HAIL, CAESAR! — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Hail, Caesar! is light fun from the Coen brothers. I can see why it left general audiences cold but I am surprised it only did so-so with critics as this is a full-on film buff movie and love letter to old-school cinema in general. Roger Deakins is essentially God with a Camera – this cannot be argued. Every shot in this film is delicious looking. The big song and dance number fronted by Channing Tatum is absolutely unbelievable in its physical staging and overall choreography. Josh Brolin owns the role of studio fixer Eddie Mannix who has to look into the sudden and alarming disappearance of big-time movie star Baird Whitlock (a droll George Clooney). The central mystery to the narrative is delightfully playful and never at all truly menacing, everyone in the star-studded supporting cast gets their moment to shine (Scarlett Johansson clearly had some major fun), and as usual for the Coens, the entire endeavor feels like something that only they could have pulled off, something that so few filmmakers could ever convince a studio to fund. Oh, and the film is repeatedly stolen by Alden Ehrenreich, who gets the script’s funniest sequence which was highlighted in the trailer, a combat of words with the devilish Ralph Fiennes. This isn’t a game changer like A Serious Man or No Country for Old Men, but rather, an entertaining jaunt that rests near entries like The Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty. Even when the Coens are just riffing, the zest and zeal is still on full display.

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Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort is the bees knees when it comes to backwoods survival thrillers. It’s frightening, elemental, and relentless in pace, inciting primal fear in the viewer who finds themselves terrified of these events ever happening to them. It’s a very overlooked film, with most of the kudos within this genre going to John Boorman’s Deliverance. This one is way better, at least for me. The immediacy of the protagonist’s situation, the hypnotic atmosphere of both score and cinematography working together for something really special. In rural Louisiana, a platoon of American soldiers prepares to embark into the tangled wilderness of the nearby bayou, attempting a routine training mission. Powers Boothe is awesome as Cpl. Charles Hardin, a well educated man who silently resents the roughnecks and dimwitted dead enders in his regiment. He’s joined by Spencer (a cavalier Keith Carradine), and a whole host of others as well. Now, the Bayou is home to the reclusive and eccentric Cajun people, who apparantly will keep to themselves if you do the same. But try telling that to a troupe of childish, immature GI’s packing heavy artillery that’s beyond both their pay grade and IQ. After one lugnut plays a nasty prank on a group of Cajun fisherman, they take it slightly personally. Before you can say crawfish, they promptly murder the commanding officer (Peter Coyote) and set a series of deadly traps and snares for the soldiers, out to send every last one of them to a swampy grave. It’s a beautiful backwoods nightmare, and Hill tells the story exceptionally, aided by a twangy, brilliant score from his go to composer Ry Cooder. Boothe and Carradine are shoe ins to hold off their pursuers, while the rest of them soon fall prey, in elaborate and gruesome ways. Fred Ward is badass as a fellow soldier who turns homicidal, and has a wicked knife fight with Boothe that ramps up the adrenaline and then some. The late Brion James makes quite the impression as a Cajun who they briefly capture, after which he eerily warns them of the hell that’s coming from his compadres. The locations feel authentic, damp and waterlogged as hell, making you feel every squelchy step these poor bastards take into the Bayou and closer to their end. Near the end of the film we are treated to some authentic live Cajun music (some of my favourite kind) from Dewey Balfa, a gorgeous interlude and showcase of Hill’s desire to make the auditory atmosphere of his films as heightened and immersive as possible. An unheralded classic.

Tony Scott’s The Fan: A Review By Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

  
  

