I consider myself a part of the first generation of home video gamer fans. I had a Pong type video game system in the mid-70’s and by 1978 or so had an Atari system (later it would be renamed the Atari 2600 system to distinguish it from later systems).
If you lived and experienced this home video game revolution, you know how incredible it was to have an Atari 2600 system. Back then, video games were a revolution in the entertainment medium and having an Atari in your home allowed you to continue having arcade type fun outside the arcade itself. Looking at the system and, in particular, the Atari 2600’s crude graphics today may have modern audiences scratching their heads. Today’s games are almost hyperreal. How in the world could anyone like that crude stuff?
Trust me, we did.
As dominant as the Atari system was, it is bewildering that in the early to mid-1980’s the system was suddenly and abruptly gone and Atari, the company that was so much a part of my childhood, faded away into oblivion.
Which brings us to Atari: Game Over, the documentary that on its surface explores one of the great legends regarding the company’s most infamous video game release, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, yet also looks back with nostalgia and sobriety at the rise and fall of the Atari Company.
The legend the documentary explores goes like this: The E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial video game, released to coincide with the release of the famous Steven Spielberg film, proved to be such a disaster that its failure sunk Atari. Because the company produced way too many copies of the game, it was ultimately forced to dump the massive unsold stock into a landfill.
Did this happen? And if so, could the buried copies of the game be found and the legend confirmed?
Using this as a jumping off point, the documentary that follows explores the Atari company and the people behind it. The man responsible for the E.T. game, Howard Warshaw, proves to be the most interesting person, at least to me, in this documentary. He talks of coming to Atari in the early days and the success of his very first game, Yar’s Revenge.
One gets the feeling he was something of a “golden boy” at the company during its good times (Yar’s Revenge was the best-sellingest video game Atari would ever release) and became the scapegoat when the E.T. game proved a failure.
In between we follow the people behind the search for the spot where the video games may have been dumped in a landfill in Alamogordo and go through the process of digging said site up (after making it through several levels of bureaucracy).
If there is one complaint I have about this documentary is that it is rather short and could have delved a little more into the life of Mr. Warshaw and perhaps a few others at Atari.
In spite of this, Atari: Game Over is a delightful documentary that explores a video game legend and, in its own way, proves to be a treasure hunt…though the treasure hunted, let’s face it, is trash.
Recommended, particularly if you were there during Atari’s golden years.
A while back my wife told me how surpsing and hilarious The Hangover was. She caught it with some friends when it was originally released to theaters back in 2009 and, when the first sequel showed up in 2011, was curious to see it.
We did, and we both hated it.
Coincidentally (or…not…?) in 2011 another comedy was released, Horrible Bosses, and my wife managed to see that film with some friends as well. She enjoyed it and, like The Hangover 2, was curious to see the sequel. However, because of how absolutely laugh-free that film turned out to be, she was a little more cautious.
Nonetheless, we had Horrible Bosses 2 on our Netflix que and though the reviews for the film weren’t all that great and I worried I was heading into a repeat of the whole The Hangover 2 situation (having not seen the original Horrible Bosses and about to embark on seeing its sequel), I was even more cautious.
To make a long story short: Horrible Bosses 2 turned out to be a pleasant enough time killer provided you put your brain in neutral and ignore many of the film’s silly-to-the-point-of-completely-unbelievable plot progressions.
If it sounds like I’m not all that enthusiastic about going full bore reviewing the film, you’re right. This film is far from a great work of comedy but it is good enough if you’re in the right frame of mind and don’t think too hard about what you’re seeing. You will find a few things to laugh about but probably not all that much else. And I couldn’t be happier the film wasn’t the humorless black hole that was The Hangover 2.
High praise indeed!
I have little doubt this film will be for the most part forgotten in another year or so (if it isn’t already), but what the hell…you don’t always get the filet mignon.
Sometimes, all it takes is a good image to get me interested in a film. A while back I saw the BluRay release of The Signal (2014) and the static image of actor Laurence Fishborne in a hazmat suit was enough to get me curious to see the film itself…
I checked up information on the film and its plot sounded interesting as well. I put it on my Netflix cue but wound up having the film pop up on a premium cable channel and recorded it.
About two weeks ago I saw it.
Now, its unusual to take this long to review any movie, but so disappointing was this film that I essentially tried to scrub it from my mind. For those who only care what I think about the film, I hated it. Don’t bother. Not recommended.
Now let me pull a 180 and say: This film could have been amazing.
