Category: Genre

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (Great Britain, 2012)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Martin McDonagh
CAST: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 83% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster’s beloved Shih Tzu.


I wanted to like Seven Psychopaths more than I ultimately did, but it is still a fun, mostly unpredictable ride.  My biggest hangup was that it felt too similar, in broad strokes, to other “meta” movies.  To other BETTER movies, unfortunately.  I always try to review the movie in front of me instead of comparing it to other films, but in this case that guideline proved impossible.  But I did try.

The story involves Martin (Colin Farrell), a struggling screenwriter in Los Angeles; Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell), his best friend who also runs a dog-napping racket with HIS friend, Hans (Christopher Walken); and Charlie (Woody Harrelson), a dog-loving gangster whose favorite pet is a Shih Tzu named Bonny…whom, as it happens, the dog-nappers have stolen.  We get an idea of just how much Charlie loves his dog during a scene where he interrogates the dog-walker who lost her.  When a man is willing to shoot someone over a dog, I’d be the first in line to give it back, but Billy has other plans.

See, his friend Martin is trying to write a screenplay.  He’s under a deadline, but all he has so far is the title: Seven Psychopaths.  He doesn’t even know who all the psychopaths are yet.  So, Billy tells him a couple of stories about psychopaths that he’s heard about here and there, and the characters slowly start to take shape.  Meanwhile, Hans makes periodic visits to his cancer-stricken wife at the hospital.  Also, a serial killer is on the loose, but he only kills mafia and yakuza hitmen.  ALSO also, Billy puts an ad in the paper advertising for psychopaths to reach out to him and Martin so their stories can be used in Martin’s screenplay.  That’s how they wind up meeting Zachariah (Tom Waits), an odd little man who carries a rabbit wherever he goes and spins a tale of how he and HIS wife would hunt…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

As you see, there’s a lot of story going on.  And, as I mentioned before, most of it is unpredictable.  The concept of a killer who only targets hitmen is unique, at least in my mind.  But when the story focused on Martin’s screenplay and how it was being put together, that’s when I started having cinematic déjà vu.

Example: Martin isn’t sure how he wants it to end.  He’s a pacifist, so he doesn’t want it to end in a cliched shootout.  Billy spins a tale of how HE would end the film, with a bullet-ridden, blood-soaked shootout in a cemetery, featuring the return of Martin’s ex-girlfriend for no reason and a supporting cast of all seven of the psychopaths reuniting, also for no reason.  At that moment, I instinctively thought, “Well, clearly this movie is going to end in a shootout.” And it does. Sort of.

Martin hears Billy out and disagrees.  “They should all just go to the desert and talk their issues out instead of shooting each other.”  Again, I realized, “Okay, so they’re going to wind up in the desert.” And they do.

And so it went, over and over again.  A character would pitch an idea for Martin’s screenplay, and later in the film that idea would suddenly be manifested.  Martin gets criticized because his screenplay doesn’t feature enough women and doesn’t give them anything meaningful to do or say…in the middle of a movie where the women don’t do or say anything meaningful.

Don’t get me wrong, I like meta movies.  But despite the dark comedy and the typical awesomeness of Chris Walken and the other elements that weren’t so predictable (the reason behind Hans’ cravat, for example), I just couldn’t shake the feeling of “it’s all been done before, and better.”  I’m thinking specifically of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (no screenwriter, but same vibe) and Adaptation, a movie where the lines between reality and the screenplay get so blurred as to be non-existent.  Seven Psychopaths feels like it’s trying to get to that level, but it never quite gets there.  On that level, it’s not quite a success.

However, I will say it’s worth a watch for any movie fans.  There are enough satirical elements that make it worthwhile.  (“But his rabbit gets away, though, because you can’t let animals die in a movie…just the women.”)  Walken’s performance is, as always, the stuff of legend, even in a smaller role like this one.  Late in the movie, he has a marvelous scene between himself and a button man with a shotgun.  If that vignette is not mentioned during the tribute video when he eventually passes away, I would be extremely disappointed.