Tony Scott’s the fan is a wild ride with an off the hook turn from Robert De Niro. It’s ranked and regarded as a pretty low notch on Scott’s belt, but it’s hard to compete with his best work. It’s still a sleazy blast and pure Scott, his characters always let, lurid and delightfully pulpy. Sure it falls apart near the end, but until then it’s nasty, delicious fun. De Niro plays Gil, a die hard baseball fan and devout follower of Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes), star player for his favourite team. Gil wants Bobby to succeed so badly that he becomes violent, unstable and pretty bonkers. At first it’s obnoxious and amusing, but soon he gets dodgy and dangerous and eventually just out of control. It’s great fun seeing De Niro go bug nuts bit by bit, and he’s always had a wild menace that he like to take down from the shelf and dust off for the occasional performance. Benicio Del Toro does one of his puzzling, indecipherable vocal riffs as a rival player, adding to the weird factor. Ellen Barkin is a sexy sass bomb as Jewal Stern, a mouthy talk show host who sniffs out the controversy in high style. John Leguizamo is always sterling, and classes his scenes up like a pro. Watch for speckled cameos from M.C. Gainey, Brad William Henke, Don S. Davis, Tuesday Knight, Wayne Duvall, Richard Rhiele, John Carrol Lynch, Michael P. Byrne and Chris Mulkey as well, all excellent. Not Scott’s best for sure, but a nicely mean spirited little romp through the psycho stalker fields. Fun stuff. 

ALAN PARKER’S SHOOT THE MOON — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Albert Finney and Diane Keaton delivered powerhouse performances in Alan Parker’s blistering family drama Shoot the Moon. I’ve long been a fan of Parker (Mississippi Burning, The Commitments, Midnight Express, Pink Floyd: The Wall, Evita) and this film is easily one of his best and most underrated, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it has snuck by the radar of many people. Released in February of 1982 and grossing just under $10 million domestically, Finney and Keaton play a married couple with four daughters who are struggling to keep it together; he’s a writer and she runs the house and while they love each other there’s something prohibiting them from truly being happy. That the movie dances around the true reasons for their discord is a testament to the truthfulness of the scenario; sometimes people just can’t make it work, no matter how hard they try. Being that this film was made and released in the early 80’s, I was struck by how mature the handling of the material was, and how real and honest the writing was from scene to scene. Written by Bo Goldman, there’s a fantastic sense of how people really speak in Shoot the Moon, especially the four daughters of Finney and Keaton, with numerous scenes of familial interaction that sting with sad believability.

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And because Parker was so good at juggling so many elements, the multi-layered strands to the characters are alternately heartbreaking and fascinating, while their spoken dialogue rings true at every single turn. The characters in Shoot the Moon behave like real people, not pieces of a clichéd narrative, and their strengths and flaws are continually displayed so that the viewer can decide what to feel even when we’re not guided in any one specific direction. Life is complex and that’s how Parker and Goldman wanted it to be in Shoot the Moon. Information is doled out carefully and casually, incidents occur off-screen, and relationships between the characters progress and regress in fully realized ways. It’s not a perfect movie (scenes get a bit hysterically pitched from time to time and there’s one massively wrong sequence that doesn’t work from a conceptual point of view) but so much of it is so terrific that it’s easy to look past some of its shortcomings. There’s nothing easy about Shoot the Moon, especially the totally bonkers and uncompromising last five minutes, which sort of have to be seen to be truly believed. The movie ends on a final freeze frame that was probably debated over by critics to no end; bold doesn’t cover it.

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MEGAFORCE – A REVIEW BY J.D. LAFRANCE

by J.D., posted in Film Review

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Megaforce (1982) is one of the most nakedly jingoistic might-means-right movies to come out of the Ronald Reagan era. Directed by legendary stuntman Hal Needham (Smokey and the Bandit), it is an astonishingly so-bad-it’s-good action movie that brilliantly epitomizes the kind of excess that was synonymous with the 1980s. The poster’s tagline says it all in a nutshell – “Deeds not words.” Hell, yeah! In some respects, Megaforce was a response to many of the gritty, downbeat genre films of the 1970s. It also signaled a new decade where America proudly flexed its military muscle all over the world. It is also a laughably bad movie but entertainingly so.

The opening voiceover narration sets things up for us. Megaforce is in fact, “a phantom army of super elite fighting men,” and whose mission it is “ to preserve freedom and justice battling the forces of tyranny and evil in every corner of the globe.” The opening credits play over triumphant synthesizer music courtesy of Jerrold Immel (Knots Landing) that sets the cheesy tone right from the get-go and also wonderfully, and instantly, dates the film.