It starts with a trio of nerdy yet attractive young friends on a road trip across the United States. The trio consists of Nic (Brenton Thwaites), his girlfriend Haley (Olivia Cooke), and his best friend Jonah (Beau Knapp). Nic has a condition (we’re never told what exactly) which is slowly robbing him of the ability to walk. Nic uses crutches and, as the film unfolds, we find he’s in a very dark place indeed. Despite his youth, he knows his condition will only worsen and that what’s left of his life, for all intents and purposes, is very limited.
The friends are making this cross country trip for the sake of Haley. She is relocating from the east coast and MIT (where the trio studies) to the west coast of the United States. She will be there at least a year while Nic and Jonah return to the east coast. While she very much loves Nic, she worries this move mark the end of their relationship. Nic, on the other hand, looks at Haley’s move as a way for her to be freed of him as, again, he feels there is not much of a future remaining with him.
As they travel, the viewer also discover that Nic and Jonah are tracking a strange signal on the internet. Before their trip someone had broken into the MIT mainframes and destroyed the information on them, something that was blamed on the trio, and they want to discover who this person is and expose them. As they near Nevada, they get a new signal from this individual, who calls himself Nomad, and discover that the source of the signal is only a hundred miles from their current location.
Naturally, they decide to investigate and on an eerie night they find a run down shack in the middle of the desert. This is where the signal emanates from. They un-wisely decide to investigate and all hell breaks loose.
Up until this point, I absolutely loved this movie. The trio of friends were easy to root for and all three actors delivered believable, sympathetic characterizations. I was so into the film.
Unfortunately, one can’t grade a film by its parts.
After all hell breaks loose in and out of the shack, Nic awakens in a bed in what appears to be a hospital. He’s wheeled out and questioned by Damon (Laurence Fishborne, who spends almost the entire film in that hazmat suit) about what happened to him. The questions are mysterious, silly, and sometimes more profound. Nic wants to know what happened to his friends and Damon is unwilling to give answers.
Eventually Nic spots Haley in a bed in one of the hospital rooms. According to Damon, she’s in a coma. What has become of Jonah is a mystery, at least for now. Later still Nic discovers he’s been changed (I won’t reveal much more) and he desperately tries to escape his captors with Haley in tow.
The film moves one, becoming something of a chase film while keeping its central mysteries, all of which are revealed by the end and all of which are so damn stupid and obvious (yet nonsensical) that they made me seriously consider throwing heavy objects at my TV screen.
What a disappointment!
Again, the acting is good. The opening minutes of the film are excellent. Even some of the stuff involving the eerie hospital are quite good as well. And for a fairly low budget feature, The Signal has some truly great effects (especially with regard to Nic’s “changes”).
But good-god-almighty what a terrible, terrible last act. I can’t help but think the story was meant to be longer. Perhaps instead of a movie, this should have been a mini-series. Certainly the film’s end was very open and inconclusive, as if it was meant to be the first part of a larger work.
But it’s not one I care to follow, at least based on what I saw here.
Again, what an incredible disappointment.
Below is the trailer. The trailer, IMHO, is amazing. Far better than the film its selling you.
As mentioned before, I picked up a couple of Burt Reynolds starring films that hadn’t been released to BluRay until now. Though copies of these films could be found before this release, word was these presentations had very inferior quality video and sound. Thus I was hoping the BluRay release of both 1978’s Hooper and 1981’s Sharkey’s Machine would prove to be worth getting, if only to see each films presented closer to its original theatrical clarity.
Well, I haven’t gotten to Sharkey’s Machine yet but I did give Hooper a whirl and found both picture and sound very strong. So if you’re like me and were holding out on buying a copy of this film until it received a proper presentation, rest easy. The Hooper BluRay is very much worth getting.
As for the movie itself, this is the first time I’ve seen Hooper start to end since it was originally released to cinema way back in 1978.
My feelings for the film were decidedly mixed. Like many young fans of cinema back then, Burt Reynolds was a movie GOD. Just the year before he starred in probably his biggest box office hit, Smokey and the Bandit, and any follow up feature that involved vehicular mayhem was something I was eager to see.
Hooper would come out the next year and was directed by his Smokey and the Bandit director, former stuntman Hal Needham, so I came in hoping to see another comedy/action film very much along the same lines.
I recall, however, walking out of Hooper disappointed. Unlike Smokey and the Bandit, this was no light-hearted humorous affair. The film felt too serious and the stunts, remarkably, didn’t thrill me as much as they had with Smokey.
