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Reviews
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Affleck is miscast in a heavily outdated plot
Affleck, bless his heart, tries mightily to be a convincing action hero, but he just isn't up to the task. Even with his youth, his Ryan should be sure and steely - he has to persuade world leaders not to annihilate each other. Instead, Affleck comes off like a frat boy trying to finagle his way into grown folks' business. He's such a featherweight, no one would listen to him if he offered an umbrella during a rainstorm.
Btw. Whatever happened to "terrorist movies are a big no-no"?? Or is it more like "Troyka-riding, vodka drinking bad guys - ok; camel-riding head-diaper-wearing sand monkeys -- no way"? It's time for Tom Clancy to stop beating the Russian horse. It's been dead since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Look around you, Tom. Watch the news every once in awhile. Maybe then you'll be able to come up with a more plausible, reality-based plot.
Speaking of plausible missions. The Sum of All Fears should have been properly titled Mission: Implausible. Chances of anything like this happening are almost as slim as Mars Attacks! (except the latter was intended to be a comedy). The novel itself was already kinda irrelevant even back in 1991, and its screen version 11 years later is older than my great-grandmother; her birth certificate says 'expired' on it. Tom Clancy should write about bin Laden and the modern day "clear and present danger." The Russians of today are a threat only to themselves. They dug a deeper grave for themselves than anyone ever could. Leave them alone. Fight the real enemy!
<tearing up bin Laden's photo on Saturday Night Live>
Miraza (1983)
Take the money and run!
Growing up in the former Soviet Union, I first saw this TV movie when I was in third grade and it left an indelible impression. It was made by a team of talented Lithuanian filmmakers -- before Lithuania separated from the USSR along with other Baltic republics. Enough with the history lesson. Mirage is based on James Hadley Chase's novel The World In My Pocket, adapted for the silver screen back in the '60s by German filmmakers in On Friday At Eleven, starring Rod Steiger and Nadja Tiller. SPOILERS AHEAD but since hardly anybody here in the States has seen this film it won't matter.
Mirage is a story of four men and a woman who carefully plan and implement a hijacking of an armored vehicle carrying millions of dollars. The band of misfits consists of a ruthless Frank Morgan, Vietnam vet Bleck, ex-boxer Kitson, safecracker Gypo, and down-on-her-luck con artist Ginny. After days of planning, come Friday 11 a.m. everything that can go wrong does. Trigger-happy Bleck shoots the guards. The driver with his dying breath manages to push a few buttons, locking the money inside the vehicle. The gang has no choice but to take the car with them hoping to break the code later.
With the police hot on their tracks, they hide out in the Nevada mountains. Soon the men are at each other's throats over their plight and -- yes, you guessed it -- the woman. It's a moving human drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat, make you laugh and cry. This story doesn't have a happy ending. Bleck and Morgan have a fight and shoot each other. Gypo attempts to escape and dies from a snake bite. Surrounded by the police, Kitson and Ginny jump off a cliff. Their brief romance is cut short when they choose death over life in prison, away from each other. In death they will be together forever... Beautiful music, superb acting, suspense, adventure and human drama. Time for a remake. Hollywood, are you listening?
Gostya iz budushchego (1984)
Back to the Future... from Russia, with love
Guest from the Future tells a fascinating story of time travel, friendship, battle of good and evil -- all with a small budget, child actors, and few special effects. Something for Spielberg and Lucas to learn from. ;) A sixth-grader Kolya "Nick" Gerasimov finds a time machine in the basement of a decrepit building and travels 100 years into the future. He discovers a near-perfect, utopian society where robots play guitars and write poetry, everyone is kind to each other and people enjoy everything technology has to offer. Alice is the daughter of a prominent scientist who invented a device called Mielophone that allows to read minds of humans and animals. The device can be put to both good and bad use, depending on whose hands it falls into. When two evil space pirates from Saturn who want to rule the universe attempt to steal Mielophone, it falls into the hands of 20th century school boy Nick. With the pirates hot on his tracks, he travels back to his time, followed by the pirates, and Alice. Chaos, confusion and funny situations follow as the luckless pirates try to blend in with the earthlings. Alice enrolls in the same school Nick goes to and demonstrates superhuman abilities in PE class. The catch is, Alice doesn't know what Nick looks like, while the pirates do. Also, the pirates are able to change their appearance and turn literally into anyone. (Hmm, I wonder if this is where James Cameron got the idea for Terminator...) Who gets to Nick -- and Mielophone -- first? Excellent plot, non-stop adventures, and great soundtrack. I wish Hollywood made kid movies like this one...