We meet the bad guys – a paramilitary army from Gamibia with one of them anal retentively reciting his country’s manifesto while their leader Gurerra (Henry Silva) looks on in boredom. He just wants to blow shit up, which his army of tanks does – attacking a power station in the peaceful Republic of Sardun. Hopelessly outgunned and outmaneuvered by the Gamibia army, Sardun, not wanting to risk an international incident send Major Zara (Persis Khambatta) and General Byrne-White (Edward Mulhare) to find and enlist the help of Megaforce

They meet their contact out in the middle of nowhere. He introduces himself as Dallas (Michael Beck), a good ol’ cowboy type who takes them to his hidden base in a beat-up Ford Bronco. Three armored motorcycles that show off their prowess by popping wheelies and shooting balloons out of the sky eventually greet them. Director Hal Needham captures this all in loving close-ups and slow motion shots that comes across as porn for military vehicle enthusiasts.

Zara and Byrne-White meet Commander Ace Hunter (Barry Bostwick) in all of his spandex jump-suited glory. He’s the leader of Megaforce and not above hitting on Zara who, naturally, takes an instant dislike to him because, y’know, he’s a loose cannon. Barry Bostwick, the terminally square Brad in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), is the last person I’d expect to play an action hero but there he is with fantastically blond blow-dried helmet hair as if channeling Barry Gibb. To his credit, he realizes that this is all silly nonsense (I mean, how could you not?) and has fun with the role.

Megaforce resides in a massive underground complex full of experimental vehicles and gear stolen from other countries. This army of mercenaries is made up of experts from all over the world. Ace and Zara continue to flirt like crazy, admiring each other’s chests and comparing their combat experience and even sharing an intimate moment skydiving, all to jarring romantic music right out of an elevator. I know I always like to treat a lady to a death-defying jump out of an airplane as a form of seduction. That Ace is one smooth operator. He and Zara’s “romance” is laughable at best, with their meet-cute dialogue, clumsily written by the writing team of James Whittaker, Albert S. Ruddy, Needham, and Andre Morgan, and their bizarre goodbye gesture that consists of kissing the thumb and then giving the thumbs up sign to each other. Of course, it doesn’t help that Bostwick and Persis Khambatta have zero chemistry together.

Edward Mulhare, known mainly for his role in the popular television show Knight Rider, plays the stereotypical fussy Brit with a posh accent and haughty attitude until Ace impresses him with knowledge of military tactics. After the career high of The Warriors (1979), it was all downhill from there for Michael Beck who went on to appear in the Olivia Newtown-John opus, Xandau (1980) and Megaforce before settling into a career of roles mostly on T.V. He seems to be having fun in this film and I wonder if he envisioned playing Dallas in a series of sequels that sadly for him never happened. Persis Khambatta, who had been touted as the next big thing prior to appearing in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), further damaged her career in this film by playing eye candy. At first, Zara appears to be a feisty feminist but after a bit of verbal sparring with Ace she is more than happy to sit on the sidelines while the boys go off and play army with their expensive toys.

The movie’s grand finale has to be seen to be believed as Ace and his team punch a hole through Gurerra’s tank army in an orgy of explosions and lingering close-ups of guns firing and missiles launching. If that wasn’t enough, Ace escapes Gurerra’s army in a motorcycle that flies! While this sounds great and was the coolest thing when I was nine-years-old, it looks pretty ridiculous now. And just before Ace does this, he delivers the movie’s classic and most memorable line: “The good guys always win – even in the ‘80s.” If that doesn’t sum up most action films in this decade then I don’t know what does.

Director Hal Needham got the idea for Megaforce from Bob Kachler, the man who got him sponsors for his racing cars. He suggested it could be a television series, but Needham said, “It’ll never make a series, but it’ll make a helluva feature.” Needham and producer Albert S. Ruddy hired a writer to produce a screenplay and afterwards felt that it had some good ideas, but they ended up completely rewriting it in order to make the film funnier and have more action. Needham saw it as “kind of a version of James Bond done with a helluva lot less budget and no Roger Moore, but it was a high tech, good ‘right wing’ film and I thought it was kinda interesting.” They were able to procure funding from Hong Kong film production company Golden Harvest.