And yet, so much of the film remained recorded in my head. Why would that be? I wasn’t particularly crazy about the film the first, and only, time I saw it yet why did it linger in my mind some (gasp) 37 years later?
I had to check it out and did so.
And found the film was much better experience this time around.
The simple fact is this: Hooper aspired to be an “adult” film, even while it had a few elements that didn’t quite gel in that respect. It took your basic, by now cliched boxer storyline and laid it over the world of stuntwork.
Burt Reynolds is Hooper, a high in demand, devil-may-care stuntman who is currently working on a big budget film directed by an odious “high art” type (Robert Klien doing, it has been rumored, an impression of director Peter Bogdanovich). Despite his lighthearted attitude, audiences learn from the very first scenes in the film that Hooper’s body is littered with very painful looking scar tissue. After Hooper performs his initial stunt, a motorcycle crash, we further learn that he’s in considerable pain and the wear and tear of this type of work endangers his health.
His right hand man and best friend Cully (delightfully played by James Best), gives him pain killers following the stunt but begs Hooper to go to a Doctor and get himself checked out. Hooper declines and, almost simultaneously, hears about a new, young stud entering the stunt field who has set his eyes on being a stuntman as great as Hooper.
There is a certain irony to this situation as Hooper’s girlfriend is Gwen (Sally Field, looking absolutely beautiful) and her father Jocko (Brian Keith) was himself a legendary stuntman…until Hooper took his place. (A bit of trivia: In real life Sally Field’s step-father was Jock Mahoney, a famous stuntman who also had acting credits. “Jocko” was inspired by Jock Mahoney and Sally Field, in real life dating Burt Reynolds at the time, essentially got to play a version of herself!).
As the movie progresses, Hooper comes to know his young competition, a hungry and clever stuntman named Ski (Jan Michael Vincent). To the movie’s credit, he’s never presented as a nasty would be rival or young punk. He is as I stated: A clever yet hungry young man who wants to make it in the stunt field, though he doesn’t realize that by doing so he will eventually push Hooper out, just as Hooper pushed Jocko out.
There’s plenty of stuntwork to see within the film, including high wire falls, overturned cars, explosions, fires, and, in the movie’s climax, a long car jump.
Sadly, like Smokey and the Bandit, the passage of time has made most of these once thrilling stunts looks rather ordinary.
On the plus side, the film moves well, at times surprising you with some of the story choices and more adult themes. The acting is also almost uniformly good and at times clever and amusing. Adam West, the “star” of the film Hooper is working on, plays a superstar actor named…Adam West!
But, as mentioned before, there are bumps in the road (ouch!) as well. The movie at times shows a childish, almost silly attitude (the two encounters Hooper has with police look like they belong in another film. In “real life” they wouldn’t end quite so nicely). Further, I’ve always been bothered by the grand finale stunt(s). Why exactly did they have to capture it in one take? Given the piecemeal way films are made, doing this in one take made little sense.
Still, watching Hooper again after all these years was a fun experience. One can see why Burt Reynolds was such a superstar back then, even as some of the movie’s excesses and silliness pointed to where his career would eventually go wrong.
Though I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan of cult horror director Lucio Fulci, I do admire several of the films he directed and, if not always the end results, the concepts he was trying to present to audiences.
Arguably his two best known horror works, Zombie (1979) and The Beyond (1981) were nightmarish tales set in what appeared to be a dream/nightmare landscape. Continuity between sequences wasn’t always strong, but there were images and concepts that kept you tuned in and creeped out.
Arriving between these two films was City of the Living Dead (1980). The prolific director actually made four films (one was a mini-series!) between both Zombie and The Beyond, but this is the one I had available to me and this is the one I saw.
What I found most fascinating about City of the Living Dead (I’ll refer to it as CLD from here on to save on my typing) is that this film is effectively a waypoint between Zombie and The Beyond. Elements of those two better known films can be found in this one, even if the end results aren’t, to my eyes, quite as good.
I’ll pause here for a moment to state the following: Watching a film like CLD today is not the same as watching it when it was originally released in 1980. I suspect the much younger me would have been blown away by the gore and nastiness to be found in this film, not unlike I was for Phantasm (1979), released at roughly the same time.
But here’s the thing: Certain films age with time, and what was once a potent piece of action/suspense/comedy/horror/etc. does not resonate as it once did when removed from the era it originated.
So it is, sadly, with CLD.
This film, like The Beyond, finds the director very much working in a H. P. Lovecraftian horror setting. Unlike The Beyond, this worked in spurts, though especially during the film’s opening sequences and its later half.
