place where a momentous event is to occur.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind opens in the Sonoran Desert. There, French scientist Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut), his American interpreter, David Laughlin (Bob Balaban), and a group of other researchers make a shocking discovery regarding a three-decade-old mystery.

Then, the film introduces Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), an rural electrical lineman living in Muncie, Indiana with his wife, Ronnie (Terri Garr), and their three children. One night, while working on a power outage, Roy has a “close encounter” with a UFO (unidentified flying object). The encounter is so intense that the right side of Roy's face is lightly burned, and it also becomes a kind of metaphysical experience for Roy. He becomes fascinated with the UFO and obsessed with some kind of mountain-like image that won't leave his mind.

Roy isn't the only one who has had a close encounter. Single mother Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) watches in horror as her three-year-old son, Barry Guiler (Cary Guffey), is abducted, apparently by a UFO. Now, Roy and Jillian are headed to a place they have never been, Devils Tower in Moorcroft, Wyoming, where they will hopefully find answers to the questions plaguing their minds.

As I await the release of Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film, The Fabelmans, I have been re-watching and, in some cases, watching for the first time, Spielberg's early films. Thus far, I have watched Duel (the TV film that first got Spielberg noticed), The Sugarland Express (his debut theatrical film), and Jaws (which I have seen countless times). I did not see Close Encounters of the Third Kind when it first arrived in movie theaters, but I finally got to watch it when it debuted on television. I recently watched a DVD release of what is known as Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition, a shortened (132 minutes long compared to the original's 135 minutes) and altered version of the film that Columbia Pictures released in August 1980.

The truth is that I have never been as crazy about Close Encounters of the Third Kind the way I have been about such Spielberg's films as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jurassic Park. I liked Close Encounters the first time I saw it (a few years after its theatrical release), but I had expected a lot from it after hearing such wonderful things about the film from acquaintances who had seen it in a theater. I was a bit underwhelmed,. I liked Close Encounters, but was not “wowed” by it, and was less so the second time I saw it a few years after the first time.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a combination of science fiction, adventure, drama, and mystery. The drama works, especially when Spielberg depicts the trouble that Roy Neary's obsession causes his family and also the terror of the “attack” on Jillian Guiler and her son, Barry. Roy's adventure and journey are quite captivating and result in the events of the film's final half hour, which is the part of the film that many consider to be marvelous. Close Encounters' last act certainly offers an impressive display of special effects and a dazzling light show.

I am attracted to the sense of wonder and discovery that infuses much of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I think my problem is that it seems like three movies in one: Claude Lacombe and Davie Laughlin's story, Roy's story, and the the big “close encounter” at Devils Tower. None of them really gets the time to develop properly, so the film's overall narrative and also the character development are somewhat shallow. There is a lot to like about Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and it is an impressive display of Spielberg's filmmaking skills. However, I am done with it. I don't need to see it again, although I am a huge fan of UFO-related media. I simply cannot warm to Close Encounters of the Third Kind the way I have with other Spielberg films.

7 of 10
B+
★★★½ out of 4 stars

Thursday, October 27, 2022

NOTES:
1978 Academy Awards, USA: 2 wins: “Best Cinematography” (Vilmos Zsigmond) and a “Special Achievement Award” (Frank E. Warner for sound effects editing); 7 nominations: “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Melinda Dillon), “Best Director” (Steven Spielberg), “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (Joe Alves, Daniel A. Lomino, and Phil Abramson), “Best Sound” (Robert Knudson, Robert Glass, Don MacDougall, and Gene S. Cantamessa), “Best Film Editing” (Michael Kahn), “Best Effects, Visual Effects” (Roy Arbogast, Douglas Trumbull, Matthew Yuricich, Gregory Jein, and Richard Yuricich), and “Best Music, Original Score” (John Williams)

1979 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: Best Production Design/Art Direction (Joe Alves); 8 nominations: “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (John Williams); “BAFTA Film Award Best Cinematography” (Vilmos Zsigmond), “Best Direction” (Steven Spielberg), “Best Film,” “Best Film Editing” (Michael Kahn), “Best Screenplay” (Steven Spielberg), “Best Sound” (Gene S. Cantamessa, Robert Knudson, Don MacDougall, Robert Glass, Stephen Katz, Frank E. Warner, Richard Oswald, David M. Horton, Sam Gemette, Gary S. Gerlich, Chester Slomka, and Neil Burrow), and “Best Supporting Actor? (François Truffaut)