A PROPHET (France, 2009)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Jacques Audiard
CAST: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 96% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A new arrival in a French prison is recruited by the ruling Corsican gang to carry out hits and traffic drugs. Over time, he earns the gang leader’s confidence and rises in the prison ranks while secretly devising plans of his own.


The French film A Prophet, winner of the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, plays like the origin story of an alternate-universe version of Tony Montana.  A young, uneducated criminal, Malik (Tahar Rahim), arrives at a French prison and is almost immediately recruited by the ruling Corsican gang and their leader, César (Niels Arestrup), to kill another prisoner, an Arab, who could testify against César.  César’s method of guaranteeing Malik’s participation is ingenious: “Now that you know the plan, if you don’t kill him, we kill you.”

Malik will spend the rest of the film learning the ins and outs of criminal activity within the prison walls and occasionally outside as well, a process explained with great attention to detail.  For instance, for Malik’s first hit, he must seduce his male target into lowering his defenses while they’re alone.  However, since he knows he’ll be frisked first, he must hide the only lethal weapon he can find, a razor blade, in the only place it won’t be found AND be readily available: tucked inside his mouth between his teeth and cheek.  Ouch.

A Prophet doesn’t rush.  It takes its time with its plot development and character building.  It seems to me that the best films set in a prison adopt this strategy, or they should.  The deliberate pacing gives us time to settle into the world of the prison and the prisoner.  It creates the sensation that time is passing a little more slowly, which is exactly what any prisoner must feel every day.  The Shawshank Redemption comes to mind.

Malik’s slow conversion from timid newbie to trusted assistant in César’s gang to eventual dangerous adversary is never less than captivating, but in a weird way…like watching a hungry tiger stalk its prey.  The filmmakers are careful to give Malik human foibles.  At one moment, we watch Malik carrying out a task for César.  The next, he’s studying French in an adult literacy class because he never learned to read.  Or we see him alone in his cell where he occasionally has matter-of-fact conversations with the ghost of his first kill.  I particularly liked the scene where the ghost would predict random events in the courtyard outside of Malik’s prison window.

The idea is to make sure we never lose sight of the fact that, whatever Malik is becoming, he was and is a real person.  There are questions being asked in A Prophet about the efficacy of a prison system that, instead of rehabilitating criminals, seems to embed them deeper into a criminal lifestyle by the time they’re released.  Sure, Malik is a character in a movie, but how many other convicts just like him are chewed up and spit out of the prison system?  I was reminded of a scene in another prison film, Brute Force (1947), when a prisoner is working in the prison mechanic shop working on a car.  Someone asks him, “What have you learned?”  The prisoner says, “I’ve learned that, when I get out, I don’t wanna be a mechanic.”

As A Prophet works its way towards its Godfather-esque ending, Malik’s chilling evolution reaches the point where, with the help of his contacts with former inmates, he can orchestrate the kidnapping and beating of a rival drug dealer outside the prison walls who threatens his own plans for getting out.  Nothing Malik or César did seems outrageous or implausible in any way.  It’s scary how easily they can pull the strings of so many people inside and out.

I am rambling, but I’m simply at a loss to efficiently explain how effective this movie is in its portrayal of the rise and rise of an eventual crime boss.  In the final scene, as a caravan of black vehicles follows a key character as he walks out of the prison for the last time, a chill came over me as I realized the implications.  It’s a brilliant final curtain on a character every bit as chilling as Michael Corleone or Tony Montana.

SOPHIE’S CHOICE (1982)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Alan J. Pakula
CAST: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 78% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Sophie, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, has found a reason to live with Nathan, a sparkling if unsteady American Jew obsessed with the Holocaust.