The story goes like this: A priest in the town of Dunwich walks the town’s graveyard one dark and foggy night. He ultimately ties a rope to a tree and his intention is made clear: He’s going to hang himself. Meanwhile, in New York, a seance involving Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) psychically links into what the priest is about to do. Mary watches in increased horror as the priest puts his neck around the rope and then commits suicide. The suicide causes Mary to have a seizure. She falls to the floor and, when the others in the seance check her out, they think she’s dead.
Mary’s body is taken away and ultimately is about to be interred. Peter Bell (Christopher George) a reporter interested in this case, stops by the graveyard where Mary is being laid to rest. But the psychic isn’t dead and her screams bring Peter to her rescue.
Once out of the grave, Mary tells Peter that the suicide of the priest has opened the gates of hell and, by All Saints Day just a few nights from then, the dead will walk the Earth and wreak havoc. Peter is skeptical but agrees to take Mary from New York and in search of the mysterious town of Dunwich, a place not even maps list (besides, we’re in the days before smartphones and GPS). If Mary is right, their goal is nothing less than to stop armageddon.
For a horror concept, it’s not too bad, right?
Thing is, the film’s low, low budget and pace start to work against the overall product. Given that we’re dealing with the very end of the world, its weird how few people we see before the screen. And when our heroes arrive to Dunwich it would appear that town is populated by a total of something like eight people (and by the end of the movie, half of them are zombies).
Even with such a small cast, we nonetheless have sequences involving ancillary characters that never quite connect with the quest of our two leads, including the fate of a strange Dunwich citizen by the name of Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice).
What I ultimately came away with in watching CLD was, as I said before, that this is a film the passage of time hasn’t been kind to. Even now I could appreciate what the director and actors were attempting to do but I never felt the horror and dread I suspect my younger self watching the film at the time of its release might have felt.
On the other hand, I really liked the movie’s plot and concept. In an era when too many “big” films of the past are being remade -often very badly- CLD, to my eyes, is a prime candidate for a proper modernist reworking. It’s story is simple yet intriguing and with the right talent could easily be a modern horror classic.
City of the Liviing Dead is certainly worth a look if you’re a fan of Lucio Fulci. Others may want to check out Zombie or The Beyond first.
As a film fan, I couldn’t be happier about living in this era. Movies I’d seen many years before and hadn’t had a chance to see again are, to my delight, being released to home video. A few weeks ago, for example, the for the most part forgotten 1979 thriller Firepower (read my review here) was released and I finally, finally got a chance to see it again after having originally seen it one time in and around the date of that original release.
Sure, the film didn’t hold up that well, but I was so damn curious to see it again. For whatever reason, pieces of it stuck with me all these years and I just had to revisit the work, regardless of how it would come off to my much older self.
This week, a trio of interesting films I’ve yearned to revisit have been released to home video. The first two, Hooper and Sharkey’s Machine, are Burt Reynolds vehicles that were available before but are now, for the first time, being released to BluRay (and, I hope, are finally being presented in their proper cinematic aspect ratio). I had avoided the earlier releases of these films because people who saw these video releases said the image quality of each film was very poor, a debit I hope these BluRays correct.
The third film, the 1969 feature Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (aka Doppleganger), is a film I have the barest of memories about, having seen it (probably) on TV one day way back in the mid to late 1970’s and never again.
And yet, like Firepower, the film lingered in my mind, an itch I had to scratch and a movie I was dying to revisit.
Yesterday the BluRay was formally released and I eagerly put it into my player.
Would the film enchant or disappoint me?
As it turned out, it did a little of both.
For those familiar with their works, the names Gerry and Sylvia Anderson should set off certain memories. The one time husband and wife duo were responsible for, among others, the TV shows Thunderbirds, UFO, and Space: 1999. They are the ones behind Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (so I don’t go insane re-typing the film’s title, lets refer to it as JFSS from now on, OK?).
The plot of the film goes like this: In the near future, the European Space Agency sends an exploratory probe towards the sun but an unexpected magnetic draw shifts its position and it takes pictures of a mysterious, and surprising, object: A planet that lies directly opposite the sun!
This planet, it is found, rotates in the same orbit as our Earth but has never been seen by us because it is always opposite the Sun and therefore obscured by it.
What follows is a race to get a European spacecraft up and away to explore that mysterious planet. Eventually, the ship is sent but the mysteries of this alien world are just beginning to be uncovered.
I won’t say more (for now) because I don’t want to spoil the story. I will get into SPOILERS after the trailer, however, so for those who don’t mind a more in depth examination of the film, feel free to read on.