1978 Golden Globes, USA: 4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Steven Spielberg), “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Steven Spielberg), and “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (John Williams)

2007 National Film Preservation Board, USA: 1 win: “National Film Registry”

The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site or blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Friday, September 23, 2022

Review: Steven Spielberg's "JAWS" is Still Hungry For Your Ass (Countdown to "The Fabelmans")

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 54 of 2022 (No. 1866) by Leroy Douresseaux

Jaws (1975)
Running time: 124 minutes (2 hours, 4 minutes)
Rated – PG by the Classification and Ratings Administration
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
WRITERS: Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb (based on the novel by Peter Benchley)
PRODUCERS: David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Bill Butler (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Verna Fields
COMPOSER: John Williams
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/THRILLER/ADVENTURE

Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Chris Rebello, Jay Mello, Lee Fierro, Jeffrey Voorhees, Robert Nevin, and Susan Backlinie

Jaws is a 1974 adventure drama and thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the 1974 novel, Jaws, by author Peter Benchley, who also wrote (with Carl Gottlieb) the screenplay adapting his novel. Jaws the film is set in and around a beach community that is dealing with a killer shark and focuses on the police chief who leads a team to hunt down and kill the creature.

Jaws opens in the New England beach town of Amity Island. During a nighttime beach party, a young woman, Christine “Chrissie” Watkins (Susan Backlinie), goes skinny dipping in the ocean. While treading water, something unseen attacks Chrissie and pulls her under the water, The next day, local police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) and Deputy Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer) find the partial remains of Chrissie's body on the shore of the beach.

The medical examiner concludes that Chrissie died due to a shark attack. Still, Amity's Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) is more concerned with the town's summer economy, which is wholly reliant on tourism, and does not want the beaches closed. Then, the fact that a shark, specifically a “great white shark,” is hunting the waters off the island becomes reality when the shark attacks and kills a boy named Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees).

After another attack, Chief Brody takes matters into his own hands. He joins Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), a marine biologist who specializes in shark, and Quint (Robert Shaw), a crusty old shark fisherman, on a seafaring mission to hunt and kill the shark. But that mission proves more difficult than any of the many realized.

I have seen Jaws so many times that I have lost count. Still, the movie seems eternally fresh to me, in a semi-sepia tone kind of way. Jaws fascinates me because it seems to me, at least, to be like three short films merged into one film. The first section introduces the shark attacks and Chief Brody's misgivings and investigations. The second section pits Brody against the town fathers, led by money grubber, Mayor Vaughn, who want the beaches open at all cost. The film's final section focuses on the boys' adventure of Brody, Matt Hooper, and Quint going shark-hunting and ending up being the hunted. As much as I enjoy the film's final act, I find the first section of the film to be the most intriguing because of its sense of mystery. What is really beneath the waves, coming up to chomp on young folks?

Jaws is essentially the prototypical summer blockbuster, a kind of film that is designed to get as many people into movie theaters and chomping on popcorn and guzzling soda. The blockbuster, especially the summer kind, is the cinema of the sensations: thrills and chills to make the viewer's body tingle and get the heart racing. The bracing action scenes keep the viewer on the edge of his or her seat. Steven Spielberg turned out to be the perfect director of summer blockbusters – at least for awhile. He could press all our emotional buttons and ensnare our imaginations so that all we thought about was what he wanted us to think about – for two or so hours.

Still, Spielberg's prodigious skills as a filmmaker are evident. He is a superb film artist and a consummate cinematic entertainer. He gets the best out of his cast and crew and creatives – from composer John Williams' iconic and ominous shark-presence theme to Bill Butler's expansive cinematography that turns this movie into a vista of natural wonders. Plus, Spielberg allows his talented cast to really show their dramatic chops, especially Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper and Richard Shaw as Quint. Even Lorraine Gary gets to make the most of her moments as Ellen Brody.

If I am honest, however, Spielberg has a co-captain on this ship. Roy Scheider (1932-2008) brings the film together and at times, holds it together. Steady as a rock, Chief Brody epitomizes the small town law man who has to save the town not only from the bad guy – a shark in this instance – but also from themselves. I think serious movie lovers and film fans recognize both the breath and depth of Scheider's talent and that he was a mesmerizing film presence. If Jaws is the film that shot Spielberg's career into the stratosphere like a rocket, Scheider can certainly be described as the rocket booster.

