Author: nlclement

Steven Soderbergh is back to directing feature films with the recently released southern-fried heist-comedy Logan Lucky. This is an enjoyable late-summer offering with a busy plot, featuring one narrative strand that could’ve been jettisoned with no overall harm being done to the movie. I’m surprised that this little pisser of a film wasn’t a tad tighter from a construction stand-point, because there’s a certain point where you feel the movie is going to satisfactorily end, and it doesn’t, and I’m not sure what purpose the final scene is trying to establish, other than a thoroughly needless sequel? But regardless of these minor quibbles, I laughed a lot and hearty with the red-neck humor and there’s some very witty dialogue in Rebecca Blunt’s debut screenplay (whether or not Blunt actually exists is something that Soderbergh the clown can only answer…), and as usual, Soderbergh’s frequent aesthetic collaborators, director of photography Peter Andrews and editor Mary Ann Bernard, did very strong work with some great individual shots and some super-sharp cuts respectively. After directing every single episode of the totally dynamic but way-too-short-lived Starz series The Knick (one of my favorite TV shows ever), I can’t wait to see what else Soderbergh has up his cinematic sleeve; I really hope he doesn’t pull a phony-retirement again.

The starry cast is a roll-call of big-time talent just cutting loose and having a blast with the wink-wink material, with Daniel Craig running away with the movie at all times, while Channing Tatum and Adam Driver both anchor the piece with laid-back charm and many moments that tickle the funny bone. The jaunty, jazzy and playful score by David Holmes is a constant pleasure, adding lots of background flavor to the entire piece, to say nothing of the jamming classic rock selections that litter the soundtrack. However, an intervention must be staged on behalf of Katherine Waterston; her short hair-cut, also recently seen in the woeful Alien: Covenant (even more egregious there) has GOT TO GO, as it’s not very flattering. Look out for child-actress and total scene-stealer Farrah Mackenzie who nails her role as a Little Miss beauty pageant contestant (“Nobody likes a fat girl”); this entire portion really solidifies the emotional relevance of the story. Katie Holmes and Riley Keough look trashy-hot in their bit parts, and even if the film feels decidedly minor in the grand scheme of Soderbergh’s brilliant career, it’s still a joy to have a low-tech movie that’s this much FUN getting a theatrical release, even if ticket-buyers shrugged their shoulders and turned a blind-eye to it on opening weekend. Their loss, and that’s a shame, because this one enjoys pleasing itself and the audience in equal measure.

James Cameron’s epic sci-fi film The Abyss is absolutely incredible, a film that has gained in reputation over the years, and one that I really wish I could see on the big-screen some day. The recent news that Cameron is finally begining to prep this film (not to mention True Lies…) for Blu-ray makes me very excited. Ed Harris is absolutely riveting as a deep sea diver who encounters an alien species at the bottom of the ocean, while Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michael Biehn were all fantastic in super-intense supporting roles. The underwater photography is breathtaking, the overall cinematography package by veteran lenser (and sometimes director) Mikael Salomon is positively stunning on every single aesthetic level, and Alan Silvestri’s exciting and emotional musical score ratchets up the drama and tension and suspense in every afforded moment.

***ALERT – THE PURSUIT OF DB COOPER AIRING IN HIGH-DEFINITION ON EPIX MOVIE CHANNEL!!!***

While I was scrolling through the various movie channels and setting my weekly recordings, I noticed that on Tuesday at 3am this week, the EPIX HD movie channel is airing the long-lost cult item The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper. Being a child of the 1980’s, there are more than a few under the radar gems that always made me smile or that kept me entertained for one reason or another. Based on the novel Free Fall by J.D. Reed, The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper was one of those titles that I found myself watching on cable (or was it HBO?) repeatedly, never truly understanding it, but enjoying it nonetheless.