Priklyucheniya Elektronika (1979)
Riding a swing with a pair of wings
I grew up watching this movie. It was on TV every summer when there was no school. I must have seen it at least a dozen times, so the following review is riddled with SPOILERS. Here's the story. Professor Gromov builds a robot named Electronic (El) who looks like a kid (Sergey) whose photo was in the paper. Not too excited about life in the lab among books, El rebels against the professor and escapes to explore the real world. He soon runs into his human double. The two become friends. Except the bratty kid decides to use his new cyber friend to his advantage. Like doing his homework and house chores or having the robot stand in for him in PE. Skipping school and having your double fill in for you? Every kid's dream, right? Where can I get me one of those robots? :) Soon the teachers and Sergey's family notice that something isn't right. El realizes that he's being exploited for his abilities and he'll never be accepted as one of the humans, which is his life-long dream. This part is a little reminiscent of Pinoccio. Sergey decides it's time for him to live his own life. That's when the bad guys kidnap El to use him to break into an art museum and steal expensive works of art. They trick him into thinking he's doing something good for the humanity. Luckily the school kids come to the rescue. The bad guys are defeated, El finds friends and his place in the world, and the professor is happy and doesn't try to drag him back to the lab. Happy end of the school year and the film. Good story, decent acting, and lots of catchy tunes that you'll find yourself humming days after. Pure childhood fun.
Private Resort (1985)
Absolutely hilarious!
I gotta admit that I only saw part of this movie on Comedy Central. Hope they'll show it again sometime so I can watch the whole thing from the beginning. If not, I'll rent it. That's how much I'm intrigued by this movie. I happen to have a radar for whenever Andrew Dice Clay is on TV. So that morning my Dice-dar told me to turn the boob tube on and guess what, there was the bar scene. It's probably not the first scene in which he appears. The chaos and confusion that ensued had me glued to the screen for the rest of the film. Great slapstick comedy, hilarious situations and all the actors were excellent. I give it a very enthusiastic 3 stars out of 4, and that's based on what I've seen so far. Can't wait to see the whole movie from start to finish. Comedy Central summer movie schedule, anybody??
Rush Hour 2 (2001)
Dead elephant
The most telling scene in RH2 comes during the outtakes that have become the most enjoyable part of Jackie Chan's Hollywood outings. Chris Tucker, the poor man's Eddie Murphy, who now pockets more than the real thing per picture, and Chan have just pushed one of the film's myriad baddies out of a window. The villain, or his dummy double to be exact, crashes into a taxicab below, shattering glass and splintering metal. Tucker glares down at the wreckage, turns to Chan and says, "He ain't gonna be in Rush Hour 3." Chan laughs (all the way to the bank) but it's a chuckle shot through with cynicism; RH2 is less a movie than it is a half-baked remake, just one more installment in what's sure to be an ongoing franchise bereft of novelty, invention or spirit. Chan, no stranger to sequels (the Police Story series) or moneymakers (the animated Jackie Chan Adventures) will have the last laugh but when do we get ours? RH2 provides only a few, most involving Tucker's inability to say "gefilte fish" during, again, the outtakes. Too bad we must wade through the tripe to retrieve such fool's gold.
It's of little surprise that press notes for RH2 begin by mentioning how much its 1998 precursor pocketed in revenue: some $250 million worldwide. The current incarnation has no reason to exist other than to pick the pockets of those who found Rush Hour vaguely amusing; it does little more than rehash culture and kung-fu clashes, interrupting both with a mystery without a question mark, except maybe "who cares?"
**********WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD*************
Once more, Chief Inspector Lee (Chan) and LAPD James Carter (Tucker) pair up to square off against a bad guy who exists only as plot point and prop. This time, the role belongs to John Lone as Ricky Tan, the head of the Triad and, just five years back, Lee's father's cop partner. Alan King also shows up as a greedy real estate developer, which makes me wonder if RH2 wasn't written during a nosh at the Friars Club. And the setting is a little changed. The movie kicks off in Hong Kong (three days or so after the ending of the first film), then moves quickly to L.A. and Las Vegas. It ends at the airport, with Chan and Tucker bound for New York. For $100, quick - guess where Rush Hour 3's gonna take place.
