Category Archives: Movies

Movies

The Nice Guys (2016) a (mildly) belated review

When the 2016 Summer Movies started coming out, like all movie fans I checked up on them to see which ones I would catch, whether it be in theaters (given my limited spare time, a hard thing to accomplish) or on home video.

Many of the films released in the summertime and by the studios tend to be big budgeted, effects heavy works aimed at almost all audiences.  It isn’t often a “big” summer release has anything more than a PG-13 rating.

Anyway, while looking over the upcoming films, the R-rated The Nice Guys got my attention.  First and foremost, the film was directed and co-written by Shane Black, the man who wrote many of the better action/buddy comedies of recent memory, including the original Lethal Weapon, and The Long Kiss Goodnight and who returned to the genre with the excellent Kiss  Kiss Bang Bang (2005) before more recently directing Iron Man 3.

Naturally I was intrigued.  When I saw the red band trailer (NSFW!) for the film, I was downright fascinated…

Which makes what I have to say next so agonizing: The movie turned out to be a disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong: There are plenty of laughs to be had, though the biggest ones are already spoiled by the above trailer.

Going beyond that, the movie had several problems which kept me from grading it much more than just a little above average.

To start with, the mystery the characters are trying to solve is never all that engaging.  When all is said and done, it proves to be rather silly, as it involves a porn film that exposes dirty dealings in the car industry (!).

The next big problem, again to me, was that the film skewed too far in the direction of comedy.  Lethal Weapon and The Long Kiss Goodnight worked because despite their comedic elements -more of which were present in the former than the later- there was always a sense that our heroes were in danger.  This is never the case in The Nice Guys.  While people are shot and killed, I never felt our heroes faced any real danger.  Add to that the fact that the villains presented are mostly bland henchmen, and not particularly fearsome ones at that, and any sustained suspense is dissipated.

What also hurt the movie’s overall sense of suspense was the fact that Ryan Gosling’s character had a daughter, played by Angourie Rice, who winds up being one of those young children who are far too wise for their own good and, more importantly, gets put into the middle of the investigation and thrown into the movie’s bigger actions scenes which further dissipate the danger our heroes face.

Why is that?  Because I just knew Mr. Shane -and I’m certain the studios/investors- didn’t have the guts to put a 13 year old character in danger of getting hurt, much less killed.  So when she’s in the movie’s biggest action sequences, I never felt the characters, and her, were in any danger and that dulled whatever excitement Mr. Black was trying to present.

Having said all that, I again will reiterate: The film made me laugh at various points and I’d be lying if I said it was a complete bust.  As I noted before, the film was a little above average and, if I were to rate it based on 1 to 4 stars, I’d give it 2 and 1/2 stars.

The NIce Guys was watchable, certainly, and at times very amusing.  I just wish it had excited me much more.

Movies

Phantasm Remastered (1979/2016) a (early!) review

On Friday I discovered my VUDU digital version of the 1979 cult horror film Phantasm was replaced with the new, J. J. Abrams’ Bad Robot “remastered” version for free.  Further, because I already owned the film, I also had access to this remastered version four full days (at least up to the point I discovered the upgrade!) before the movie’s official remastered release on October 4th and two days from now.

Yesterday I wrote about my find and promised to see the film and give it a review.  Last night I did just that and here you go…

To begin, the movie looks great.  I’m reminded of when I picked up the BluRay release of John Carpenter’s The Fog and was blown away by how clear it looked versus the (ahem) foggy version I was used to seeing.

While not quite on that level of visual brilliance, the remastered Phantasm nonetheless does look damn sharp and the trailer for the remastered version cleverly points out how we old timers first experienced the film versus what it looks like now…

So for those like me who like the film and remember being absolutely terrified by it when it was released back in 1979 (I think I first saw it in 1980), getting and seeing the remastered version is an absolute no-brainer.

However…

While watching Phantasm today versus 1979 (or 1980), it is clear the passage of time has dulled the terrifying shocks I felt while watching the film back in the era it was originally released.