I did purchase a Region B DVD of the film (no American disc release has ever occurred, to my knowledge), but was disappointed that the photography had been cropped from 1.85:1 to 1.33:1. The transfer also looked to have been processed in bowls of urine, with the image looking overly yellow in numerous spots. Which is a damn shame because Harry Stradling’s cinematography, in general, is consistently eye-catching, and the film itself is a raucous and totally crazy little adventure that took a real man and real situation and turned the entire thing into the equivalent of story you’d tell or hear at a campfire, or an urban legend that takes on a mind of its own. It’s the truest idea of what a “cult movie” is, or should be, and the behind the scenes rigmarole that accompanied the production is fascinating in its own right. Kino-Lorber or Shout! needs to grab this one and finally release it on Blu-ray; it’s just waiting for the boutique label treatment.

The film has somewhat recently been added as a rental option on Amazon and YouTube.Released in 1981, the narrative centers on wild-man aircraft hijacker D. B. Cooper (Treat Williams in a unique role), who made off with $200,000 in 1971 after leaping from the back of a plane over the Pacific Northwest. The script imagines what it would have been like for Cooper to hide out and attempt to evade capture by law enforcement. Jeffrey Alan Fiskin’s incident packed screenplay fictionalized most of what happened during Cooper’s escape (because who really knows?), and there’s a certain zippiness to the plotting which keeps a bouncy tone and pace; Fiskin’s other scripting credits include the brilliant and undervalued Cutter’s Way, Tony Scott’s pulpy thriller Revenge, and the gritty Amazon crime series Bosch.

John Frankenheimer was The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper’s original director, and would later denounce the entire production. He was replaced by TV journeyman Buzz Kulik just before shooting began. Then, after the movie was well into production, Kulik was fired, and replaced by final collaborator Roger Spottiswoode, who would be the only director to receive an onscreen credit. The film has an interesting, sort of ramshackle visual aesthetic, heightened by a jaunty, honky-tonk-ish score by James Horner. The performances by Robert Duvall (as an insurance investigator) and Williams anchor the film with a level of class and conviction, Kathryn Harrold was a total knock-out, and while the overall lightheartedness of the entire endeavor is apparent from frame one, the various action scenes are briskly shot, cut, and executed, especially the opening sequence complete with a real sky-dive done before the era of CGI laziness kicked in.

1987 was a big year at the movies for me as a seven year old. Harry and the Hendersons, The Monster Squad, Three Men and a Baby, The Princess Bride, Adventures in Babysitting, Innserspace, Benji: The Hunted, Empire of the Sun, Project X, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie and Hope & Glory were all theatrical trips that I made with my parents, but nothing came close to the feeling and pent-up anticipation of seeing my beloved He-Man in Gary Goddard’s Masters of the Universe. My mother, being the amazing woman that she is, took my best friend Mike and I to see this on opening night roughly 30 year ago; I can still remember sitting in the theater and just loving every single second of this Cannon Films production, which looked to capitalize on the animated TV-show and popular action-figure toy line that every little boy just had to have. And yes, sure, fine, the movie was made on a budget like many Golan-Globus efforts, but the gee-whiz honesty of spirit that accompanies so much of this film still lives on to this day, and while financially compromised in certain areas, it perfectly reflects this sort of entertainment that was prevalent 30 years ago. Anyone can fire up their computer and make a CGI-dominated He-Man movie in today’s movie world, which makes the quaintness factor of this movie even more special.

There’s massive Billy Barty as Gwildor POWER, James Tolkan, a.k.a. “Strickland,” as Detective Lubic POWER, and cheesey-wooden-awesome Dolph Lundgren as the blond and ultra-buff hero who must save the day. You also get an impossibly young and adorable Courtney Cox, and Meg Foster as a tough baddie. But the entire film was totally dominated by Frank Langella, who brought a Shakespearean level of gusto and gravitas to his role as He-Man’s arch nemesis Skeletor; the performance is a hoot to watch in retrospect and you gotta love Langella for majorly selling every single scene he appeared in. Written by David Odell (The Muppet Show, The Dark Crystal, Supergirl), the film centers on He-Man and his band of buddies, going up against the evil Skeletor and his crew, and ending up on Earth as a result of some sort of cosmic gizmo that’s able to bend time and space, sending people from Eternia to Earth and back again, and sounds like some sort of new-age synthesizer. Bill Conti’s robust musical score is excellent, definitely helping to tie the film together, while legednary editor Anne V. Coates (Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Sight, The Elephant Man) was recruited for cutting duties. The film’s visual look from cinematographer Hanania Baer (Breakin’, Ninja III: The Domination) is dark and square-jawed, while William Stout’s production design alternates between truly inspired and clearly in need of a few more dollars. It really does beg to wonder what this film might’ve been like if all of it’s financial ducks had been in order.