Lone, once so striking and elegant (David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly and Bertolucci's The Last Emperor), is given little more to do than preen and posture as a man smuggling counterfeit money out of Hong Kong and into Los Angeles. Yet whenever he's onscreen, he seems dreadfully out of place - a Prada suit hanging on a rack of last year's GAP wear. So is Don Cheadle in an unbilled cameo as one of Carter's old informants, a Crenshaw brutha running a Chinese soul food restaurant. Cheadle looks as though he could crush Tucker with one squint; he looks less than amused to be slumming in his outtake, in which Tucker keeps calling Chan by his real name. "His name is Lee!" Cheadle reminds the squeaky-voiced Tucker, this time without the dismissive chuckle.
But no one is more wasted than Zhang Ziyi: the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon co-star plays Tan's sidekick, Hu Li, yet she's asked to do little more than kick Tucker in the head a few times, slice an apple with a nasty-looking knife and slink around in black leather until her inevitable dispatching. In a film with little time for character development or sense-making, she has no more dignity than a poor extra trying to get her SAG card - a few lines of dialogue and nothing more. It's as if director Brett Ratner told her only, "Stand there and look pretty." That's what happens when you go from working with a visionary to biding your time with a hack: You stop acting and hope only you're not too terribly embarrassed by the final product.
During these dog days of Hollywood cinema studio movies have become so dumbed-down they appear to have been written and shot on the bus ride to elementary school. The fans of the first Rush Hour film will wonder if it's as amusing as its predecessor. But it's only a slight diversion. The answer is no. It's never clever or smart, nor it is terribly thrilling or engaging during its numerous fight sequences, all of which are choreographed with pedestrian flair by Ratner, who helmed Rush Hour and last year's gutless It's a Wonderful Life rip-off, the Family Man. An early scene, which takes place on a scaffold made of bamboo, is so poorly shot (most of it in close-up), it's hard to tell who's doing what to whom. Jackie Chan could be kicking his own ass for all we know. Another fight takes place in a massage parlor that looks more like a converted basement game room; it's less a punch than a slap that misses.
Ratner and screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (responsible for bits and pieces of Coyote Ugly, Speed 2 and Twister, which should violate some three-strikes-and-you're-out law) seem to think that getting a funnyman deliver straight lines (they couldn't be jokes, could they?) warrants a hefty paycheck. In truth, all it does is demand that Tucker, who's already as subtle as a nail gun in the eye, turns up the volume to 11. Do earplugs come with that popcorn? Tucker spends damned near the entirety of the movie yelling, screaming and screeching at Chan and the audience. And still, he's making jokes about Chan's nationality and the way he talks, as though the two aren't even friends and Rush Hour never happened. If only.
The Time Machine (2002)
I'll skip this ride
Picture this: You buy a bus ticket to Pittsburgh. You love Pittsburgh, can't do without it, can't wait to get there. But halfway through, the bus driver decides he'd rather go to St. Louis. So he steers the Greyhound in that direction. Pretty frustrating if you're that ticket-buyer, right?
That's the feeling you get after watching THE TIME MACHINE. The problem lies in the through-lines.
What's a through-line? Think of it as your main plot (or conflict, or quest) pushing your story forward. Of course, some scripts have many plots: guy wants to rob bank, girl wants to marry guy, guy's brother wants to raise trained seals for Circus Vargas, etc. But one of these must stand tall over the others so you know what your story is about. The through-line is the spike holding your shish kebab of a script together. Without it, your story is a rambling, disconnected series of incidents with no direction whatsoever.
Now THE TIME MACHINE doesn't make the goof of having no through-line. It makes the goof of having two through-lines. This causes the movie to change direction more abruptly than that Greyhound bus.
(Spoilers are coming so if you haven't seen the movie yet don't read any further.)
The first through-line involves Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) going back in time to save his fiancée's life. When he discovers in a FINAL DESTINATION-like twist that you can't rewrite history, Alexander travels to the future for help.