It’s so damn difficult today, nearly 40 years later and after thousands upon thousands of horror films and TV shows having been released which depict all manner of “creative” gory death, for something this small scale to shock us like it did back then.  For today’s viewer’s, I suspect the movie’s most shocking scene, the death by Silver Ball, will elicit at best a shrug while I distinctly remember trembling after seeing that scene way back then.

And with those shocks not resonating quite as well as they did back in 1979, we’re left with an obviously very low budget film with a for the most part meandering story and so-so acting.

Well, with the notable exception of Angus Scrimm as the movie’s villain, the Tall Man.  Clearly he’s having an absolute (ahem) ball with his villainous turn.  In fact, Mr. Scrimm’s very first appearance in the movie looked like it was cut just as he went a little overboard in his facial expressions.

I strongly suspect the Tall Man’s character was a modernized version of Max Schreck’s Nosferatu, the very first film version of Dracula which was released in 1922. In that movie, Nosferatu was presented as tall and shadowy and scary as all get-out…

Like Nosferatu, Phantasm gives us the Tall Man in very small doses.  In Nosferatu,  the villainous Count appeared for only 9 some minutes in total in the film and in Phantasm I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tall Man appears for even less.  Yet it works.  It leaves us wanting so much more.

Having said all that, Nosferatu remains, even after nearly 100 years since its release, a genuinely creepy film while Phantasm, unfortunately, is a far more muted affair, at least IMHO.  In fact, the pleasures I derived from it had more to do with the way it depicted life circa 1979, when I was roughly the age of the movie’s protagonist.

I’ll always treasure the scares the film gave me back when I originally saw it and will also treasure this new, crisp and beautiful remastering.

However, I must also be honest and say that while Phantasm delights me for its nostalgic pull which includes the pleasant and scary memories it offers me, I genuinely feel modern audiences may not take to it like I do.  While the film still works as a mad living nightmare, to some it might be a little too slow to bother with.

Sadly, this happens to the best of ’em.

Movies

The joys of digital movie collections – Phantasm Remastered

Yesterday, for no particular reason, I was looking over my digital movie collection on my iPad.

While one can have their own personal movie collection through various services, including Amazon and iTunes, mine is primarily through Walmart’s VUDU (you can check the service out here), which works -for the most part- concurrently with Flixster (you can check that service out here).

The primary reason I chose VUDU over almost all the other big digital video services was because I have a very large DVD/BluRay collection and the idea of buying all those films again weighed extremely heavily on my mind -and wallet, of course- and when I discovered VUDU allowed you to port most of your movies from their physical form to the VUDU system for basically $1.00-5.00 (the rate depends on whether you’re converting DVDs vs. BluRays and when you do more than 10 at a time the price is slashed in half!), I went on a tear going through my collection and “digitizing” it.

While VUDU didn’t allow me to convert all of my films to Digital, one of the ones it did allow me to do was my old copy of Phantasm (1979).  Recently, it was announced that J. J. Abrams and his company have remastered the film and this is the trailer for the upcoming release, scheduled for October 4th (ie, three days from now):

I’m a HUGE fan of the original Phantasm and the remastered film was certainly on my radar so imagine my surprise when, while going over my VUDU films yesterday, I noticed the graphics for my digital copy of Phantasm (you know, the mini-poster you click on to see the film) had changed to this…

Image result for phantasm remastered images

In this larger graphic you can clearly see the word “Remastered” below the movie’s title but in the very small images you have on your VUDU movie listings, I couldn’t see it.

Curious about the graphic change, I clicked on the movie and to my delight, my original, non-remastered copy of Phantasm on VUDU was, indeed, replaced free of charge with the remastered one and four days before the official release, to boot!!!  I knew it was the remastered version because the “Bad Robot” logo (encased in one of those Phantasm Balls o’ Death) appeared in the film’s opening credits.

So, if you already have a copy of Phantasm via the VUDU system and are eager to see the movie in its remastered glory, check to see if you too have the new version available.

Now, I haven’t seen the full film yet and intend to do so today.  However, of what I have seen so far, up until the point where Jody picks up the mysterious Woman in Lavender and head out to the graveyard, looks really gorgeous.

