movie review – Page 5

Movie Review: Trancers (1984)

February 8, 2017 by David Dubrow 7 Comments

I first saw Trancers as a videotape rental in high school, which I suppose dates me somewhat. My standards as a teenager weren’t terribly high, so at the time I thought it was great. The film was ludicrous but I loved it all the same. Mental time travel to an ancestor? The Long Second Watch? A guy named Whistler with hypnotic powers? Come on.

Now, decades later, does the movie hold up?

Yes. Yes it does.

It’s a low budget movie. But to paraphrase a former Secretary of Defense, you go to production with the budget you have, not the budget you wish you had. So there are parts of it that look cheesy. Can’t be helped. It’s not the budget that makes a movie, but the care put into it, and in the case of Trancers, a lot of care was put into it.

There’s not one performance in the film that takes you out of the story, which is one of its greatest strengths. Tim Thomerson plays protagonist Jack Deth with perfect, down-the-line seriousness, which makes him stand out in what is already kind of a silly movie. His charisma and imposing physical presence make you believe in the role. Helen Hunt is appealing as Lena, appropriately scared and vulnerable when necessary. She deserves great respect for returning in the sequel. The movie wouldn’t have worked anywhere near as well without Michael Stefani as Whistler: with his staring eyes and creepy smile, he’s the bad guy this film needed.

The story’s uneven, and an interested viewer could spend days picking holes in the plot. But why would you want to? The bizarre dystopia of Jack Deth’s time, with its Council of Elders and half of L.A. sunk into the sea, where real coffee is prized like gold but everyone smokes tobacco (at least, I assume it’s tobacco), when mankind has colonized other planets but hasn’t conquered death at the hands of a madman and his zombie army: it’s extremely imaginative. What the writers don’t show but hint at makes you fill in the blanks yourself. The Trancers themselves are sort of like zombies but with a bit more volition, making it relevant to our current zombie-obsessed culture. Why can the future cops send Long Second Watches into the past but not people? Don’t worry about it: just watch the movie. If members of the Council are eliminated in the future when Whistler kills their ancestors in the past, how do we know they even existed? Just…just stop asking so many questions, already.

Yes, we did dress a lot like they did in the 1985 depicted in the movie, and most of us thought it was cool. Thing is, we could wash out the hair spray and take off our square-ended neckties, but today’s tattoos are rather more permanent, and those facial piercings leave literal holes. In your face. I’ll take a pair of Jordache denims over skinny jeans any day of the week (in part because I can’t fit into skinny jeans).

Whether you’re a newcomer to Charles Band’s oeuvre or looking for a piece of sci-fi horror nostalgia, I’m pleased to report that you won’t be disappointed in Trancers. Get out there, find yourself a copy, and get watching. Your New Coke’s getting warm.

2016 in Review: Top Five Movies

December 19, 2016 by David Dubrow 2 Comments

Through my association with The Slaughtered Bird I’ve watched more movies this year than last, particularly independent films. Some have been great, some middling, some terrible. A few have been real stand-outs, either through overall quality, or because I just liked them better. Even trashy films can be awesome. Here’s my list of the top five movies I’ve seen in 2016:

5. The Invitation: A prime example of a film that’s not great, but one I quite enjoyed. Yes, some of it was silly in parts, but it had an overall, apocalyptic concept that tied it together and made it memorable.
4. He Never Died: It’s usually a very good idea to avoid Henry Rollins in any guise, but in this movie he shone as an enigmatic, bizarre character in a brutal, hyper-violent story that’s got several laughs and plenty of blood.
3. Little Boy: It’s rare to see magical realism done right in any medium, but this film pulled it off. A poignant, if not terribly thoughtful movie about faith, family, and friendship that hits all the right notes.
2. Der Bunker: Hysterically funny despite the subtitles, it’s a German film that also focuses on childhood and family, though with a much more bizarre set of circumstances. Weird, but relatable.
1. Atmo Horrox: A film that’s so bizarre, so surreal, that it defies description. How can I describe the galumphing Catafuse, the french fry bucket, the horrible ghoul chasing the family man in a way that makes sense? I’m as surprised as you are that it’s my favorite film of the year, but when I sat down and thought about this list, Atmo Horrox topped it without effort. You’ve never seen anything quite like it.

I hope to have my Top 5 Books list ready by the end of the week.