To conclude the non-spoiler part of this review, I’ll say the following: JFSS proved a far more positive experience to me than revisiting Firepower. The film’s effects remain quite good although the story could have been a lot more focused (I’ll get into that below). If you’re a fan of the works of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, picking up JFSS is a no-brainer. If you’re curious to see an interesting and at times even haunting sci-fi mystery/thriller, you’d do far worse than check this film out.
Alright, there was the trailer. What follows below are…
SPOILERS!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
As I mentioned above, JFSS’s story could have been a lot more focused and this is my biggest complaint against the film. And yet paradoxically let me state that while the story could have used more focus, the “extraneous” material was presented rather well. The problem was that it didn’t really need to be in the film.
Which is my long winded way of saying that this is a film that could have used a few tweaks of the screenplay.
The movie’s entire opening act, for example, involves the attempts of the head of the European Space Agency to a) find a mole (Herbert Lom in what amounts to a curious, almost non-speaking cameo) and b) use the discovery of this mole to force his reluctant allies to fund the exploration of the mysterious planet on the far side of the sun.
This part of the film was well presented but left me baffled when all was said and done. Why did we need to spend all this time on the funding of this space probe? The writer in me would have excised this entire section of the film. Why spend all that time there, time that could have been used more wisely getting our spacecraft up and into space and dealing with the movie’s central mystery?
But wait, there’s more!
After the head of the agency gets his sought after funding, we go through the next part of the film, which first involves figuring out who will fly this mission. The United States, the main backers of this mission, insist their most experienced astronaut, Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes) be the senior officer on the flight. The head of the European agency agrees to the US terms and puts his right hand man (and friend) John Kane (Ian Hendry) to fly with Ross.
Having taken care of that bit of business, we then spend time following the grueling training of the relatively inexperienced Kane preparing for the flight along with some bits and pieces involving the rocky marriage of Colonel Ross.
Once again, this part of the film isn’t bad per se and is presented fairly well. However, once again the writer in me wondered why we were spending all these precious minutes of film on these issues. The Ross marriage, I suppose, did matter a little later on, but Kane’s training? Not so much. That could have easily been dispensed with and allowed more time for the space flight and the movie’s central mystery.
Anyway, once we got past all that, the film finally reached the point it probably should have forty minutes before: Liftoff and arrival to the mystery planet.
It was here where things got good and interesting and where my dim memories came roaring back. Though I said I would get into spoilers, I won’t go into many more details here and leave the mystery for you to see.
I will say this much, though: I loved the film’s use of mirrors in this part of the film and felt the ending, and especially the denouement that makes us question whether what we’ve just seen was real or the ramblings of a madman, really made the whole thing end on a troubling yet satisfying note.
Again, I recommend the film despite the overly extraneous opening elements.
Sometimes I miss a movie that, at best, I was only mildly interested in seeing when it originally came out. Often, I forget about this movie. Other times, my interest, though mild, remains. Though I don’t actively seek the film out, I will watch it if I get the chance.
Such was the case with 1408, a 2007 release starring John Cusack and based on a Stephen King short story. As I said, I had only a mild interest in the film and when it quickly came and went from the theaters I thought it probably wasn’t all that good. And yet it stuck with me, a little itch I had to scratch.
For the record, I like John Cusack and feel that even in some not very good movies he, nonetheless, is reliably good. And although I’m not a huge fan of the works of Stephen King, there have been some good movies made out of his stories.
So, the little itch remained.
A week or two ago the SyFy Network aired the film and I decided to record it. The movie languished in my DVR for a few weeks but yesterday I finally had a chance to see it.
Now, obviously I’m reacting to the “sanitized” TV version of the film, so therefore my opinions of what I saw should be taken with that particular grain of salt.
Nonetheless…what a disappointment.
John Cusack, for the most part, is the whole show here and he’s in good form. You sympathize with his character and root for him. This is a good thing as his character, after a few early and late sequences in the movie, is the whole show. A less sympathetic actor in this role might well have turned audiences off completely.
The story goes like this: John Cusack is author Mike Enslin, another of those Stephen King proxies. He investigates supposedly “haunted” Hotels and has carved a small niche publishing books related to his experiences at these Hotels. He’s also a cynic who doesn’t believe a thing about what he writes. To him there is no supernatural phenomena. Finally, as the film goes on it becomes clear he’s harboring some deep personal pain within.