9 of 10
A+
★★★★+ out of 4 stars

Friday, September 23, 2022

NOTES:
1976 Academy Awards, USA: 3 wins: “Best Sound” (Robert L. Hoyt, Roger Heman Jr., Earl Madery, and John R. Carter), “Best Film Editing” (Verna Fields), and “Best Music, Original Dramatic Score” (John Williams); 1 nomination: “Best Picture” (Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown)

1976 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (John Williams for Jaws and also The Towering Inferno); 6 nominations: “Best Actor”(Richard Dreyfuss), “Best Direction” (Steven Spielberg), “Best Film,” “Best Film Editing” (Verna Fields), “Best Screenplay” (Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb), and “Best Sound Track” (John R. Carter and Robert L. Hoyt)

1976 Golden Globes, USA: 1 win: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (John Williams); 3 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” (Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb), and “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Steven Spielberg)

2001 National Film Preservation Board, USA: 1 win: “National Film Registry”

The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site or blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Thursday, May 26, 2022

Review: Original "TOP GUN" is Still a Bad Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 33 of 2022 (No. 1845) by Leroy Douresseaux

Top Gun (1986)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR: Tony Scott
WRITERS: Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr. (based on the magazine article, “Top Guns,” by Ehud Yonay)
PRODUCERS: Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jeffrey Kimball (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: Chris Lebenzon and Billy Weber
COMPOSER: Harold Faltermeyer
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/ACTION

Starring: Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, Tim Robbins, John Stockwell, Barry Tubb, Rick Rossovich, Whip Hubley, James Tolkan, Adrian Pasdar, Meg Ryan, and Clarence Gilyard, Jr.

Top Gun is a 1986 action and drama film directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise. The film was inspired by an article entitled, “Top Guns,” which was written by Ehud Yonay and published in the May 1983 issue of California Magazine. Top Gun the film focuses on a daring young U.S. Navy pilot who is a student at an elite fighter weapons school where he competes with other students and learns a few things from a female instructor.

Top Gun opens on the Indian Ocean aboard the vessel, the “USS Enterprise.” The story introduces United States Naval Aviator, Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise), and his RIO (Radar Intercept Officer), Lieutenant Junior Grade Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards). While on a mission flying their fighter aircraft, Maverick and Goose have an encounter with a hostile aircraft. As a result of the incident, Maverick and Goose are invited to the U.S. Navy “Fighter Weapons School” in Miramar, California (also known as “Fightertown U.S.A.”). The top one percent of naval aviators (pilots) get to attend Fighter Weapons School, also known as “Top Gun” (or “TOPGUN”).

Naval aviators have to complete a five-week course of classroom studies and flight training (called a “hop”). The top graduating aviator receives the “Top Gun” plaque. Maverick's rival for Top Gun is top student, Lieutenant Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer), who considers Maverick's attitude foolish and his flying dangerous. Maverick also becomes romantically involved with Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), an astrophysicist and civilian instructor, an unwise move for both.

Will Maverick earn the Top Gun trophy? Or will his reckless ways and tendency to disobey orders endanger those around him and cost him his future.

Until recently, I had never watched Top Gun, not even a minute of it. From the first time I saw a trailer for it, I thought Top Gun looked stupid, although I was a Tom Cruise fan at the time of its release (as I still am). I only recently watched it in preparation for seeing the long-awaited sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, which has a good looking trailer and has received glowing early reviews.

But I was right. Top Gun is stupid. It is poorly written, especially on the character drama end. Writers Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr. are credited as the film's screenwriters. The film's credited “Associate Producer,” the late Warren Skarren (1946-90), was a screenwriter known for rewriting the screenplays of big Hollywood projects (such as Beetlejuice and the 1989 Batman film). Skarren apparently did some heavy rewriting for Top Gun's shooting script. However, the film seems to be made from the parts of several screenplays that were combined to form a new script. That especially shows during the character drama scenes, which are sometimes awkward, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes inauthentic, and sometimes all three at the same time.

To me, the film looks poorly edited (which was Oscar-nominated), once again, mainly on the drama scenes. The film's musical score, composed by Harold Faltermeyer, is mostly atrocious.

However, the flight action sequences and the aerial stunts are quite good. When the film is in the air with those fighter jets or when Maverick is riding his motorcycle, Top Gun can be entertaining and invigorating. The drama is just so bad that it makes me forget the film's good stuff.