But what he gets is a new through-line. The subterranean Morlocks are chomping down on the helpless Eloi, and Alexander is the only one who can stop them. Soon all thoughts of his fiancée and changing the past are gone. Now it's about sticking it to the Morlocks and changing the future, pure and simple. In effect, the first through-line has been dropped mid-stream for the second.
Now don't get me wrong. Both the fiancée and Eloi-Morlock through-lines are solid in and of themselves. The problem comes from trying to use both in the same script. They are too different from one another to mesh into a coherent whole; it's like two TWILIGHT ZONE episodes were slapped together and sold as a single feature. And shifting from one "episode" to another can't help but create a disjointed, meandering quality that ultimately stalls out the narrative.
So what's the lesson? If you have many stories to tell, just make sure to tell them one at a time.
Brain Smasher... A Love Story (1993)
Smashing, baby, yeah!
The Diceman must rescue a supermodel, smash some brains along the way and ultimately save the entire world.
Sounds like a comic book, huh? Guess what, it's a lot funnier than it sounds. First of all, Andrew Dice Clay is no slouch when it comes to acting and brings his unmistakable style to any project he's in. Sometimes it's all in the delivery, and Dice wrote a book on that. Also, there's great chemistry between him and fellow co-star Teri Hatcher. This alone is enough to make this movie worth a look. But there's more...
The film's director Albert Pyun, who also wrote and produced it, brings a style and integrity often lacking in big Hollywood movies that are pulled apart by a dozen of writers, directors that are changed half-way through the shooting, and producers imposing crazy ideas on writers (let's not mention any names). Brain Smasher may not have the special effects of Armageddon and lead showers of Commando, but the comic book-like story flow is incredibly smooth and the acting will surprise you, considering the movie practically went straight to video, which to me doesn't make any sense. I mean, look at all the crap that is released on the big screen. The only logical explanation is that Hollywood put Andrew Dice Clay on their black list and won't give him a break.
Back to the story. The Diceman doesn't exactly play his on-stage persona here. (So if you're looking for off-color humor and women bashing, you won't find them here. Not a hue, not a slightest tint of the onstage bully we all admire. :-) It's more of a Stallone-type action hero. His name is Ed Molloy, professional bouncer. He's the best in the business, with lethal fists and Zen-like manners that have earned him the nickname Brainsmasher.
Teri Hatcher stars as Samantha Crain, international supermodel, whose botanist sister, played by Deborah Van Valkenburgh, finds a red lotus flower in the snows of Tibet and thus becomes the target of a gang of fanatical Chinese monks who think that this flower can give them the key to world domination. With me so far? Yuji Okumoto, who heads the gang of killer Ninjas (but don't you call them Ninjas or they'll break your nose!), has certain plans he hopes to realize with the help of the lotus flower, and must be stopped at all costs. This where the fun begins.
Running from killer Ninjas, the swashbuckling sisters decide to split. That's when Samantha runs into Ed. The bouncer and the model team up to stay alive. With little in common except being in this mess together and a growing mutual attraction, the romance sparks and spectacular street combat sequences provide the wall-to-wall action while the laughs keep flying! Like all great love-on-the-run movies it will leave you breathless as the unlikely superhero saves the world while he gets the girl -- and the laughs.
In short, Brain Smasher is the hippest action/comedy ever!
Casual Sex? (1988)
Andrew Dice Clay's best performance
This film is not all that bad as critics made it out to be. Some situations are fairly funny, the story takes wild turns and more importantly, it is Andrew Dice Clay's best performance to date in a non-Dice character. The movie came out on DVD in May 2001 and I had to buy it. I watched it before on VHS and only because Dice was in it and I've gotta tell you, not only I wasn't disappointed, moreover, very much impressed.
The story focuses on Stacy (Lea Thompson) and Melissa (Victoria Jackson), two best friends. So girls just wanna have fun but at the same time are searching for something more than just a one-night stand. They go to a health resort to try their luck among health nuts and just plain weirdos. That's where Stacy meets Vinny, aka the Vin Man (Andrew Dice Clay). "I'm the best from the east, I'm a wild and crazy beast, I'm the Vin Man!"
Of course, Stacey dismisses him as just another brainless dick. Not so fast, fruitcake. Turns out that the lewd, crude, tough macho exterior was hiding an insecure little puppy. Vinny reveals his sensitive, vulnerable side and before you know it, he's the most likable and memorable character in the movie. Andrew's performance is amazing, you can really see his character development; he's an arc. There's a scene where he almost makes you cry.