I have not seen a movie as stirring, as affecting, or as emotionally shattering as Sophie’s Choice in a very long time.  For years, I was aware of the film’s cachet and of Meryl Streep’s Oscar-winning performance, but the opportunity to watch the movie never presented itself until very recently.  I was intellectually aware of the slang usage of having to make a “Sophie’s choice”, meaning that one had to choose between two equally undesirable options.  I knew it had to do with the movie of the same name, but I had no other context.  And for decades, the real context of Sophie’s choice had remained unknown to me until now.

That fact is one of the reasons Sophie’s Choice had such a devastating impact on me.  The screenplay is another, and naturally, there’s Streep’s landmark performance.

The story opens with an older man’s narration while we watch his younger self onscreen.  This is Stingo, played as a young man by Peter MacNicol.  He’s an aspiring author, and he’s just moved into a large pink boarding house in a Brooklyn suburb shortly after the end of World War II.  On his first day there, he encounters the two people who will irrevocably change his life, Sophie (Streep) and Nathan (Kevin Kline in his film debut).  They appear to be a couple, but they are in the middle of a brutal verbal argument on the stairs, with Nathan yelling awful things to Sophie, calling her a Polack, saying how much he doesn’t need her.  He leaves in a huff, Sophie is in tears, Stingo instinctively goes to comfort her, they get to talking, and the next morning Nathan returns, utterly contrite, at first suspicious of Stingo, but when Sophie assures him Stingo is just a friend, Nathan is all charm and goodwill and has nothing but good things to say about Sophie.

At this point, in my head, I had the movie all planned out.  Okay, so we’ve got a love triangle with a writer/narrator coming between an unattainable beauty and the capricious brute who loves her.  And this, I imagined, is what Sophie’s choice would eventually come down to: the penniless aspiring writer who is “safe” or the roguish charmer with the turn-on-a-dime temper.  Ho hum, been there, done that, I thought, but wow, is Meryl Streep’s Polish accent spot-on or WHAT?  Guess I’ll keep watching just so I can say I watched it.

That’s the ingenuity of the screenplay I mentioned earlier.  It strings you along for close to an hour, making you believe it’s about the romantic relationship among the three leads.  And then the movie springs one of the greatest head-fakes in film history.  What started as a soapy melodrama becomes a character study of the limits of human endurance, with scenes as fraught with tension as anything written by Hitchcock or Tarantino.

(I am going to have to write very carefully from here on out because I want to convey how effective the movie is while preserving its revelations.  It worked so well for me precisely because I knew very little about the plot, and I want to make sure you have the same experience, dear reader.)

Any appreciation of Sophie’s Choice must include a discussion of Meryl Streep’s performance as the title character.  She reportedly begged director Alan J. Pakula for this role, even after he had lined up a Polish actress for the part.  We can all thank the cinema gods Pakula went with Streep instead.  This is, without a doubt, one of the top three or four performances I’ve ever seen by any actor, living or dead.  Even leaving aside her mastery of the Polish accent…well, actually, let’s talk about that for a second.  She learned to speak with a flawless Polish accent.  Then there are scenes where she had to speak fluent Polish, so she learned Polish.  Then there are scenes where Sophie also speaks German, so she learned how to speak fluent German with a Polish accent.  I mean…it took me two weeks to learn two sentences in French and say them fluently.  If there were a fan-fiction theory that Streep is really a magical drama teacher at Hogwarts, I’d believe it.

At times during Sophie’s Choice, Pakula’s camera simply stops and stares at Streep while she delivers a monologue about her days before the war, or about how she survived as a personal secretary to the chief commandant of Auschwitz.  Her delivery during these scenes feels about as naturalistic as you can get.  You don’t feel like you’re watching an actress give a performance anymore.  It’s more like you’re watching a documentary about a Holocaust survivor.  It’s a performance that simply must be seen to be believed.

Next to Streep, Kevin Kline as her beau, Nathan, is almost overdone, stagey, far too full of ebullience and rage and earnestness.  Nathan is Jewish, and he is obsessed with the idea of tracking down the Nazis who escaped justice after the war.  However, his antics are balanced by Sophie’s serenity and unconditional forgiveness.  I look at it as a yin/yang kind of thing.  It works.