In 2015, Top Gun was added to the “National Film Registry” because it was considered “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” For me, the only reason that would be true is because of its lead actor, Tom Cruise. I think Top Gun is the film that made Cruise a celluloid god. He became his generation's biggest movie star and remains so. Top Gun began a decade (1986-96) that gave us “peak” Tom Cruise. Yes, he is still in his prime, but that was the decade that saw him give his most acclaimed and memorable performances, and in 1996, he began his most successful film franchise with the first Mission: Impossible. Yes, Cruise has given other memorable and acclaimed performances, but never so many as in that time period of 1986 to 1996.

So Top Gun is significant because of Tom Cruise. He is so handsome and fresh-faced here, and his youth, dynamism, and screen presence save this thoroughly mediocre film. Even with the great action sequences, this film would have been at best a cult film had any actor or movie star other than Tom Cruise been the lead.

Yeah, I could talk about the other actors who were in Top Gun, but what they did could not rise above the mediocrity of this film's drama – both in screenwriting and in directing. Tom Cruise – in a fighter or on a motorcycle – is Top Gun. As much as I am a fan of his, however, I wouldn't watch this shit again. But yes, I will see Top Gun: Maverick.

4 of 10
C
★★ out of 4 stars

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

1987 Academy Awards, USA: 1 win: “Best Music, Original Song” (Giorgio Moroder-music and Tom Whitlock-lyrics for the song “Take My Breath Away”); 3 nominations: “Best Sound” (Donald O. Mitchell, Kevin O'Connell, Rick Kline, and William B. Kaplan), “Best Film Editing” (Billy Weber and Chris Lebenzon), and “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” (Cecelia Hall and George Watters II)

1987 Golden Globes, USA: 1 win: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Giorgio Moroder-music and Tom Whitlock-lyrics for the song “Take My Breath Away”); 1 nomination: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Harold Faltermeyer)

2015 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Sunday, October 17, 2021

Review: "HEARTS AND MINDS" Still Condemns with Power

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 61 of 2021 (No. 1799) by Leroy Douresseaux

Hearts and Minds (1974)
Running time: 112 minutes (1 hour, 52 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Peter Davis
PRODUCERS: Peter Davis and Bert Schneider
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Richard Pearce
EDITORS: Lynzee Klingman and Susan Martin
Academy Award winner

DOCUMENTARY – War, Politics

[The recent ignominious end of the “War in Afghanistan” (October 7, 2001 to August 30, 2021) got me to thinking about America's involvement in Vietnam decades ago because … you know … people never learn and they never change. In military conflicts, if you run on up in there, you gonna eventually run on up outta there. So anyway, I remembered the gold standard in theatrical Vietnam documentary films, Hearts and Minds, and it was time to see it again.]

Starring: Captain Randy Floyd, Sgt. William Marshall, Lt. George Coker, George Bidault, Father Chan Tin, Daniel Ellsberg, David Emerson, Mary Cochran Emerson, Senator J.W. Fulbright, Sec. Clark Gifford, Corporal Stan Holder, Mui Duc Giang, Walt Rostow, Vu Duc Vinh, Vu Thi Hue, Vu Thri To, Gen. William Westmoreland, and Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson

Hearts and Minds is a 1974 documentary film directed by Peter Davis. It is an antiwar movie that examines the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975) and confronts the United States' involvement in the civil war within the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam. The film's title, Hearts and Minds, is based on the following quote from U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson: “the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there.” Hearts and Minds won the Oscar for “Best Documentary, Features” at the 47th Academy Awards, which were presented in 1975.

During the time of its release, critics of Hearts and Minds complained that the film was two one-sided, but from the beginning, the film's stated and obvious premise was that the United States should not have been involved Vietnam and in the strife between the governments of North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Director Peter Davis recounts the history of the Vietnam War by examining the history and attitudes of the opposing sides of the war, and he does this by interviewing government officials and military leadership and personnel from both sides of conflict. He also uses archival news footage, specifically featuring the U.S. Presidents whose actions started, sustained, and/or exacerbated the conflict and violence that marked the Vietnam War.