So when the story begins to switch back and forth between Melissa's whirlwind romance and Stacy's attempts to rid herself -- and her apartment -- of a wannabe rock star, you'll find yourself missing Vinny and a little disappointed... but not for long. Just wait until Stacy gets that letter... :-) You'll now see a very different, extremely endearing Vincent Falconi.
Behind the X-rated nursery rhymes and sexist jokes Mr. Clay sure can act if/when given the right role (like most talented actors!). Remember that you heard this from me first. The Diceman is destined to make a Travolta-style comeback...
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
A.I. = Awful Investment
Kubrik's screenplay was dark, depressing, had an edge and was
way out there. Dreamworker Spielberg blunted the edge,
lightened the tone and... it just lost it. "A.I." makes no point and yet
drags along for three finger-drumming, snore-filled hours.
I like Stanley Kubrik and I like Steven Spielberg. But they should
never work together. Well, Kubrik is dead; what I'm trying to say is
their styles are too different to combine. I liked "Clockwork
Orange" and "E.T." but put them together and you get a major
blunder - like this movie, one of the biggest failures in filmmaking.
I could go into details but then I have to put spoiler alert and I'm
sick and tired of thinking of all the reasons why this movie doesn't
work. I better find something else to do... like scratching my balls.
Will be a nice vacation for my head that I've been scratching ever
since I left the theater...
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Mission: Inconsequential
Bloated and boring, Pearl Harbor is a collection of war-movie clichés in search of an epic. Director Michael Bay (Armageddon and The Rock) allows this sappy romantic drama disguised as an action film drag on for three finger-drumming hours. While the actual, extended battle scenes are technically dazzling full of diving fighter bombers and exploding warships the story and dialogue that surround and accompany them are as hackneyed as that of any daytime soap opera.
Pearl lollygags forever setting up a pre-December 7, 1941, love triangle among three fictional characters: Rafe (Affleck) and Danny (Hartnett), flyboys who grew up best buds in rural Tennessee, and Evelyn (Beckinsale), a military nurse. She falls in love with the cocky Rafe first, but he volunteers for service over in England and is reported dead. She then finds comfort in Danny's arms when both men are stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. As they laze about on the beach, Evelyn asks, `Do you ever wonder if this war is going to catch up with us?' Cue the bombers.
Rafe returns, of course, just in time for the aerial attack that would spur America's entry into WWII. He and Danny do what they can (`Just get me into a damn plane,' Rafe yells), but Pearl at least has the grace not to tamper with history, acknowledging that Japan's surprise raid left 2,400 Americans dead and destroyed half of our Pacific fleet.
Affleck, strappingly handsome, comes across here as a movie star playing a movie star playing a character. Harnett and Beckinsale fare better but only because they don't have to be quite as noble in every single scene. Gooding, portraying `Dorie' Miller, a real-life Navy mess attendant who courageously manned an antiaircraft gun during the raid, is solid, but his character feels awkwardly wedged into the main story.
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)
Underrated, to say the least
This movie fell a victim to political correctness of that time. First the studio lingered with the release for a year, and then instead of promoting it they just left it out there. One would think it would take more than marching women, gay rights activists and paraplegics to scare a monster Hollywood studio like 20th Century Fox.
"The Adventures of Ford Fairlane" is a great movie and Andrew Dice Clay fans are not the only ones who can enjoy it. If you're sick and tired of political correctness, look up to folks that travel a different path, wanna drive a tasteless car and produce killer one-liners at the drop of a prat, then settle yourself with a six-pack and make sure your chair won't keel over because you're gonna laugh your ass off.
And dat... dat... dat's what I tink! :-)
Driven (2001)
Not character-DRIVEN
***WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD***
Not that Driven wasn't enjoyable at times, but the story was a bit too... sparse. Moreover, Driven suffers from a number of problems: an overabundance of characters, the evaporation of numerous subplots, and way too much ambiguity.