There are questions, though, about their relationship, especially as the movie wraps up.  Why does Sophie put up with this lout who whispers sweet nothings to her and impulsively proposes marriage in one moment, and in another moment is given to vicious accusations of infidelity and collaboration with the Nazis, then swings back again in a fit of contrition?  Perhaps she was wracked with survivor’s guilt.  Her parents, husband, and children never emerged from the concentration camps.  Perhaps she felt it was her duty somehow to prop someone up and latch on to a soul like Nathan, someone whose outward cheerfulness masked internal demons.  Perhaps being a helpmate for such a person keeps her own demons at bay.  Just a thought.

When I’m watching a movie on my own, I can measure how effective it is by how many times I talk to myself or yell at the screen while it’s playing.  With Sophie’s Choice, I didn’t do a lot of yelling until it performed its head-fake and veered into territories not even hinted at previously.  After that, there was a lot of my Gods and holy craps and oh Jesus-es.  The end of the movie is a roller-coaster that may not end in the happiest place ever, but it’s the kind of earned emotional catharsis that doesn’t happen very often at the movies.  A movie like this is a treasure.  I hope, if you’ve never seen it, you’ll make it a point to hunt down a copy and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

And don’t let anyone spoil it for you.

AIR

By Marc S. Sanders

Pop culture for me began in the early 1980s.  Burger King had Star Wars glasses to collect. Everyone was running to the theatres to see Beverly Hills Cop.  Ray Parker Jr asked us who we were gonna call, and a little old lady wanted to know “Where’s The Beef?” 

Apparently, basketball was big too.  I wouldn’t know.  I only followed sports once in a blue moon.  However, I wanted the high-top sneakers that all the guys were wearing, the Nike Air Jordans.  Couldn’t make a free throw shot to save myself, but I explained to my mom that I just had to wear the shoes.  I owned two pair – one was charcoal and white and the other were black and blue.  Beautiful accessories to go with my Levi jeans, Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and my Member’s Only jacket.

All of these memories flooded back to me as I watched Ben Affleck’s latest directorial production called Air.  The film recaps how Nike, a distant leading third place sneaker brand in the USA, signed the eventual greatest basketball player to ever perform on an NBA court, Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls, as the celebrity face for its flagship shoe that still reigns supreme today, over forty years later.  Air is not so much a sports movie, as it is that rare breed of film hardly touched upon.  Air is an inspirational, stand up and cheer success story of capitalism and materialism. 

The year is 1984.  Nike’s headquarters reside in the sleepy state of Oregon.  Affleck’s longtime friend Matt Damon portrays Sonny Vacarro, an out of shape Vice President of Marketing for Nike who is tagged with finding the next flash in the pan basketball star to sponsor their shoes.  Sonny can recite statistics and facts about any past or present player in the league verbatim.  He also has a knack for recognizing the potential of up-and-coming stars fresh out of high school and college.  Nothing seems interesting, however.  Sonny religiously watches videotapes of game footage and one night it occurs to him that a rookie kid named Michael Jordan is the answer to Nike’s stagnant profit and loss statements. 

Sonny’s got challenges to overcome though, like convincing his fellow executives played by Jason Bateman and Chris Tucker to jump on his campaign.  He also needs to get Phil Knight (Nike’s CEO, played by a bearded and often barefoot Affleck) to invest their entire $250,000 budget in the faith of one player with no proven track record, as opposed to spending the money on multiple players.  It’s like playing roulette with everything on Red 23.  Perhaps the hardest obstacle will be swaying Mr. Jordan’s tough and intuitive mother, Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis, a clear front runner for Best Supporting Actress), to go with this company, as opposed to Adidas and Converse who seemingly can provide for any of her son’s requests, including a shiny red Mercedes coupe on top of any dollar figure imaginable.