If you’re like me and are a fan of the original film yet you didn’t have the VUDU version and therefore have to wait for the upgrade, fear not.  The official release is on October 4th.

Movies

The dangers of success…

Way back in 1999 a quiet, eerie little movie -albeit one that featured a very big name actor- was released and became a huge hit.  It was on everyone’s mind and made a star of its writer/director…

The writer/director of The Sixth Sense is, of course, M. Night Shyamalan and his follow-up film, Unbreakable, is considered by many another great work.  When his follow up to that, the film Signs, was about to be released in 2002, Newsweek featured the following article concerning the very hot writer/director…

Image result for m. night shyamalan newsweek cover

Most of you know the rest of the story.

While Signs has its fans, almost everyone agrees the alien invasion film featured some really silly elements.  The biggest one being: How do technologically advanced aliens choose to invade a planet which is filled with water, something which is highly poisonous to them?!

Unfortunately, that story -let’s be kind here- peculiarity turned out to be a sign of bad things to come.  Mr. Shyamalan was pegged as the writer/director whose films had to have a shocking end-twist but this reputation may have become more a burden to him than he would admit and his follow-ups to Signs proved a case of diminishing returns.

In short order he re;eased The Village (2004) and Lady in the Water (2006).  In 2008 he reached one of several creative nadir’s with the ridiculous The Happening, which featured this much yucked about scene…

By this time, audiences had turned on the writer/director and his reputation, so sterling at the time of that Newsweek article, was in the gutter.  Fans of The Last Airbender animated series were outraged by the live action movie version he wrote and directed and which was released in 2010.

By then, Mr. Shyamalan’s reputation was so damaged that the 2013 film After Earth made it a point to avoid mentioning the writer/director’s role in the film.

Things, however, started to work for Mr. Shyamalan after that point.  The movie Devil, which he wrote and produced but did not direct, was a cult hit.  The TV show Wayward Pines, which he directed the first episode and executive produced, was also a modest success, at least for its first season.

Was a come-back in the works?

Signs (pun intended?!) point to that possibility as Mr. Shyamalan’s latest writing/directing feature, Split, is getting very good early word and the studios behind it appear bullish on it…

The reason I point all this out is because as good as the film’s early reviews are, Mr. Shyamalan’s reputation once again, to me, threatens this movie’s release as it has already been revealed that the film features, you guessed it, a final act “twist”.

Considering we’re dealing with a man with multiple personalities who kidnaps three young women, one instantly thinks: Are the young women he kidnaps part of his psychosis?  Do they exist?  Or perhaps one of the young women is the psychotic one and everyone around her is a delusion?

I don’t know but if anything, this shows the dangers of succeeding too well with something and then riding that particular success perhaps more than one should.

Will this film give Mr. Shyamalan a much needed boost after years of at best indifference and at worst ridicule?

We’ll have to wait and see.

Movies

London Has Fallen (2016) a (mildly) belated review

Back in 2013 a curious thing happened, though certainly not for the first time:  Two movies were released within a three month period of time that were, from a plot standpoint, essentially the same.

I’m referring to Olympus Has Fallen, which appeared in theaters in late March of 2013…

…and White House Down, which showed up in June of 2013…

As can be seen in the trailers, the plots of these films was essentially the same: The President is targeted by terrorists and attacked while in the White House.  A “renegade” Secret Service agent, in both cases, is there to try to save the President and mow down the villains.

It was clear White House Down was meant to be the more “prestige” feature.  It had the bigger stars and bigger budget and yet, when all was said and done, though both films are hardly considered “classics” of action/adventure, most might give the slight edge to the lower budget, lower star-powered Olympus Has Fallen.

The proof?

White House Down was ridiculed by its star Channing Tatum in 22 Jump Street while, earlier this year, Olympus Has Fallen had itself a sequel, London Has Fallen.

Going into watching this film, I tried to ignore the negative noise critics and audiences heaped upon it.  Several people, more than one would expect, labeled the film loud and, provocatively, racist.  One critic in particular called this the cinematic equivalent of Donald Trump.