Needham and Ruddy approached Mattel Toys and worked with them in designing the look of the vehicles in the film. William Frederick took the designs and engineered the actual vehicles used in Megaforce, which were dune buggies and motorcycles rigged up with weapons and armor. It took him 9-10 months to build 30 them. According to Frederick, Mattel designed the exteriors and made them look “racy” while he designed the interiors to make sure they worked. When Needham asked if they were functional, Frederick fired a missile off of one of them and it blew a hole through the outside wall of the studio! So much smoke was generated from the explosion that the fire department came. During filming, the United States military sent out people to observe Frederick’s vehicles in action for a week out in the dry lakebeds in Nevada. Needham said, “And, if you go back and take a look at Desert Storm, there’s a pretty good resemblance to my vehicles.”

To do all of the riding scenes required in the film, Needham hired approximately 50 drivers for three months. According to those who worked on the production, he used real M48 tanks and armored personnel carriers. One driver said, “I’ve worked on a lot of war movies. Megaforce was as much like going to war as I can remember.” An interview with one of the stunt drivers gives an indication of Needham’s directorial style. During filming, when he wasn’t getting what he wanted, Needham would jump on or in a vehicle and show a stunt driver what to do. “Hal jumped on one of the bikes and went flying down the road who knows how fast and clipped one of these things [two-foot-deep furrows left by the tanks] and got off so hard that it took the production assistant an hour and a half to find his Rolex watch.” This incident delayed filming for approximately a week while Needham recuperated. It was a harbinger of things to come as several drivers were injured over the three-month shoot. Special effects expert Cliff Wenger Sr., who provided the film with its numerous explosions, remembers Needham coming up to him with an idea for a new ending: “They rewrote the script all the way through. I mean, what we shot and what the original script is, there is no comparison whatsoever.” Needham described to him what would eventually be in the final cut and asked Wenger if he could do it in three days.

Megaforce’s ending cries out for a sequel – however, it only grossed $5.6 million at the box office, not even recouping its then-pricey $20 million budget. Needham must’ve taken its failure hard as he barely mentions the movie in his recent autobiography. Years passed and the movie slowly acquired a modest cult following, which included a pair of famous fans – South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone who have not only name-checked it in an audio commentary for one of the episodes of their show, but also mentioned it in passing in an interview they did with the alternative music band Ween. However, they paid the ultimate homage to Megaforce with their own film, Team America: World Police (2004), an action film parody using marionettes and which owed a lot to Needham’s movie, right down to the flying motorcycle.

d8cde3efda1bfc0352491fb8db9f274dMegaforce is the best movie in the world… when you’re a nine-year-old kid with no critical faculties and just want to see stuff blow up, like I did back in 1982. As a kid I loved this movie for the simple reason that it was a live-action version of the T.V. cartoon/toy I was obsessed with at the time – G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero. Both feature a secretive army populated by specialists armed with hi-tech gear, fighting evil all over the world. They eventually made a live-action G.I. JOE movie in 2009 (with a sequel on the way) but, for me, it pales in comparison to Megaforce, which for all of its inherent cheesiness feels like it was the product of a deluded madman – Needham – and not a badly made by committee, CGI-heavy advertisement for toys.