The movie starts with his “investigation” of a Bed and Breakfast type place where the owners of the establishment are hopeful Enslin’s “investigation” will allow them to get some free publicity for their place. We then see him at a bookstore (remember those!?) signing copies of his book and answering questions from the few people who have come to see him.
Later, he returns home and finds an intriguing postcard regarding a New York hotel named The Dolphin. The postcard tells him about a room within the hotel, #1408 (natch), and he heads to the library to check up on it. He finds there have been several mysterious deaths in the room and decides that is the next place he wants to investigate.
He heads to New York and avoids his estranged wife (more hints at the pain he’s harboring within) and gets to the Hotel. Once there, he meets up with the Hotel’s manager, Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson in what amounts to a cameo role). Olin tries to convince Enslin not to go to the room but the author will not be denied.
Finally, he reaches the room and soon all hell breaks loose.
While one can certainly admire the sheer amount of work produced by Stephen King, it’s fair to say that its a dual edged sword. On the one hand, there’s more for fans of his works to enjoy. On the other hand, there are bound to be times when, consciously or not, Mr. King repeats certain themes. In the case of 1408, the long shadow cast by The Shining winds up darkening this particular work.
The protagonist? Like in The Shining, an troubled author with family issues.
The setting? Like in The Shining, a Hotel (though to be fair, most of the “action” in 1408 occurs in a single room).
The conflict? Supernatural elements in this Hotel room, not unlike the haunted presence in The Shining.
Thus as the movie progressed I couldn’t help but compare 1408 with the far superior Stanley Kubrick film version of The Shining. Despite this, the film was reasonably engaging early on.
Unfortunately, after the first series of phantom menaces, the film reaches its high water mark and never moves higher. Worse, as we near the conclusion we’re given a series of “climaxes” that are at best not very satisfying and at worse suggest the movie’s makers were straining to come up with a good end (my understanding is that the home video release features at least one more alternate unused ending!).
So, despite a good performance by John Cusack, 1408 winds up being a mess of a movie, especially in the second half. The film’s greatest sin is that its resolution undermines whatever good will it establishes beyond its similarities to The Shining.
The One I Love is one of those films. When all is said and done, how exactly does one describe this work?
A romance? At its heart, this is the best general description of the work. But it’s so much more than that. It’s also a work of science fiction. It’s also got elements of horror and suspense (though the film is far from shocking or super tense).
Intrigued? Then read on!
The One I Love starts out with strained married couple Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) attending a marital counselling session overseen by a therapist (Ted Danson in a small cameo role). It is clear from the session that things are going very badly for the couple and that their marriage has devolved into bitterness and barely contained contempt for each other.
The therapist tries some things with them but it is clear nothing he does works. The therapist then pulls a brochure out and hands it to the couple. The brochure describes a nature retreat. The therapist tells them it has worked for other couples and maybe it’ll work for them.
The couple heads to the retreat and then…strange things start to happen.
I won’t go into more details than that here (I will offer more SPOILERY thoughts regarding the film’s conclusion after the theatrical trailer below), but suffice to say the couple experiences some very odd things while in the retreat. Do these events help or hurt their marriage? You’ll have to see the movie to find out!
The One I Love is yet another wonderful low budget independent film that, as noted before, defies easy classification. The characters, though only a few, are well rounded and as a viewer I cared for them and their struggles. I was also fascinated by the plot and, especially, the resolution.
This one is an easy recommendation.
Here’s the trailer, which doesn’t spoil a thing…
Ok, now I’m going to get into…
SPOILERS!!!
You have been warned!!!
Ok, the movie’s bizarre twist is this: At the retreat, Ethan and Sophie discover that in the retreat’s separate guest house are dopplegangers of each of them. When Ethan or Sophie goes into the guest house alone, it locks up and does not let the other couple enter. Once alone and inside that home, Ethan finds a doppleganger of Sophie while when Sophie is inside she finds a doppleganger of Ethan. Bizarre as this is, it gets even weirder: The dopplegangers appear to be “nicer” versions of each other, and over the course of the movie Sophie in particular is drawn to the guest cabin’s version of Ethan…to the point where she may be losing her love for her actual husband.
The reason I wanted to get into spoilers here is because of the movie’s ending. After the revelations ultimately come (though all questions are never quite answered), Ethan and Sophie are back home, apparently happy and together. However, a casual remark makes the audience question whether Ethan has come home with his actual Sophie or the Sophie doppleganger.
I mention this because in the IMDB entries, there are people arguing that point back and forth, that of course Ethan left (accidentally, by the way) with the “other” Sophie while many argue that no, Ethan and his Sophie are together now and the duplicates remain in the retreat.