Yikes.

So I plopped the film into my player and it started and…

It wasn’t that bad.

Like its predecessor, Gerard Butler is Mike Banning, Secret Service agent/protector to Benjamin Asher, the President of the United States, again played by Aaron Eckhart.  As the movie starts, we witness a party in some distant, Arabian home.  The participants are clearly rich and, based on conversation, the father of the group is a stern, “eye for an eye” type.  It is heavily implied they are a family of terrorists.

Not too surprisingly, we find one of the people in the party text a message that the father is present.  He departs before a drone stike shatters the home and we’re instantly transported to two years later.

Turns out the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has passed and all the major leaders of all the major countries, including President Asher and Secret Service Agent Banning, head to the funeral.

Bad idea, as can be seen in the trailer below…

Turns out the funeral, though a very real thing, was a creation by the aggrieved terrorist to bring all those world leaders to London and, while they are all there, the terrorist attack mercilessly, killing all the world leaders but one.

Once again Agent Manning is forced to shield his charge while a gang of highly trained and well armed terrorists hunt him down, intent on getting revenge for that drone stike.

The premise is quite simple and the action begins very quickly.  If action is what you crave, London Has Fallen delivers and appeared, at least to my eyes, like a better budgeted throwback to the old Chuck Norris film Invasion U.S.A. (you can read my review of that movie here).

Like Invasion U.S.A., the villains are indeed caricatures and therefore the charge of racism is not a inconsequential one.  In Invasion U.S.A., the evil Russian/Cuban commies were unrepentant heathens who committed heinous acts of violence on decent, God fearin’ ‘Muricans and it was up to good ol’ boy Chuck Norris to send their scum suckin’ asses back to hell.

In London Has Fallen, there is a similar tone deafness regarding Arabs.  All Arab people in this film are presented as evil, unrepentant terrorists and the fact that the U.S. and other world leaders started this carnage with their drone strike -again, it was against a party that likely featured much innocent collateral damage- is quickly swept under the proverbial rug.

Still, if you can get past the distasteful “Murica!” rah-rahing, you have a decent enough action film that features some good effects -along with some that aren’t quite so good- and a decent pace that only flags toward the film’s end.  I really don’t get why these actions films insist on having our hero go “solo” against a vast army of villains, especially when in this film he actually has backup and there’s no reason to do so!

As with Olympus Has Fallen, this film is hardly a watershed new high in action/adventure filmmaking and, quite frankly, falls closer to average than anything else.

For that reason, as well as the tone deaf presentation of Arab characters, I can’t outright recommend the movie yet I’d be lying if I said it was a total bust.  Yeah, its loud and strident and does indeed feel like seeing Donald Trump in film form, yet there’s a retro quality to it that I, as a young man in the 1980’s, found familiar…and strangely -bizarrely- nostalgic.

Take of that what you will.

General, Movies, Music, TV

Time marches on…sadly…

2016 will likely be remembered as the year far too many people in the entertainment business died.

The year started with the shocking news of the passing of David Bowie, though fans of the singer long suspected he suffered from health issues following the abrupt ending of the Reality Tour, due to a heart attack, in 2004, and his subsequent 10 year sabbatical.  He would release two more albums, the second of which, Blackstar, was clearly meant to be a “goodbye” album.

More recently we’ve had the passing of accomplished (and extremely talented) actor Gene Wilder.

There are other things one notices when one gets older.

When I saw the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I was somewhat taken aback by how old both Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford looked in the film but, let’s face it, the last time they were in a Star Wars feature it was Return of the Jedi and that film was released in 1983 (for those counting, thirty three years ago).

Today came this bit of sad news in an article written by Scott Eric Kaufman and presented on salon.com:

Monty Python founding member Terry Jones diagnosed with dementia

One of the startling things one realizes with the passage of time is that the many people out there you hold in high esteem, be they musicians like David Bowie or actors such as Gene Wilder or comedians like Terry Jones, are all too human.

As high a pedestal as we may place them upon, we all carry the same flesh and blood and are thus just as susceptible to the passage of time.