Ben Affleck’s direction, with Alex Convery’s script, works so well because it operates on industry.  Vaccaro not only travels unexpectedly to the Jordans’ home in North Carolina, but he’s constantly working the phone on Michael Jordan’s ball busting, slick and foul-mouthed sports agent (Chris Messina giving a hilarious performance worthy of a nomination as well.).  The negotiations these guys communicate with hinges on how descriptively ugly they can be with their dialogue and tete a tete cursing.  Every conversation has to end with that much more of a dramatic hang-up.  Sonny also must take the elevator down to the design center basement, and delegate a quirky kind of guy (Peter Moore, played by Matthew Maher) with designing a shoe that stands above anything ever seen before. 

There’s a process to how to some of the most well recognized manufactured goods in the North American continent came to be and continue to circulate for decades on end.  It could be Coca Cola, or Ray Ban sunglasses or Ford Mustangs or Nike Air Jordans.  Matt Damon is the energetic thread that is connected to every ingredient and participant responsible for this finished product. 

Outside of the operation is the quiet Deloris Jordan protecting the best interests and image of her talented son.  She will ensure he is not taken for granted and most importantly he will be the one credited for every consumer who puts a pair of Air Jordan shoes on their feet. 

In less than two hours, Ben Affleck uses Convery’s script with perfect efficiency and time devoted to a passion for Sonny Vaccaro and a careful process of examination by Deloris Jordan.  Matt Damon and Viola Davis are so much in tune with their respective roles. In fact, the whole picture is perfectly cast.

This is a story that takes place in boring offices and cubicles.  Yet, the film comes alive with a culturally relevant soundtrack of pop culture music of its specific year, 1984, when life for middle class families seemed easier following an exhausting Vietnam War and an assurance of politics from a US President who held office for most of the decade.  People went to the movies in the summertime. They watched Dallas and Miami Vice on Friday nights.  Teens wore the one glitter glove on their hand as a salute to Michael Jackson.  Kids collected Care Bears, He-Man toys, and Garbage Pail Kids cards, and they saved up their money to emulate a basketball superstar by wearing his brand name shoes.

Too often films reflect back on business and industry that has betrayed the buyers and investors.  Films like The Big Short and a few interpretations of Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scheme come to mind.  I’m waiting for the movie that will focus on one of the greatest foul ups in business history, New Coke.  Air reminds me that we don’t have to always embrace the tragedies of business operations by focusing on where it has failed us time and again. 

Nike Air Jordans are an expensive epitome of materialistic need.  Yet, business is also about giving consumers what they want, and if that is done, then its success spreads to prosperity and financial security for many parties throughout the nation and the world.  Air is a film that should be shown to business majors in universities.  It teaches the art of risk, passion and confidence when taking on an investment and holding on to who can be each generation’s next hero. 

Air is a standout film, and I’ll accept the risk of declaring it one of the best films of 2023.

KALIFORNIA (1993)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Dominic Sena
CAST: Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny, Michelle Forbes
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 58%

PLOT: A journalist duo go on a tour of serial killer murder sites with two companions, unaware that one of them is a serial killer himself.


Ask any movie fan for names of actors who played memorable serial killers in film, and you’ll get a lot of obvious ones (Anthony Hopkins, Charlize Theron, Anthony Perkins) and you might get a few not-so-obvious ones (Michael Rooker, Andrew Robinson, Peter Lorre).  But I’m willing to bet no more than one person in 20 will name Brad Pitt, whose performance as the skeevy Early Grayce dominates Kalifornia, the 1993 directorial debut film of music video director Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds, Swordfish).  Pitt is so convincing and deliberately off-putting that I came close to switching the movie off and returning it to the thrift store where I found it.  Why would I want to keep watching a film where I’m repulsed by one of the main characters nearly every second he’s on screen?