It is in that way that Davis presents what I see as the film's key theme: American attitudes and goals were the reason that a Vietnamese civil war became an American-driven Vietnam War. After World War II, the leadership of the U.S., both government and military, decided to make the world in its image. American's imperial ambitions had been long-simmering, seeing a number of nations as rivals or obstacles, especially the Soviet Union and China, the faces of “international communism.” Such imperialism found a proxy war in the struggle between communist North Vietnamese and its South Vietnamese allies, the Viet Cong,against South Vietnam (or the State of Vietnam).

Hearts and Minds emphasizes how the the United States helped to create the bloody conflict with Vietnam and how it ultimately prolonged the struggle. In interviews with such people as General William Westmoreland, the American commander of military operations in the Vietnam War during its peak period from 1964 to 1968, not only does the self-righteous militarism of the U.S. reveal itself, but also American' racist attitudes about the Vietnamese people.

This militarism and racism is also exemplified in another one of the film's interview subjects, American prison of war (POW), U.S. Navy pilot, Lt. George Coker. The film includes footage of Coker making public speeches after his release from six-and-a-half years in North Vietnamese captivity. Coker's racism and jingoism are repulsive, which, to me, are obviously the result of his upbringing (brainwashing) and military training. However, I'm not sure that it was a good choice to include him in Hearts and Minds, as the film's detractors have used Coker's status as a POW to criticize the film as being “too one-sided” and anti-war propaganda. One could always say that the attitudes Coker reveals in his return to the U.S. are, to some extent, the result of the degradation he experienced as a POW.

That aside, what makes Hearts and Minds one of the greatest American documentary films of all time (if not the greatest) is director Peter Davis' willingness to give voice to the Vietnamese people through interviews and film footage. One of Hearts and Minds' most shocking and controversial sequences shows the funeral of a South Vietnamese soldier. His grieving family includes a sobbing woman (his mother?) who has to be restrained from climbing into the grave after his coffin is lowered into the ground. The cries of a grieving boy, perhaps his son, are like that of a wounded animal. I first saw Hearts and Minds a few years ago on TV, and that scene stays with me, even as I write this.

Americans sometimes remember how many Americans died in the Vietnam War (over 58,000), but almost three-and-a-half million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers died during the war (according to numbers provided by Vietnam in 1995). An example of the wanton death and destruction is personified in a North Vietnamese farmer who loses his eight-year-old daughter and his three-year-old son because of an American bombing campaign. His anger and grief, especially at the death of his daughter who was killed while feeding pigs (all of which apparently lived), encapsulates the wrongness of American involvement in Vietnam.

Two other interviews of American servicemen stand out to me. First, Sgt. William Marshall, an African-American from Detroit, offers a bit of levity in the film by the way in which he describes his experiences. However, he also condemns Americans, demanding that they witness in his war injuries a guilt from which we may not turn away.

The other is Hearts and Minds' concluding interview, which features US Vietnam veteran, U.S. Navy pilot, Captain Randy Floyd. One of his statements summons up the feckless relationship that Americans have with their militarist and imperialist government. Floyd says, “We've all tried very hard to escape what we have learned in Vietnam. I think Americans have worked extremely hard not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers exhibited.”

With those words, Hearts and Minds makes itself both timely and timeless, although the American “Global War on Terror” of the twenty-first century also helped to keep this film timely. It is left up to academics, film historians, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) “Academy Film Archive,” and the “National Film Registry” to save Hearts and Minds from being entirely forgotten. Still, we movie fans, or at least some us, must make an effort to bring Hearts and Minds back into prominence. America has need of this work of art and of this lesson in history.

10 of 10

Sunday, October 17, 2021

NOTES:
1975 Academy Awards, USA: 1 win for “Best Documentary, Features” (Peter Davis and Bert Schneider)

1975 Golden Globes, USA: 1 nomination: “Best Documentary Film”

2018 National Film Preservation Board, USA: “National Film Registry”

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Review: KILLER OF SHEEP Remains Fascinating

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 27 of 2021 (No. 1765) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Killer of Sheep (1978)
Running time: 80 minutes (1 hour, 20 minutes)
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Charles Burnett
PRODUCER: Charles Burnett
CINEMATOGRAPHER/EDITOR: Charles Burnett

DRAMA

Starring: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry, and Jack Drummond

Killer of Sheep is a 1978 film drama from writer-director, Charles Burnett, who also produced, photographed and edited the film. Burnett shot Killer of Sheep on 16mm black and white film, and he filmed it mostly on weekends in the Watts neighborhood of southern Los Angeles in 1972 and 1973. He originally submitted the film to the UCLA School of Film in 1977 as his Master of Fine Arts thesis. Set in Watts, Killer of Sheep focuses on a slaughterhouse worker who suspends him emotions to continue working in such a job, but ends up have little sensitivity for the very family in which he works so hard to support.