In my mind, I picture David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust or as The Thin White Duke, or that too-cool Let’s Dance crooner.  I see him older, too, yet holding up remarkable well during his final full tour, The Reality Tour…

Gene Wilder, as well, sticks in my mind for his acting in The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Silver Streak…he’s forever frozen in those features.  Forever frozen during those more youthful years.

Like many, I love the Monty Python troupe and their absurdist humor.  The original show was great (well, except for the final John Cleese-less season).  I loved the first two Monty Python films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Life of Brian.  Life of Brian, in particular, is along with Airplane! one of my all time favorite comedies ever.  Not only was Terry Jones a writer and actor in both films, he was also the co-director of one, The Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam co-directed) and sole director of the other.

According to the article, the Terry Jones’ disease is such that…

(It) affects his ability to communicate and he is no longer able to give interviews.

Incredibly, incredibly sad to read.

When news like this hits I can’t help but think we should take a moment to appreciate what time we have on this planet and, further, appreciate the works of others who entertain us with their hard work.

Not to end the week on such a down note, but there will inevitably come a day when we cannot do so anymore.

Movies

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) a (mildly) belated review

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know my feels regarding Star Wars (the 1977 film) and the phenomena that is Star Wars and its many iterations (you can read some of my thoughts here and here).

In short: I was 11 years old when the original Star Wars was released, I went to the theaters eager to see it and within the first few days (if not week) of its release, was surrounded by an army of fellow very young boys and girls who yelped and screamed and clapped and loved every second of the film…

…yet the movie left me curiously unmoved.

Understand, I didn’t hate what I saw, I just couldn’t get into it.  At all.

So unmoved was I that I didn’t see Empire Strikes Back when it was originally released and didn’t catch it until it aired on TV a few years later (I thought it, like Star Wars, was “ok”).  I did catch Return of the Jedi when it was originally released and had a more positive reaction, most likely due to the cycle race through the forest, which I thought was exciting as hell.

I caught the “prequel” films after they reached home video and, like most, didn’t think all that much about them.  Some great effects but a muddled (and, in my opinion, unnecessary) story told over too many films.

As should be obvious, I don’t go out of my way looking for Star Wars material but, being a fan of sci-fi in general, knew I’d one day see Star Wars: The Force Awakens (it was originally touted as Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens but slimmed down and, to save on typing, I’ll refer to it as SWTFA from now on) and that day came yesterday.

Reviewing the film, at this point, feels almost pointless.  Everyone (but me until yesterday) has seen the film by now and have opinions about it.  The movie is generally well-regarded, though there are those who question certain aspects of it, which I’ll get into below.

In brief, the movie was for me an enjoyable enough romp with charismatic actors in the lead and a story which…well…wasn’t all that good.

The movie features a story that is consciously “inspired” by the original Star Wars and, to many, this is the movie’s primary problem.  I can’t disagree.  While the original Star Wars was indeed a pastiche of other movies, SWTFA was obviously an echo of that original film featuring both old and new castmembers.

Of the new characters presented, I was very impressed with Daisy Ridley as Rey, the sorta-kinda Luke Skywalker-esq character whose background is hinted at but ultimately never fully revealed, though it is implied she has a familiar lineage which may go back to Luke Skywalker himself.

The movie’s first half hour or so was, to my mind, the best part of the film.  We’re introduced to all the main new characters (including John Boyega as Finn, a Stormtrooper deserter, Adam Driver as the Darth Vader-esq Kylo Ren, and Oscar Isaac as the hotshot rebel pilot Poe Dameron).

When Rey and Finn get together and are forced to run away from the First Order (the name of the remnants of the Empire), it was a genuine thrill, even to this non-Star Wars fan, to see on what they made it out of the planet.

Unfortunately, their escape, the high point of the film IMHO, was followed by a wave of coincidences/family relations that stretch the story to its breaking point.

Immediately after Rey and Finn’s escape, Han Solo (Harrison Ford returning to the famous role and not looking all that bad, though his story arc proved disappointing in the end) shows up like really quickly.  His too-quick appearance suggests a universe that is very small indeed.