Leon The Professional: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

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Leon The Professional is purely and simply one of the best films ever made. From Natalie Portman’s stunning debut performance, to Gary Oldman’s absolutely nightmarish baddie, to Jean Reno’s lovable and eccentric protagonist, it’s a classic, a piece of achingly beautiful cinema that I could watch on the daily and never get tired of. The three actors are the bricks which make the film so special, and Luc Besson’s fluid, sensitive direction is the mortar which holds them together. Portman is simply miraculous in her first film role as Matilda, a young girl whose entire family is murdered by psychotic DEA agent Norman Stansfield (Oldman). Highly introverted assassin Leon (Reno), takes pity and allows the orphaned girl into his home and his life. Matilda is a strange girl whose specific idiosyncrasies both clash and amusinly interact with Leon’s. He is an exile of sorts as well, with a tragic past and not a whole lot going on in his life besides the contracts he carries out for kindly, paternal mobster Tony (a phenomenal Danny Aiello). Leon and Matilda makes an interesting team; she is brash, unfiltered and lively, he is reserved, awkward and deafeningly quiet, resulting in unique character building and bonding that Besson handles wonderfully. Now, there’s two versions of this film, because apparantly American people can’t handle slightly taboo undertones, even when they’re handled in a caring and tasteful manner. You definitely want to see the longer, European cut which has some interesting scenes that crackle with sexual tension on Portman’s part. Yes, she’s twelve years old, at a very confusing crossroads of her life, the stark black and white mindset of a child dissolving into the very ambiguous and complex psyche of a woman. She believes she loves Leon, and he handles her advances in a way that requires maturity and intuition that he never had to begin with, but rises to the occasion. Call these scenes what you will, but there’s no denying their esential place in the film’s complete story, and to censor them for the sake of prudeness is a straight up crime. Matilda wants revenge against Stansfield and his team, which means going up against his wrath, and also means Portman sharing some incredible scenes with a voracious Oldman. Oh, Gary. This is his final form, the most terrifying villain in his stable, a flamboyant, deranged lunatic that one can scarce believe ever was allowed to be a cop. There’s a fairy tale esque feel to the film, where the bad guys do what they want in the urban forest, never in uniform and free to roam, kill and terrorize with the full might of the NYPD at their dastardly disposal. Oldman is the Joker on mescaline, and in fact Stansfield pops mysterious pills from a little casket, when he’s not murdering people while listening to Beethoven. He’s loud, scary, stylish and animalistic, so intense one feels like his very presence will melt the tv screen. Portman is so superb it’s hard to believe this was so early on in her career. In my mind she did her best work right out of the gate, in this film. Matilda is wise for her years, which she uses to mask the gulf of vulnerability residing in her, a hallmark trait found in children from abusive households. The family and friendship she finds with Leon strengthens her as as human being, and we start to see the emerging person she will continue to grow up to be. Natalie displays all of this uncannily well, and is the bruised, beating heart at the centre oft the film. Reno sells the eccentricities (Leon loves golden age Hollywood musicals) and sorrowful resolve of Leon so well, taking a character that is all action and very little talk, and speaking volumes with both body language and silence which, take it from me, is tough stuff. Besson, whether directing a quiet, introspective scene or a balletic action sequence, gives everything a stylized, earthy quality that makes the film stand out amongst other action ventures. You could spend a billion dollars on production design, but it all comes down to the human element behind the wheel, and if you don’t have a director, cast and team that has the current running through them to create something special, all those dollars go out the window. This one has all of that, and is a solid gold classic.

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING: A Review by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Andy Samberg, Tim Meadows, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, Sarah Silverman
Directors: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone
MPAA Rating: R (for some graphic nudity, language throughout, sexual content and drug use)
Running Time: 1:26
Release Date: 06/03/16

The entitlement within celebrity culture is an easy target to paint but a harder one to hit, which means that, even when Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping seems a bit conflicted about whether it wants to be satirical or simply silly, the screenplay (by Andy Samberg and directors Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone) still has its laser sight pointed on that target, and that’s a good-enough reason to get behind the film’s particular modus operandi. Our protagonist (of sorts, as he isn’t the easiest person to sympathize with until a third act introduces him to actual humility) is an obvious conglomeration of Justin Bieber’s appropriation of black music culture and Kanye West’s mountainous ego. Those are also easy targets.

Of course, this is not a film that wants to venture far into the complexity of its targets. It is positioned as a documentary in the format of an E! True Hollywood Story, with various members of the music business making cameos as talking heads in the “special” and leading us through the rise and fall and second rise of Conner Friel (Samberg), the pop star in question who goes by the name Conner4Real. He was once the face of a boy band called the Style Boyz and has now been enjoying a privileged, blessed life as a solo artist whose first album, Thriller, Also, topped Billboard charts. His follow-up album, CONNquest, is the “most anticipated of the decade,” boasting 17 songs that Conner personally wrote (with a small village of producers) and a wrongheaded, Macklemore-esque leading single about civil rights (which barely veils his own masculinity, of course).

The other members of the Style Boyz include Owen (Taccone), who now acts as Conner’s oft-ignored DJ, Lawrence (Schaffer), who quit music after a writing credit was ignored to run a farm in Colorado, and its manager Tonee (Tim Meadows), himself the former member of a musical group. Conner’s publicist (Sarah Silverman) wants him to be as omnipresent as clinical depression, and so she sets up a deal with a kitchen appliances company to play his music every time one is opened. This causes a national blackout, and Conner’s reputation gets flushed down the toilet until Hunter (Chris Redd), another rapper with whom Conner gets along, presents him with the opportunity for more fame.