Killer of Sheep premiered at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York on November 14, 1978. It did not receive a general theatrical release because Burnett has not secured the rights to the music he used in the film. Over the years, however, people were apparently able to see the film at small film festivals, on the college film circuit, and via bootleg copies. It was inducted into the “National Film Registry” in 1990, the second year of the registry.

In 2007, a group of interests, including the UCLA, Steven Soderbergh, and Milestone Films, worked to purchase the music rights and to restore Killer of Sheep to 35mm film. It received a limited release in late 2007 and several “Top 10” lists, including being chosen the best film of the year by Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine.

Killer of Sheep is a depiction of the urban Black Americans of Watts as seen through a series of loosely connected vignettes. If the film has a focus, it is on Stan (Henry G. Sanders), a husband and father who works at the slaughterhouse, Solano Meat Co., where he helps process sheep for slaughter. Stan finds the monotonous work to be repugnant, and he seemingly suspends his emotions to deal with the job. The result is that his home life suffers. He shows little sensitivity to his unnamed wife (Kaycee Moore) and to his two children, son (Jack Drummond) and daughter (Angela Burnett). Stan has trouble sleeping, does not play with his children, and avoids sex with his wife, who wants intimacy and real affection from her husband.

Stan wants another job, and he often finds himself caught up in the schemes and plots of friends and associates. Stan and his friend, Bracy (Charles Bracy), attempt to buy a car engine from a squabbling family. Two fast-talking acquaintances want Stan to help them in their plot to murder a man. All the while, a portrait of the austere and impoverished life of poor and working-class African-Americans emerges. Can Stan better his life even if he feels unable to affect the course of his life?

I have previously seen two of Charles Burnett's films, To Sleep with Anger (1990) and The Glass Shield (1994). I had not heard of Killer of Sheep until its surprise inclusion in the list of films inducted into the 1990 class of the National Film Registry. I have been putting off seeing the film for years since the DVD release of the 2007 restoration and limited theatrical run.

Burnett made Killer of Sheep with nonprofessional actors, reportedly a nod to the influence of “Italian neo-realism.” I can't say exactly as I have never seen such a film. I also would not describe Killer of Sheep as having a documentary feel. The film's loose collection of vignettes have informal story acts, although the film does not have a plot. Burnett provides the slimmest character development and something like a narrative, but the actors are quite convincing in their portrayals. I found myself fascinated by the way they sold the idea that they are indeed playing characters and that they made those characters seem real. Henry G. Sanders makes Stan the solid center of Killer of Sheep.

Killer of Sheep indirectly speaks to the economic exclusion and segregation faced by black people in Watts then and for decades. Stan, his family, and their friends and neighbors are always short of money and resources and hope. Still, their lives are filled with moments of happiness and joy, and they make good times out of whatever they can. There are also moments of beauty, such as when Stan's daughter sings an Earth Wind & Fire song to her doll while her mother (Stan's wife) watches.

Killer of Sheep is not a film to be described so much as it us a film to be watched and experienced. There is such a sense of naturalism about it. The film is not so real that it is a documentary, nor is it so surreal that it becomes a black and white dream. Killer of Sheep is a story, a story of ordinary Black people in a particular place and time. Killer of Sheep is so special because it tells a story that most American filmmakers would have not bothered to tell. That makes Killer of Sheep and its maker, Charles Burnett, national treasures.

9 of 10
A+

Friday, March 12, 2021

NOTES:
1990 National Film Preservation Board, USA: 1 win: National Film Registry

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2021

#28DaysofBlack Review: "LILIES OF THE FIELD" Feels Timeless and Spiritual

[For his performance in Lilies of the Field, Sidney Poitier became the first Black man to win the “Best Actor” Oscar. Poitier received his Oscar at the 36th Academy Awards ceremony, held in April 1964. It would be 38 years later, at the 74th Academy Awards in March 2002, when the second Black man won a “Best Actor” Oscar, Denzel Washington. That night, Halle Berry also became the first, and of this writing, only Black woman to win a “Best Actress” Oscar.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 19 of 2021 (No. 1757) by Leroy Douresseaux