Quite frankly, there are too many characters in this script. Memo Cristián de la Fuente) and Cathy (Gina Gershon) are two such characters; the female reporter Lou (Stacy Edwards) is another. Having Joe's ex-wife Cathy taunt him with her remarriage to Memo not only does nothing for the plot, it's a distraction. Lou's "love" storyline with Joe seems to be going somewhere at the start, but then it is more or less dropped, leaving us with only shots of them bonding in montage sequences. And Memo's insecurities and false bravado, while interesting, take away time from the main characters: Beau (Til Schweiger), Jimmy (Kip Pardue), and Joe (Sylvester Stallone).
The script also suffers from ambiguity in other places. When Jimmy meets Sophia (Estella Warren) at a bar after her breakup with Beau, he tells her she's only looking for a friend, and he seems to be okay with that. Yet they seem to develop a relationship without *any* on-screen physical contact. This is a major problem, as it leaves their relationship ambiguous, and confuses the action in the party scene where Sophia leaves Jimmy to go back to Beau.
Overall, while Driven should be recommended for racing/crash enthusiasts, it is not for those who enjoy (pardon the pun) character-driven films. Had the screenwriter (Sylvester Stallone) taken out some of the characters, fleshed out the relationship between some of the more important ones, and resolved any subplots he felt the need to throw in, this script could have been far better.
Rambo III (1988)
Needs a remake, this time REALLY based on the novel
Rambo is my all-time favorite character and with heavy heart I gave it a 2 out of 10, close to awful. I don't think changing directors in the sequel is such a great idea. Ted Kotcheff made "First Blood" a masterpiece. Then George P. Cosmatos comes in and that's when the quality is traded for loud explosions and inevitable decline of plot and acting. But Peter McDonald absolutely killed it.
The Russian colonel reminds of cartoonish villains from Scooby Doo. I hate to say it but, once again, this film would have been so much better if it had remained true to the novel. For those of you who haven't read it here's some spoilers. Not exactly, because this is a movie review site and I'm writing about a book.
In the novel, Rambo speaks Russian and there's a Russian soldier helping him, and a doubting high-ranking officer who doesn't shoot them when he can. There's also a French woman named Michelle working in the camp, providing medical services to the Afghans. Trautman lost a lot of blood and desperately needed a transfusion. Rambo agreed to be the donor. There's many interesting facts about the history and culture of Afghanistan. All those things were left out. Now, close your eyes and, in your imagination, put them in the movie. Wouldn't it be swell?
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
Should have been more respectful of the original and the book
Rambo is definitely my most favorite movie character. Ever since I was a kid, I wondered if a person like this really existed and if he did, what it would be like to meet him. Rambo is the ultimate hero, someone we all look up to. Here's a person who loves his country even though his country doesn't love him back. He wants to win the war that was lost by double-crossing politicians. He'll stop at nothing and is willing to die for it. Unconditional love and loyalty.
This movie could have used more of the novel it's based on. I'm one of those folks who rush to the bookstore right after watching a movie. One thing that puzzled me is that Rambo actually died in the first novel. Trautman shot him in the head. The first book sucked big time. Don't get me wrong, I like David Morrell. They did such a great job on the script, it made me wish the book was just like the film.
For those of you who are obtuse about the book, Rambo is a total psycho, Sheriff is a nice guy and Trautman is a cold-blooded professional. No comradeship-in-arms, no male bonding, zilch. You actually hate the protagonist more and more as you read about him slaughtering poor cops and at the end you're like, "Yessss!" By the way, Morrell never bothered to explain the death of his hero and just wrote another book. Hmmm...
Anyway. Rambo: First Blood Part II was an OK movie. When I read the novel, it was awesome. The movie would have been so much better if they had remained true to the book. Oh well, Stallone himself wrote the script, what can you expect... And did I see James Cameron's name somewhere in the writing credits? Below are some things from the book that made me want to trash the movie. Can't call them spoilers because they were never used in the film.
Rambo's mother was an Indian from a reservation who married a violent Italian drunk. Little Johnny ran away after nearly killing his father with an arrow; that's after dad had beaten his mother to death. Trautman took him under his wing. After escaping from a POW camp in Vietman the first time, Rambo, nearly dying, was found by a Buddhist monk. He became a Zen Buddhist and his philosophy is described in detail in the book. When Rambo is in jail after his rumble with police, Trautman comes to talk to him in his cell. There's very emotional conversation. Then they meet Murdock outside and many interesting facts about CIA frame-ups become known to us.