Kalifornia may be predictable to some, but I was blown away by the story development.  Brian (David Duchovny) and his longtime girlfriend, Carrie (Michelle Forbes) are embarking on a cross-country road trip from Pittsburgh to California.  He’s an author writing a book on serial killers.  During their trip, he will visit infamous murder sites to gather material, and Carrie, a professional photographer, will take pictures for the book.

(The first time we see Brian, he’s mixing drinks at a party and holding forth about how the government should rehabilitate killers instead of executing them.  They are products of their environment, their upbringing, they’re not ultimately responsible for their own actions because they simply don’t know any better, and so on.  Over the course of the movie, his beliefs will be put to the test.)

Brian is short on cash until he finishes his book, so he places an ad on a university message board looking for people willing to split gas and food costs on a cross-country road trip to California.   One of the most incisive moments in the movie comes when Brian and Carrie drive to a meet-up point and spot their new travel companions: Early and his girlfriend, Adele (Juliette Lewis), a young woman whose mental development seems to have been arrested at about a 13-year-old level.  Carrie whispers to Brian, “Look at them, they look like Okies.”  Meanwhile, Adele whispers to Early, “Oh, Jesus, Early, they look kinda weird.”  The movie seems to be setting us up for an awkward odd-couple road-trip movie where, uh oh, one of them is a serial killer!  But you ain’t seen nothing yet.

During their road-trip, and in between visits to famous murder sites, Early and Brian start to bond a little, much to Carrie’s dismay.  Brian has a theory about why the Black Dahlia killer was never found, but Early has another: that he’s alive and well in a trailer park somewhere, “thinkin’ about what he’s done, goin’ over it and over it in his head, every night, thinkin’ how smart he is for gettin’ away with it.”  Ohhh-kay…

One night when Brian and Early are at a bar, Carrie and Adele get to talking, and Adele reveals that she doesn’t smoke because “he broke me of that.”  Carrie asks her if Early hits her, and her reply is as heartbreaking as it is terrifying: “Oh, only when I deserve it.”

This and several other red flags get to be too much for Carrie, and she gives Brian an ultimatum: “Either they get out at the next gas station or I do, your choice.”  What happens at that next gas station I would not dream of revealing, but it ignites the slow burn of the previous hour and turns Kalifornia into a tense, bloody thriller that rivals anything by David Fincher.

I’ve given so many establishing plot details above (I left some juicy bits out, trust me) because I’m trying to convey how this film, which starts out like a slightly amped-up basic-cable movie-of-the-week, shifts into another gear in the second hour.  Unsuspecting viewers like me, who have only heard of the movie but never even seen the trailer, will watch the first hour wondering where the good movie is.  But have patience, it’s coming.  The payoff is worth the wait.

[Author’s note: by the way, don’t watch the trailer for this movie.  It gives away WAY too many plot points that I haven’t mentioned, both before and after the gas station incident mentioned above.  Just the worst.]

Visually, I didn’t see a lot of the music-video camera pyrotechnics that director Sena would later employ in Gone in 60 Seconds, etcetera.  The movie is content to let the dread sort of speak for itself.  The various murder sites they all visit seem even creepier and uglier than they need to be.  Slick editing brings little details into focus that heightens the tension.

Ah, I can’t think of any way to explain how great this movie is without giving away more plot details, and this movie is best seen in a vacuum, knowing as little as possible.  So trust me.  If you’re a fan at all of serial killer movies or documentaries, this movie will not only entertain, it will give you a lot to chew over.  Kalifornia belongs in the serial killer movie pantheon with The Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.  Especially that last one.

THE MITCHELLS VS THE MACHINES (2021)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTORS: Michael Rianda, Jeff Rowe
CAST: Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Eric André, Olivia Colman
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A quirky, dysfunctional family’s road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity’s unlikeliest last hope.