Some Thoughts on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

August 30, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

As superhero movies go, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was no better or worse than any other superhero movie ever produced, and deserves better than the 27% Rotten rating it got from the reviewers. I mean, it’s a superhero movie, not Bridge on the River Kwai. I like superhero movies, though I’m done with Marvel for reasons this post should make clear, and I’ve always been a big fan of Superman. So overall I came away from the movie with a feeling of having been entertained, which is the entire point. The things I want to talk about here are spoiler-heavy, so if you haven’t seen it yet, do so before reading the rest.

Things I liked:

The damage to Metropolis from the events of the film Man of Steel becoming a plot point was a nice touch. After all, Supes and his white trash cousins destroyed the city, so the aftermath of that made sense from a story perspective. This sort of thing wouldn’t have become such a big deal in a pre-9/11 world, when we Americans hadn’t had to deal with mass destruction of our metropolitan areas by inhuman terrorists.
Ben Affleck did a perfectly fine job as Batman; I don’t see what the fuss was about. He’s a big, muscular fellow in middle age. The voice modulator helped. One thing I hated about the Christian Bale Batman was the silly, grating voice the actor put on when in costume.
Jesse Eisenberg/Mark Zuckerberg as Lex Luthor also did a fine job, despite that he had to say a bunch of very dumb things. He didn’t come off as mentally ill: just evil and quirky.
Superman always looked clean and bright and heroic, even when everything was dirty and dingy and awful. It gave him an otherworldly air. Kind of like an angel. Or Legolas in The Lord of the Rings.
All the explosions and stuff. Batman’s armor was cool.
Having Batman torture Superman a little was also cool, though it made Bats look more like a psychopath than might have been intended.
The disturbing dream/vision Batman had while decrypting the data was dark and distressing and unusual. But I didn’t like it, too. You’ll find out why in a minute.

Things I didn’t like:

Batman’s fight scenes were really slow. I don’t know why. It made them rote and unexciting.
Superman didn’t get any opportunities to act heroic in the early parts of the movie, which helped boost Batman’s case that The Man of Steel is more a menace than a savior. Part of being a savior means saving people, and Supes didn’t do that.
Batman’s dream/vision was, apparently, something that will become relevant in an upcoming film. If they’d titled the movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Part 1, implying that this was the first part of one long story, that would be acceptable. But they didn’t. Don’t make me go to IMDB to find stuff out about the movie I just watched.
Wonder Woman was nice and all, but she did absolutely nothing to advance the plot. There was no reason for her to be there except to tease the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. How she managed to outsmart Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective, was an artificial boost to make her look competent, but at Batman’s expense.
Good on the writers for giving Batman mommy issues (I mean, who among us doesn’t have at least one), but it was insufficiently teased in the flashbacks for it to come off as anything but contrived at the end with “Save Martha.” That could’ve been really powerful, but it wasn’t.
How did Lois Lane know to get the spear? Any explanation of that requires mental gymnastics rather than an honest analysis of the events of the film.
We all knew that Superman wasn’t really dead at the end, so the last ten minutes were a waste of time. And now that it’s been reported that Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent is dead, what’re they going to do, just not have Superman’s secret identity anymore? Is that it for Superman as a character with a life outside of superheroing?

Anyway, I look forward to watching the Justice League film when it comes out on streaming video in a year or so.

Movie Review: The Cokeville Miracle

August 3, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

In 1986, a lunatic named David Young took the faculty and student body of Cokeville Elementary School hostage. He had a bomb and several guns, and demanded 200 million dollars for the hostages’ release. The film The Cokeville Miracle dramatizes the events from beginning to end, when a troubled police officer attempts to make sense of the aftermath and how it relates to his diminishing faith in God.

While the film works hard to tone down any overt expressions of the Christian faith, this is definitely a religious-themed movie, tackling themes of loss of faith, the power of prayer, and celestial/supernatural phenomena. Anti-theists will not find much to like about this film, but the rest of us will find it enjoyable and thought-provoking.

Jasen Wade as the protagonist Ron Hartley turns a decent performance as a man troubled by what he’s seen on the job. Police officers often have to deal with the worst in humanity, and this exposure conflicts with his life as a church-going family man. He’s losing his faith, and as the hostage crisis takes place over the course of the film, this diminishing faith is further tested: his children are in the school, being terrorized by the bomber. His personal agony is clear in the performance, if a bit one-note at times.

Later, after the crisis is over, his investigation uncovers some very unusual circumstances. What really happened in that classroom?