I believe people are overthinking all this and am on the side of those who believe Ethan took the doppleganger Sophie with him and, as the movie closes, has realized and accepted that fact. My argument toward this conclusion is simple (and for those who haven’t seen the film will make no sense): Why the mention of the bacon at the end? What other purpose could it have?
This remark tells you everything you need to know. It is something personal and trivial that only the “real” Ethan and “real” Sophie know about yet the duplicates do not.
And if that’s the case, the film has an unexpectedly sad conclusion, for the “duplicate” Ethan being stuck with the “real” Sophie is a very depressing thought. Sophie wanted a man like “that” Ethan, yet toward the end of the film it is obvious the doppleganger Ethan’s entire demeanor was an act designed to free him of the place. Which means the “real” Sophie is still trapped in a loveless relationship.
So I’m working through some of my latest Shout! Factory releases (they seem to be what I’m mostly pursuing as of late) and I popped 1988’s Phantasm II into the player.
Waaay back in 1979/80 I was mesmerized with the original Phantasm. That film was so damn bizarre and horrifying to my then much younger eyes. What was most fascinating was how one wasn’t sure if we were seeing something real or fragments of a the protagonist’s nightmare. Two elements in the film really stuck out, one being Angus Scrimm’s The Tall Man, a most fearsome villain, and those very damn scary flying orbs that stabbed you in the head and then drilled out your brains.
Anyway, Phantasm was one of those films I saw once way back then and it wouldn’t be until many, many years later that through home video release I would again get the chance to see it again. Over that time I became aware that sequels were made to that original film. However, I missed pretty much all of them, only realizing there were sequels when the (I believe) third film was shown on TV one night. I found the sanitized version I saw Ok enough, but I was confused by the various characters and situations. It felt like I needed to brush up on the original and its sequel to understand what was happening now.
When that original Phantasm film was released to DVD I did indeed buy and watch it. My now much older self realized it was a very low budget affair and its pace was much slower than I recalled. Still, I was intrigued, especially with the otherworldly element found in the ending, something I had completely forgotten about.
More time passed and I realized Phantasm III and IV were released to home video but Phantasm II was not. The reason? Of all the Phantasm films, this was the only one a major studio, Universal, had an involvement in and, therefore, it appeared there were some legal/monetary issues holding back its home video release.
It was the fact that the second film was unavailable that kept the completist in me from picking up those other Phantasm films. As they say, out of sight and out of mind…I basically forgot all about Phantasm.
That is, until more recently when I was looking through the Shout! Factory listings and found they had secured a BluRay release of Phantasm II. Its price was reasonable enough so I decided what better time than now to check out this obviously popular (there is a fifth Phantasm film, perhaps the conclusion to the saga, set to be released soon) series?
So, after all this time, what did I think of the sequel?
Before I go there, let me say this: I believe the Phantasm films, by this point, are critic proof. If you like the concept you’ll like the films, regardless of how much better one is over the other.
Which is my polite way of saying I found Phantasm II to be…good but not great. Granted, I’m seeing this film many years after its initial release and horror films, like some comedies, sometimes do not age all that well. After all, seeing the original Phantasm back when it was originally released was a very different -and far more horrifying!- experience to me than when I saw it many years later on home video.
Watching Phantasm II, I was struck and delighted with several images and scenes. For example, I really like the scene early on when our two heroes, Mike (James Le Gros appearing/taking over this role for one film) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister), investigate a small cemetery where all the graves have been dug up. This whole sequence was genuinely creepy and interesting and for a moment hit a cord that reminded me of what I enjoyed so much of the original film, this sense that we may not be in our “reality” but instead in some kind of dream/nightmare.
I believe director/writer Don Coscarelli did this very much on purpose and at times it really works but other times I felt confused by the end result.
The plot of Phantasm II goes like this: After the events of the first film, we find young Mike is now more grown and is about to be released from an insane asylum. At the same time, a young woman named Liz (Paula Irvine) is having visions of The Tall Man and his despicable actions. She also “sees” Mike and is drawn to him. As It turns out, Mike also has visions of Liz and feels they have to connect to…what exactly? I’m still not sure. I suppose its possible they were destined to get together to stop The Tall Man. Or perhaps The Tall Man was using her to lure Mike to him. I don’t know and this is one of the things the movie never explains.
Once freed of the asylum, Mike meets up with Reggie and it is hinted through Reggie’s own words that the events of Phantasm occurred entirely in Mike’s mind. Despite this Reggie knows something is up and when the two return to his home only to arrive just as it is incinerated along with his family, Reggie realizes he has to join Mike on a trip through the backroads of America in search of The Tall Man and Liz.