Later we find Kylo Ren, the movie’s main villain/Darth Vader surrogate, is Han Solo/Princess Leia’s son.  Rey, it is strongly hinted later on, may be part of the Skywalker bloodline which makes her coincidental ties into the story hard to swallow.

I grant you some of these same coincidences worked their way into the original Star Wars films, but many of those coincidences came after the fact (I strongly suspect Darth Vader was considered Luke’s father only when Empire Strikes Back was made and, based on the original cut of Star Wars, Luke clearly had the hots for Leia and the brother/sister relationship was also a later add-on).

Anyway, getting back to SWTFA, tying the various characters together is -stop me if you heard this before- a droid with important information (a map, as it turns out) hidden within it.

Oh, and there’s another “death star” out there, this one bigger than the one in Star Wars and Return of the Jedi and our heroes have to take it out.

Yeah, not the most original of story-lines.

While the original Star Wars is considered by many a “classic” (though it remains perhaps the only high profile film out there we cannot legally see the original theatrical cut of), I suspect SWTFA will never quite reach that lofty level.

At best, the film is a pleasant diversion that works as long as you don’t take too critical an eye on its all-too familiar (and at times preposterous, given the coincidences) story.  The characters, old and new, are likeable and director J. J. Abrams does a good job emulating George Lucas’ style even as returning screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan et al decided to simply cut and paste story ideas.

In the end, I recommend the film, most especially to those who, unlike me, really really love Star Wars.  To the rest, your enjoyment will depend on how bothered you are by the story presented.

One last point: How in the world could they spend big bucks on making this film and bringing back the original cast yet couldn’t figure out a way to have at least one scene where Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia were in the same frame?!

Incredible wasted opportunity.

Movies

Honest trailers…

The folks at Screen Junkies have just released an “honest trailer” for Captain America: Civil War and it goes like this…

What’s most humorous (or perhaps sad) is the realization I’ve had for a while now: Both Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War share a rather …curious… similarity in general plot.

I can’t say when exactly I noted there appeared to be similarities, though I suspect it happened in/around the time the first trailers for both films were released and it became clear each movie used the idea of massive super-hero influenced damage to hang their plot on (in BvS, Bruce Wayne witnessing the carnage of Metropolis from the end of the Man of Steel film pushes him over the edge in wanting to eliminate Superman, whom he feels is a danger to humanity.  In Civil War -which I still haven’t seen but should be getting to it very soon- it appears a similar carnage event causes Captain America and Iron Man to go after each other).

Curiously, I didn’t consider the other similarities.  That Captain America and Superman were essential the “All American” heroes and Batman/Iron Man were both playboy billionaires with plenty of toys at their disposal.  That each film introduced a number of characters for future works.  And, according to the Honest Trailer, both also featured the deaths of the Batman/Iron Man character’s parents as a sub-theme.

Weird how all those similarities found their way into each film.

Regardless and as I stated before, I’ll be getting to Civil War very soon (just picked it up yesterday) and will offer my take on it, for whatever its worth.

Movies

Homage…or rip off? Live and Let Die (1973) versus Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

A few days back I noted how I felt the Fringe TV show episode Brown Betty appeared, to my eyes and based on the fact that my The Dark Fringe comic book trade paperback was floating around the Hollywood offices responsible for the show in and around that time, at the very least inspired the look of that particular episode (you can read the whole thing here).

Interestingly, last night my wife and I were clicking around the TV stations and I happened to stumble upon the first Roger Moore starring James Bond film, 1973’s Live and Let Die.

Now, the film has its fans (I’m one of them) and detractors.  There are those who simply don’t like Roger Moore as James Bond and who am I to convince them otherwise.  There are also those who feel this movie’s plot, which featured what was essentially an updating of the “yellow peril”/Fu Manchu evil empire, but transplanted to African Americans, bordered on being racist.

If you can get past either element, I would maintain the film is a great piece of action/adventure pulp, but that’s not why I’m writing about it.