Plot is kept at the bare minimum, which means that the film is primarily focused on comic set-pieces that pretty consistently amuse. A gag involving exposed human anatomy of two kinds milks its potential for all its worth, then follows through with the punchline that has been set up. One performance of a Conner4Real track juxtaposes sexual intercourse with the killing of Osama bin Laden, while another one mollifies the artist’s exceptional brain capacity at an awards show by pairing him up with a vocal legend well beyond his league. R&B artist Seal turns up at a public marriage proposal, only to be attacked by wolves belonging to a company who employs them for parties.

The gags don’t stop here, and neither do the cameos, with the film’s closing reel crediting more celebrities as themselves than I can remember (Faces with names like Nas, Usher, Questlove, Simon Cowell, and even two of the members of Arcade Fire are just a handful of the onslaught) and other celebrities filling bit roles of their own, such as Justin Timberlake as an aspiring singer and creepy caterer and a certain parodist in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance that showcases his chameleon talents. Silliness like this is where the charm of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (an amusingly redundant title that reflects this silliness) lies, so it’s ok that the laser-guided satire segues to random humor. It’s still funny, which means the film succeeds in either direction.

PTS Presents CINEMATOGRAPHER’S CORNER with LAWRENCE SHER

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Review, Podcast

SHER POWERCAST

unnamed (1)Podcasting Them Softly is thrilled to present our latest addition to Cinematographer’s Corner — a chat with veteran director of photography Lawrence Sher! Lawrence is one of the premiere shooters of studio comedies, having collaborated with director Todd Phillips on The Hangover trilogy, the edgy road-trip comedy Due Date, and this summer’s awesome looking political action comedy War Dogs, which stars Jonah Hill and Miles Teller. Other cinematography credits include Dan in Real Life, I Love You, Man, The Dictator, Paul, indie favorite Kissing Jessica Stein, and Garden State and Wish I Was Here for filmmaker Zach Braff. And later this year in November, he’ll be making his directorial debut with the all-star comedy Bastards, which features Owen Wilson, JK Simmons, Glenn Close, Katie Aselton, Ving Rhames, Bill Irwin, Harry Shearer, and Ed Helms. Lawrence‘s work behind the camera is always stylish and smart, with a frequent use of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio in a genre that typically favors the more standard and less dynamic 1.85:1, while consistently demonstrating a fundamental understanding of how to properly maximize comedy in every shot while still paying attention to bold visual texture. This is an extremely fun discussion, and we hope you enjoy!

ADAM WINGARD’S THE GUEST — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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The Guest is some good, bloody, twisty, twisted, B-movie fun, filled with loving homages to a variety of 80’s and 90’s action-thriller staples, and a great, career-changing performance from Dan Stevens (formerly Matthew Crawley on TV’s Downton Abbey) as a soldier returning home from Iraq who, in more ways than one, may or may not be fit for society. He ingratiates himself into the household of one of his dead squad members, telling his parents and sexy sister (Maika Monroe) that he died heroically in battle. But what is the mysterious house guest hiding from the innocent people who have taken him in? This isn’t a serious film about PTSD or anything like that, but rather, the filmmakers have taken something tangible and turned it on its face, crafting a violent, nasty, John Carpenter-esque thriller out of shopworn ingredients. The results are funny, over the top, suspenseful, and extremely action oriented especially in the last act.

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Director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett clearly love to skewer genre; check out their clever spin on the home-invasion scenario, the wild and absurdly entertaining effort You’re Next. And like that film, with The Guest, they’re up to their usual tricks: The Guest is a ludicrous movie but made with such confidence and a good amount of panache that you can’t help but go along for the ride. The filmmakers clearly have a lot of energy and they love what they’re doing; there’s a palpable sense of joy to much of this movie despite it getting very intense and trigger-happy. There are some vicious fights, some unexpected but refreshing cheesiness, a couple of left-field narrative “huh’s?” that take you by surprise, and a finale consisting of nearly 20 minutes of constant mayhem and bodily injury. Also, if you’re a fan of audio commentaries, the one featuring Wingard & Barrett is absolutely priceless, a film buff’s dream to be honest, as these two dudes are so in LOVE with cinema as a whole that their passion is totally infectious.