In time they pick up a hitchiker named Alchemy (Samantha Phillips) and are slowly drawn closer and closer to Liz and The Tall Man. As noted, we’re never quite sure who is hunting who.
Reading my description above, it all sounds so very good. However, when all was said and done (SPOILERS!) I still couldn’t quite understand Liz’s importance in the story…other than being someone Mike was going to and as well as a damsel in distress.
The other female character in the film, a hitchhiker Reggie picks up named Alchemy, is quite interesting and mysterious but then turns rather silly in an over the top comedic (?) sex scene that felt like it belonged to another film. Then again, perhaps this was Mr. Coscarelli’s attempt to show a dream like sex scene? Again, I just don’t know.
Despite my criticism, it would be dishonest of me to dismiss this film. Despite the negatives I’ve listed, Phantasm II and many of the images/scenes within it have really stuck with me over the past couple of days. Curiously, I’ve also found myself thinking about it now and again, certainly more than I would for any film I might consider a misfire.
Given all this, I suspect I’ll pursue the other Phantasm films.
In the end, even if there were elements of Phantasm II that didn’t work for me, I suspect I’ll be giving that film another look quite soon. Its certainly a walk down a strange, twisted path, and you have to respect the attempt even if you may not like all the elements.
It is well acted, well filmed, reasonably well edited, and was based on a popular novel by well respected crime novelist Lawrence Block. The film also starts reasonably well and, as a viewer, I was engaged. Unfortunately, the film then loses steam until by the time we’re halfway through it becomes inert and unengaging.
As mentioned, I couldn’t help but wonder why, given all the positives mentioned above, this movie proved to be so mediocre to me.
Before I get to that, a quick plot rundown: The film starts in New York City in 1991. We meet NYPD detective Matt Scudder (Liam Neeson) He’s a hard drinking, hard charging detective and, in those opening scenes, he stops by a local bar to take down some shots of whiskey when a trio of violent criminals show up. A gunfight erupts and Scudder gets his men in your typical Dirty Harry bad-ass manner. We then abruptly fast forward to 1999.
Scudder is a noticeably changed man, and the audience, at least those paying attention, should suspect we weren’t told the entire story of what happened in 1991 (we will be, in time. The trailer below almost gives it all away). Scudder has quit the police force and is now in AA. He is also a private eye. A fellow AA member asks him to see his brother about a job. Turns out the brother’s wife was abducted and, after he paid the ransom for her, she was gruesomely killed and dismembered. While on this initial visit with the brother, Scudder figures out the man is a drug dealer (he views himself as a “trafficker”) and, because on this, refuses to take the job.
He has a change of heart a little later on when the clearly desperate man shows up unannounced at his apartment doorstep and, through a taped recording the killers left of his wife’s final moments, shows just how twisted these men are. Scudder, while clearly uncomfortable with the idea of working for a drug dealer, nonetheless realizes the kidnappers who killed this man’s wife are evil and need to be stopped.
Given the gruesome nature of the killers’ crimes, this film could easily have followed along the lines of a Se7en. But, in perhaps the first and biggest error in judgment in the making of this film, the people behind the cameras decided to tone down the graphic nature of the story as much as possible and offer hints of violence rather than bludgeoning us with the viscera.
Mind you, I’m not a “blood and guts” guy. Subtlety works fine -more than fine!- for me and has worked in many a movie, However, in this case I believe the subtlety worked against the film’s overall impact. Worse, too much screen time is devoted to ancillary characters that aren’t anywhere near as interesting as Scudder and the mystery he’s facing, including a street urchin our protagonist takes in (to be fair, he does figure into the film’s climax).
In the end we’re never really into the bad guy’s heads as much as we should be. We know they’re bad, bad, bad, but we know little else about them. The movie’s climax, at a cemetery (natch) and the villain’s home, winds up being nowhere near as exciting/suspenseful as it should have been.
As I’ve already said, the end results left me scratching my head. A Walk Among the Tombstones, at least from the outside looking in, had all the ingredients to make it a terrific crime/suspense/horror film. The end result, unfortunately, is something of a misfire. A Walk Among the Tombstones is a perfectly average crime film that, while not a total disaster, is hardly a wild success.
Too bad.
Below is the trailer for A Walk Among the Tombstones. Not only is the trailer rather spoilery, it is also far more effective than the movie itself. Another case where the trailer is better than the movie it is trying to sell!