No, when I clicked on the movie, it was in the middle of the (again, IMHO) suspenseful yet cheeky boat chase sequence.  Here is a part of it:

The thing that worked for me about the sequence was that it was a clever permutation of what was very popular in movies at the time: A suspenseful car chase.  Instead of a car chase, however, the movie’s creators presented a speed boat chase and, to my mind, it remains one of the best ever put to film.

It works because as viewers we’re dealing with a clever mix of both suspense (the people after Bond intend to kill him) and humor, some of which you can see in the above clip provided by Clifton James as the very rednecky Sheriff Pepper, who is featured throughout the speedboat chase, up to its end, to provide comic relief.  (Again, some would disagree and felt Mr. James’ performance was both stereotypical and not funny at all…what can I say, it worked for me well here, although I felt the return of his character in the next Bond film, The Man With The Golden Gun, was indeed, along with the entire movie, terrible).

As my wife and I watched the speedboat chase, I was surprised that she hadn’t seen it before.

“You’ve never seen Live and Let Die?” I asked her.

“Nope,” she said.

We watched on and, after a few minutes -and after experiencing plenty of Sheriff Pepper- she said:

“They ripped off Smokey and the Bandit, didn’t they?”

Words cannot describe how stunned I was by this statement.

Sheriff Pepper, as presented in Live and Let Die, is essentially the same humorous redneck hound-dog who won’t give up pursuing his prey (in this case, James Bond) as Sheriff Buford T. Justice, as portrayed by Jackie Gleason, was in Smokey and the Bandit.  The similarities are beyond obvious, yet I never realized them until that very moment when my wife pointed them out!

Understand: I’m a HUGE fan of Smokey and the Bandit.  I’m also a HUGE fan of Live and Let Die…and I never connected the redneck Sheriffs with each other until my wife noticed.

At all.

Here’s the kicker: My wife wasn’t quite correct, at least in one regard: Live and Let Die was released in 1973.  Smokey and the Bandit, on the other hand, was released in 1977.

So if anything, Live and Let Die “inspired” Smokey and the Bandit, and especially Jackie Gleason’s Sheriff role.

Here you have the conclusion of the boat chase.  Pay particular attention to Sheriff Peper’s final appearance in the movie, which begins at the 2:14 mark…

Sheriff Pepper’s final appearance essentially mirrors Jackie Gleason’s at the end of Smokey and the Bandit.  Both Sheriffs’ cars are demolished and barely moving and both are exasperated by pursuing -and failing to capture- their prey…

I remain blown away that I never saw the similarities.

Wild, wild stuff.

Movies

Blue Ruin (2014) a (moderately) belated review

There comes a time when you see a film and, on an intellectual level, you acknowledge everything about it is quite good.  The acting, the directing, the story, the cinematography.

You acknowledge the film is a fine work, especially given the fact that it has an obviously very low budget and yet…

…and yet, on an emotional level the film simply fails to engage you.

So it is with Blue Ruin, a 2013 release written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier and featuring Macon Blair as Dwight, a man who at the start of the film appears a homeless, aimless derelict.  This all changes when a kindly police officer picks him up and tells him someone is about to be released from prison.

The someone turns out to be Wade Cleland Jr., and over the course of the movie’s opening minutes we realize this individual was sent to jail for killing Dwight’s father and mother.  But things aren’t quite what they seem and Dwight’s act of revenge leads to further revelations…and repercussions.

Again, this film is clearly a skilled piece of work yet for whatever reason I never felt fully engaged with what I was seeing.  In fact, after the first half hour or so I even considered turning the movie off yet stuck with it.

I’m glad I did because the later half of the film proved stronger than the first half and the ultimate resolution had echoes to famous Greek tragedies (which, I have to imagine, the writer/director of the film was clearly aiming for).

But…

I still can’t say the film “grabbed me”.

In the end, I suppose you have to take Blue Ruin for what it is: A good first attempt, on a shoe-string budget, of creating a suspense film.  While I can’t outright recommend the film based on my own reaction to it, I would be lying if I weren’t interested in seeing writer/director Saulnier’s follow up film, Green Room.

I think there’s certainly talent and skill on display within the movie.  I just wish the presentation had grabbed me more.