Overall, The Cokeville Miracle is an earnest movie, and raises important questions about the nature of an interventionist God. Why does He seem to intervene in one event and not another? What’s the difference between coincidence and divine intervention?

Like so many films in which children are put in peril, this movie will be particularly poignant for parents (alliteratively speaking). We send our kids to school, figuring they’ll get through the day just fine.

Until they don’t.

I award this film 4 out of 5 stars. Give The Cokeville Miracle a try and let me know what you think.

The Cube Series: An Overview

June 24, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

After having heard so much about the Cube trilogy of movies, I decided to dive right in and watch them. As psychological horror, the first and third films work well, despite their obvious flaws. It’s easy to see how the series has developed a cult following; I didn’t love them myself, but I was reasonably entertained.

The series starts with, well, Cube. It has a gripping first few minutes that show you nothing’s safe and that there’s a great deal to fear. Not long after that we’re introduced to the cast, and that’s where the movie fell down a bit. None of the characters were the least bit likable, which is fine, but their dialogue often descended into unrealistic cliche. Quentin’s descent into angry madness was well-portrayed: the second best performance in the film. The conspiracy-theory doctor and the math girl were okay, but nothing special. David Hewlett as Worth did the best job, though that might be nostalgia talking, as his performance reminded one very much of Dr Rodney McKay in the Stargate series of TV shows. Plenty of horrific deaths and enclosed spaces made this the best film in the series.

The sequel, Cube 2: Hypercube, isn’t a horror film as much as it is a science fiction flick where people die in weird ways. Rather than physical traps to kill the hapless prisoners, this cube has things like tesseracts, variable-speed rooms, and bizarre crystals that cause horrible, if somewhat bloodless deaths. The dialogue here was even worse than in the first movie, though the characters were rather more interesting. One of the few films you’ll see where the comic relief actually worked well. One character becomes a crazy sociopath for no apparent reason, which made little sense, and the special effects were very early 2000’s movie-of-the week. Nevertheless, the weird sciency stuff was pretty neat and made up for the overall flatness of the film.

The series ends with Cube Zero, which calls itself a prequel, of sorts. This is where you see a bit of what’s outside the Cube and who’s in charge. Most of that is nonsensical, though the strange combination of obsolete gadgetry and modern technology made for a compelling aesthetic. In Cube Zero they return to the gritty, industrial feel of the first film, eschewing the clean, sterile atmosphere of Hypercube. We get to see the people who observe the prisoners trapped in the cube, as well as the upper “bosses,” as it were. Hints of a bizarre, theocratic government are hintfully dropped, amidst the disgusting executions and inevitable betrayals. Better than the second film but not as good as the first.

The Cube series is somewhat dated, but entertaining anyway. Give the first one a watch: if you didn’t like it, you probably won’t like its sequels.

Movie Review: I’ll Follow You Down

February 17, 2016 by David Dubrow 1 Comment

I’ll Follow You Down is a profoundly affecting film that raises a number of philosophical questions that resonate long after it’s over. In it, Gabriel, a physicist with a wife and a small child, goes missing during a business trip. Years later, his family learns that his disappearance was a profoundly unnatural occurrence, one that they might be able to…correct.

The performances were quite good, particularly Haley Joel Osment as Erol, Gabriel’s son. He does a tremendous job as a conflicted slacker-genius, adding depth to a role that might have come off as hackneyed in a lesser talent’s hands. Gillian Anderson as his mother played a tragic figure: brittle, doomed, and sorrowful. Victor Garber and Susanna Fournier rounded out the cast as grandfather and love interest, respectively. While Rufus Sewell as Gabriel didn’t have a lot of screen time, he was his usual, watchable self, and it’s always refreshing to see him outside of the antagonist role.

The question of fate over free will loomed large over the script: the events of the movie seemed to inexorably push Erol toward fixing his father’s mistake, despite a later decision to move away from it and live the life he has instead of the one he was supposed to have. Fournier as Erol’s girlfriend Grace sets up a terrible dilemma for him, one that can’t help but tear him in two.

Because this is a story about people and family instead of gadgets and science, you won’t find a lot of special effects. The mechanism used to look for Gabriel isn’t as important as the journey itself. It might even qualify as a family movie except for a repeated expletive and a shocking act of violence at the end that has you reeling until the credits roll.

Can one choose work over family, or is the question itself a false choice? Are we living the lives we’re supposed to, or should we fix them if given the chance?

Hard to say. Go see the film and think about it. 4 out of 5 stars.