Reportedly grossing $17 million off of a $22 million budget, the film would of course go on to become massively popular on VHS and cable, quickly gathering passionate support from youngsters before becoming a piece of solid nostalgia for older movie fans who remember the days of the sticky-floored theater that WASN’T laid out with stadium seating and wall to wall surround sound. It’s a shame that a sequel never happened as one is hinted at during the film’s final moments. You also have to love any movie that kills the young protagonist’s parents, and then allows them to come back to life at the end. This movie is so 1987 I can barely stand it, and there’s a treasure trove of behind the scenes information that’s available to read at both the IMDB and Wikipedia, as well as on YouTube in the form of retrospective reviews and commentaries. A former Disney Imagineering concept developer, Goddard also created and produced the rather amazing and extremely ambitious hybrid TV-series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, which I was also obsessed with as a kid, before becoming one of the biggest names in the theme park attraction business, with credits including T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, Jurassic Park the Ride, and many others. Masters of The Universe is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

The Destructors, aka The Marseille Contract, is a 1974 British thriller from director Robert Parrish (Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, A Town Called Hell) and producer/screenwriter Judd Bernard (writer of Inside Out, producer of Point Blank), and features a very solid cast including Michael Caine, Maureen Kerwin, Anthony Quinn, Marcel Bozzuffi, Maurice Ronet, Alexandra Stewart, and James Mason. The plot hinges on a U.S. drug agent who teams up with an old friend and assassin in order to take down a French drug kingpin. The film’s action centerpiece is a superb car chase between a Porsche 911S and an Alfa Romeo, and of course, because it was all done for real, the entire segment feels that much more dangerous and exciting. Roy Budd (Get Carter, The Wild Geese) composed the film’s robust musical score, while the legendary cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (the first three Indiana Jones films, Julia, Rollerball, Never Say Never Again, The Italian Job, Lion in Winter, The Great Gatsby) brought the appropriate amount of visual grit to the proceedings while still allowing for the beauty of the streets of France to be captured in numerous spots. Willie Kemplen’s crisp editing keeps a fast pace. Parrish directs in a no-nonsense fashion, allowing the layered plot to move along quick, while emphasizing the violent showdowns with a clear-eyed sense of fatalism. The Destructors feels as if it could have been directed by 70’s-era John Frankenheimer, with melodrama and crime genre elements confidently mixed-up into the narrative. Kino-Lorber’s visual and audio presentation on the Blu-ray are strong as usual, but the lack of special features is a little disappointing. But for fans of gritty crime cinema from this time period, this is a total keeper and tons of fun.

Candy, released in 1968, is a completely crazy little film that offers up so many odd-ball surprises that it’s nearly impossible to describe the bizarre culmination of all of its psychedelic pieces. Directed by prolific actor Christian Marquand and adapted by the brilliant Buck Henry from the 1958 novel of the same name by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, the film charts the sexual exploits of an alien in teenage disguise, who wanders from one strange encounter to the next, with danger, satire, and off-the-wall-humor mixed into the proceedings. I’ve definitely not seen anything remotely like this one, which at times feels like a farcical precursor to something like Under the Skin, but of course minus that film’s sense of bracing modernity and serious existential themes. The lead role was taken on by Ewa Aulin, who was a former Miss Teen Sweden, and it can’t be denied that she was most certainly extremely photogenic, and perfectly cable of projecting the blank-slate stare and empty emotional behavior that was no doubt required by the filmmakers.