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RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK – A REVIEW BY J.D. LAFRANCE

by J.D., posted in Film Review

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There’s no disputing that Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is one of the greatest action/adventure films ever made, featuring some of the most memorable action sequences ever put on celluloid. Who can forget part-time archaeologist, part-time adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) outrunning a giant boulder at the beginning of the film? Or the exciting gun battle in a Nepalese bar? Or Indy being dragged behind a truck full of Nazis? However, the older I get the more I appreciate the quieter moments in Raiders – the downtime between action set pieces. These scenes convey exposition and develop the characters. The credit for them working so well should be given to the film’s screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, who also wrote the screenplays for such noteworthy films as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983), and many others. He’s written some of the best scripts ever committed to film and knows how to write witty dialogue and create engaging characters.

raiders1Kasdan’s ability to engage us in the obligatory exposition scene is evident early when Indy and his friend and colleague Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) meet with two military intelligence officers about the location of an old colleague of Indy’s – Abner Ravenwood – who might have an artifact – the headpiece of the Staff of Ra – that will reveal the location of the Ark of the Covenant, which the Nazis are eager to get their hands on. Indy and Marcus give the two men a quick history lesson on the Ark and its power. Marcus concludes with the ominous line about how the city of Tanis, that reportedly housed the Ark, “was consumed by the desert in a sandstorm which lasted a whole year. Wiped clean by the wrath of God.” The way Denholm Elliott delivers this last bit is a tad spooky and is important because it lets us know of the Ark’s power, his reverence for it, and why the Nazis are so interested in it. This dialogue also gives us an indication of the kind of danger that Indy is up against.

raiders2This segues to a nice little scene right afterwards at Indy’s home between the archaeologist and Marcus. He tells Indy that the United States government wants him to find the headpiece and get the Ark. As Indy gets ready they talk about the Ark. The camera pans away from Indy packing to a worried Marcus sitting on a sofa and he reveals his apprehension about what his friend is going after: “For nearly 3,000 years man has been searching for the lost Ark. It’s not something to be taken lightly. No one knows its secrets. It’s like nothing you’ve ever gone after before.” Indy shrugs off Marcus’ warning but his words, accompanied by John Williams’ quietly unsettling score, suggest the potential danger Indy faces messing with forces greater and older than himself.

raiders3Kasdan also does a great job hinting at a rich backstory between Indy and his ex-love interest, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). When they are reunited at a bar she runs in Nepal, she is clearly not too thrilled to see him, giving Indy a good crack on the jaw. Marion alludes to a relationship between them that went bad. She was young and in love with him and he broke her heart. To add insult to injury, her father is dead. All Indy can do is apologize as he says, “I can only say sorry so many times,” and she has that wonderful retort, “Well say it again anyway.” Harrison Ford and Karen Allen do a great job with this dialogue, suggesting a troubled past between them. In a nice touch, Spielberg ends the scene with Indy walking out the door. He takes one last look back and his face is mostly obscured in shadow in a rather ominous way as he clearly looks uncomfortable having had to dredge up a painful part of his past.

raiders4Indy and Marion have another nice scene together after they’ve retrieved the Ark from the Nazis and are aboard the Bantu Wind, a tramp steamer that will take them to safety. Marion tends to Indy’s numerous wounds and says, “You’re not the man I knew ten years ago,” and he replies with that classic line, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.” It starts out as a playful scene as everything Marion does to help hurts Indy’s world-weary body. In frustration she asks him to show her where it doesn’t hurt and he points to various parts of his body and in a few seconds the scene goes from playful in tone to romantic as they end up kissing. Of course, Indy falls asleep – much to Marion’s chagrin. Kasdan’s dialogue gives Spielberg’s chaste, boyhood fantasy serial adventure a slight air of sophistication in this scene as two people with a checkered past finally reconnect emotionally.

raiders5.jpgFor me, Raiders is still the best film in the series. The pacing is fast but not as frenetic as today’s films. There are lulls where the audience can catch its breath and exposition is conveyed. In many respects, it is one of the best homages to the pulpy serials of the 1930s and a classic example of when all the right elements came together at just the right time. This film has aged considerably well over time and each time I see it, I still get that nostalgic twinge and still get sucked in to Indy’s adventures looking for the lost Ark.