The prisoner from the camp whom Rambo rescues actually has a name in the book and they talk about Star Wars. The guy even flirts with the Vietnamese girl (who actually was married before and had a son in Huntington Beach, CA; her husband was a double agent, killed by the Commis.) At the end, Murdock sends a chopper to intercept the one with the POWs and orders to take it down. At the last second Trautman emerges in the back seat and sticks a gun in the pilot's ear. Can anyone tell me why this great scene was not used in the movie?!?!?
Anyway. I forgot the point of my comment. In short, it could have been a lot better, more like "First Blood." If you watch two films right after another, you'll notice different atmosphere, characters we all know and love also act kind of strange... A dull facsimile.
Titanic (1996)
Watch this movie instead of Cameron's
If you're one of the few people who haven't seen James Cameron's "Titanic" (that stole all Oscars, including undeserved theme song in 1997), see this movie first. It's so much better than the mega-budget copycat. You'll notice how Cameron tried to imitate many of the scenes in this film and failed. Acting is superb, unlike DiCaprio and Winslet whose acting skills amount to very realistic spitting overboard. I was lucky and saw this movie on TV before I saw Cameron's "Titanic" and immediately could see the difference which was not in favor of Cameron. I can't believe that the guy who directed "Terminator", "True Lies" and many other of my favorite films actually was behind this cinematic disaster.
Anyway. I'll comment on that movie later. Right now I wanna tell you this. Perhaps these guys didn't have a billion dollar budget to play with, but the end product came out perfect. Catherine Zeta-Jones is awesome; her character is complex, vulnerable, and endearing. You absolutely fall in love with the characters and leave your modern life behind and become part of theirs. At least for the duration of the film... How long is that? I didn't notice. Time flies when you have a good movie to watch.
Hannibal (2001)
Well worth the wait. A thriller to out-thrill all thrillers
When it comes to movies, I thought I've seen it all. It takes a lot to impress me, let alone shock me. But on February 10th I was literally blown away. I can't give you the details, you'll have to see for yourself. The images from this film will stay in your mind forever.
Aside from Roger Ebert (whom Dr Lecter, M.D. will never visit because he has no brains, no heart, no guts, and his head and butt are interchangeable), the only people who didn't like this movie are those who kept comparing it with "Silence of the Lambs" and Julianne Moore with Jodie Foster, or had no clue what was going on and failed to read between the lines. To all of you, put a sock in it. Go read the book.
At first I too thought it wasn't gonna be the same without Foster but the truth is, Sir Anthony Hopkins was the center of the first movie, and still is in the sequel. They could have paired him up with any other actress, wouldn't have made much difference for he is the magnet that pulls you in and keeps you mesmerized, motionless, breathless...
Julianne Moore does a great job. She doesn't try to imitate Foster in any way. She shows us a different side of Clarice, ten years later. From the moment she appears on screen she IS Clarice Starling, there's no doubt about it. Ms Foster was superb in SOTL and deserved the Oscar but she never comes to mind when you watch "Hannibal". Not once.
I guess it's part of the human nature to be shocked, whether it's outrageous comedy (like Andrew Dice Clay; something that taps into deep, dark corners of the human soul), or the magic silver screen. Images can be a lot more powerful and shocking than words. They say words can't hurt you, you can hear something and take offense or laugh and forget about it. But visual perception becomes imprinted in our memory and we live with it for the rest of out lives.
Even after the final credits finished rolling my mind was still deep at the bottom of some dark abyss, held there by some supernatural force and I couldn't shake it off. I wished I could put my head in a bucket of cold water and then scream at the top of my lungs until my voice fails me. Never had a movie make me feel like this. Well, maybe a couple came close but this one totally rocked my world. But aren't these the moments we all live for?
Ridley Scott presents a masterwork of sheer momentum that rockets seamlessly towards its climax; a razor-sharp entertainment, beautifully constructed, brilliantly shot and guaranteed to chill your blood. Thrillers just don't come any better than this. A real roller coaster, full of hairpin turns, sickening descents and sudden accelerations. I'll go for a ride like this any day.
I'm still not quite myself so you have to forgive me, I have to go outside and get a breath of fresh air, do inventory of the remainders of my sanity, if any, and check whether the top of my skull is still in place... See this movie.