The supporting cast is just ridiculous, with every single actor behaving in a maniacal, over the top, or oddly threatening manner which increases the strangeness factor; look out for Marlon Brando (as a phony Indian guru!), Richard Burton, James Coburn, Walter Matthau, Ringo Starr, John Huston, John Astin, Charles Aznavour, Elsa Martinelli, and Enrico Maria Salerno, with cameos from Sugar Ray Robinson, Anita Pallenberg, Buck Henry as a mental patient, and many more. Dave Grusin’s groovy music sets the stony-acid-retro vibe, Dean Tavoularis’ funky art direction adds lots of flavor, and the too-cool cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno keeps everything visually interesting and distinctive. Kino-Lorber released Candy on Blu-ray last year, and the picture and audio quality are both strong. There’s also a very funny and informative 16 minute interview with Henry who re-counts the film’s asinine production, as well as trailers, radio spots, and a interview with film critic Kim Morgan. For some reason, I could see Candy playing really well on a double bill with An American Hippie in Israel, or Duke Mitchell’s unintentional masterwork Gone with the Pope.

I was so ready for a hug and to see some smiles from my 20 month old son after viewing Kathryn Bigelow’s devastating and purposefully harrowing docudrama Detroit. Working again with screenwriter Mark Boal (they previously created the one-two punch of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, which are two of the best topical thrillers ever), this time they delve into one of America’s most disgusting chapters of racially motivated violence, the Algiers Motel killings and the 12th street Detroit riots of 1967. After an unexpectedly gripping animated sequence that opens the film and dispenses with some societal context, the film gets right to business, and never lets up for a moment. Bigelow’s highly visceral aesthetic style is in full view during Detroit, with expert cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (United 93, Captain Phillips) get up-close and personal with the actors (everyone in the cast is dynamite) during the vividly staged riot sequences which comprise roughly the first third of the film, putting the viewer smack dab in the middle of the action, with a darting sense of spatial focus that both startles due to its seeming randomness, but feels visually coherent in the best way possible. William Goldenberg’s blistering editing makes every single scene count, with the brilliant sound work (those gunshots sound REAL…) adding further dimension to the stylistic package. This film takes a microscopic look at one event but places it in within a larger contextual sense, one that unfortunately feeds into the future.

On a production level, the film is simply tremendous, and because each performer was fully dedicated to their role, and because every craftsperson brought their A-game, Detroit feels both intimate and epic in the best way possible. Massive kudos for Megan Ellison’s continuous quest to produce (and now distribute) intelligent films made for adults who don’t care about seeing anyone in spandex. People have been complaining that Detroit is “one-note” and that the extended sequence inside the motel goes on for “too long” or that, rather absurdly, Bigelow and Boal “shouldn’t” have made the movie because “they’re white.” I am not going to entertain any of these idiocies with responses; if you can’t figure out that the ENTIRE POINT of the movie is to suffocate you in terrible and grotesque human behavior without full catharsis, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Bigelow and Boal want to force everyone – black, white, brown, purple, etc – to confront the vile thought processes that informed the senseless and pointless killings in that motel. This is the reason why Detroit exists – to outrage and to make links to our current society where African Americans continue to be targeted by certain law enforcement officers for crimes they didn’t commit. In our appalling Trump era, this film means even more than it ever could mean, so I guess it’s no surprise that the vast majority of ticket-buyers turned a blind eye to Detroit on its opening weekend.

Detroit is frustrating, and compelling, in the same way as David Fincher’s Zodiac in that there’s no emotionally satisfactory ending, and both Bigelow and Fincher, in their respective films, ratchet up the anxiety and never stray too far from the facts of the situation. In many respects, and rightfully so, Detroit, also like Zodiac, resembles a tightly constructed horror film, because, let’s be honest, the situation that unfolded in that motel was nothing short of horrific for the people being terrorized and murdered. It was Bigelow and Boal’s bold decision to be fully unrelenting with their approach, and I applaud them for it, even if it meant that the filmmaking made me upset and uncomfortable.  I totally understand, accept, respect, and embrace poetic license on the part of filmmaker, and conjecture when needed. It’s abundantly clear that Bigelow and Boal did their research, and since the story that they’re telling has no happy ending, I’m glad they didn’t try to manufacture something that would have felt false. This movie is supposed to knock the wind out of you (I felt gut-punched walking out of the theater) and it’s supposed to make you angry (this is a very grim and volatile piece of work that rarely offers any easy answers). I’m sure I’ll see other films that will entertain me more this year, but I doubt I’ll be as galvanized by any one piece of storytelling the way I was with Detroit.