Lilies of the Field (1963)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
PRODUCER-DIRECTOR: Ralph Nelson
WRITER: James Poe (based on the novel, The Lilies of the Field by William E. Barrett)
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ernest Haller (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: John W. McCafferty
COMPOSER: Jerry Goldsmith
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring: Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann, Isa Crino, Francesca Jarvis, Pamela Branch, Stanley Adams, and Dan Frazer

Lilies of the Field is a 1963 drama film from producer-director, Ralph Nelson. The film is based on the 1962 novel, The Lilies of the Field, written by William Edward Barrett. Lilies of the Field the film focuses on a traveling handyman and the nuns who believe that he is the answer to their prayers.

Lilies of the Field opens somewhere in the Arizona desert. Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier), an itinerant jack-of-all-trades, stops at what he assumes is an ordinary farm to obtain some water for his car, a station wagon. There, he sees a group of women working around the farm. These women turn out to be five nuns: Mother Maria (Lilia Skala), Sister Gertrude (Lisa Mann), Sister Agnes (Iro Crino), Sister Albertine (Francesca Jarvis), and Sister Elizabeth (Pamela Branch). The nuns, who speak very little English, introduce themselves as German, Austrian and Hungarian nuns.

Maria, the “Mother Superior” (the leader of the nuns), persuades Homer, whom she calls “Homer Schmidt,” to do a small job of roofing repair on the main building. He stays overnight, assuming that he will be paid in the morning. The next day, Smith tries to persuade Mother Maria to pay him by quoting from the Holy Bible, but she responds by asking him to read a Bible verse from the “Sermon on the Mount” (“Consider the lilies of the field...). This won't be the last time that Mother Maria stonewalls Homer on the payment she owes him, but his strengths and skills are apparent to her and her nuns. Mother Maria believes that Homer has been sent by God to fulfill their dream of building a chapel (which they call a “shapel”) on their land.

If people remember Lilies of the Field, it would be for Sidney Poitier's performance, which earned him the “Best Actor” Oscar, and for the film's historical relevance. Poitier's win for portraying Homer Smith was the first time a black man had won the “Best Actor” Oscar, and it was also the first time a black actor had won an Academy Award in a lead acting category. To date, Homer Smith is my favorite performance of Poitier's. Poitier presents Homer as a man full of skill, grit, and determination, with plenty of sly wit and humor. Most of all, through Homer, Poitier makes the audience believe in man's capacity for kindness and in a man having a sense of duty and honor that he does not use to place himself above other men.

The film is blessed with several good performances. Lilia Skala, who earned a “Best Supporting Actress” Oscar nomination for her performance, can convince the audience that Mother Maria is a real person and not just a character in a movie. Skala makes Maria's faith seem genuine, and it is Maria's faith in God that in turn makes this film feel like a religious movie, or even a Christian movie, for that matter, without Lilies of the Field specifically being either religious or Christian.

Faith in God and faith in the goodness of man are at the heart of this film. James Poe's screenplay and the way that director Ralph Nelson presents this story combine to send a simple message of faith in God over worrying about the things one wants to happen. Lilies of the Field is not a Christmas movie, but I think it could be a wonderful entry in people's “Happy Holidays” playlist.

I found myself often very emotional while watching this film. At a little more than a hour and a half of run time, Lilies of the Field seems like a fairy tale, a folk tale, or even a Biblical story. It is magical. It is wonderful. And it makes faith seem like a very good thing, indeed. When people speak of the magic of Hollywood films, I think that there is plenty of that magic in Lilies of the Field.

10 of 10

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

NOTES:
1964 Academy Awards, USA: 1 win: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Sidney Poitier); 4 nominations: “Best Picture” (Ralph Nelson), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Lilia Skala), “Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium” (James Poe), and “Best Cinematography, Black-and-White” (Ernest Haller)

1964 Golden Globes, USA: 2 wins: “Best Actor – Drama” (Sidney Poitier) and “Best Film Promoting International Understanding” and 2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama” and “Best Supporting Actress” (Lilia Skala)

1965 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Foreign Actor” (Sidney Poitier) and “UN Award” (USA)

2020 National Film Preservation Board, USA: 1 win: “National Film Registry”

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

----------------------------

Amazon wants me to inform you that the link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the ad below AND buy something(s).