Discovering The Mitchells vs the Machines feels like finding a discarded lottery ticket that someone threw away.  Intended for theatrical release in 2021, it was instead sold to Netflix when that became unfeasible due to Covid.  I have no way of knowing how many people may have streamed it, but it didn’t exactly take the world by storm.  I happened to find a discounted copy on sale at Target some time ago and have only just now gotten around to watching it.  Written and directed by the writers/creators of the acclaimed animated series Gravity Falls and produced by the minds behind the Jump Street reboots, the two Lego Movies, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, this movie is a home run that feels like it has been all but forgotten by the general public.  If you’re a member of that section of the public, and you like great animated films, do yourself a favor and carve out some Netflix viewing time.  You won’t regret it.

The Mitchells are a mildly dysfunctional family with their hearts in the right places, but their quirkiness gets the best of them sometimes.  Aspiring filmmaker Katie Mitchell (voice of Abbi Jacobson) has been accepted into a film school in California, but instead of flying, her father, Rick (Danny McBride), decides to make one last effort at connecting with his daughter by taking the whole family on a road trip in a mid-90s station wagon whose model name is sensible.  As in, that’s the name of the model, the mid-90s Sensible.

The mom, Linda (Maya Rudolph) tries to act as a buffer between Katie and Rick, when she’s not trying to get her family to act more “normal” like their all-too-perfect next-door neighbors (voiced by John Legend and Chrissy Tiegen).  Katie’s younger brother, Aaron, is so obsessed with dinosaurs he calls random people from the phone book: “Hi, would you like to talk to me about dinosaurs?  No?  Okay, thank you.”  They have a pug dog named Monchi that apparently has the IQ of a carrot and looks like he was bred in a bakery.  (“Bred” in a bakery…get it?  Don’t worry, you will.)  Put them all in close quarters and you’d be lucky to get them to survive into the next county, let alone halfway across the country.  And don’t forget that robot apocalypse mistakenly engineered by a tech genius (Eric André) who took the concept of obsolescence one step too far.

What follows is a Pixar-esque journey into self-discovery, industry and pop culture in-jokes, and genuine emotional moments.  Any quibbles I have with the movie have to do with certain physical logistics.  I know I shouldn’t bring the concept of real-world physics into an animated film that includes killer microwave ovens and ominous toasters, but there were a couple of moments that defied logic when everything else was doing so well.  I won’t spoil them, but they’re there.

But that’s a minor, minor quibble.  TMvTM is so delightful and fun, it doesn’t matter.

I loved the visual style of this movie, recalling the eye-catching pyrotechnics in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.  To emphasize certain moments during the film, the filmmakers added little “flair” on the edges of the screen, or emitting from certain characters like in a comic book, but instead of feeling “comic-book-y”, it felt like a little glimpse into the mind of Katie, the main character, whose mind is constantly in “making-a-movie” mode.

I loved the “big-bad” in the movie because it’s based on the world’s ever-increasing reliance on portable electronic devices.  At one point, the villain shuts down the wi-fi on a global scale.  Humanity predictably loses its mind within seconds.  (My favorite example of this meltdown showed a woman pleading with someone to take a picture of her food.)  Do I advocate for a complete erasure of our devices?  Absolutely not.  But I am on the dad’s side when he insists on no devices at the dinner table.  Everything in moderation, folks.

Underneath the flashy style and effective villains, though, there is a real human story about the father’s desperate need to reconnect with his daughter before she leaves for college.  (Indeed, the film’s original title was Connected.)  The filmmakers took a lesson from Pixar’s playbook and made very sure to include some tender moments and heartfelt speeches that never once felt contrived or schmaltzy.  I don’t have kids, but if I did, I could easily imagine myself shedding a tear when the dad watched old home movies of himself and Katie when she was a toddler.  And I loved the story behind the wooden moose.  The story is diligent about giving everyone a solid, believable back story that fills in the blanks without resorting to lengthy flashbacks.  Not an easy task.

As hidden animated treasures go, this goes on the list with Boy and the World and A Town Called Panic.  It’s streaming on Netflix, so chances are you have access to it right now, so…what are you waiting for?

TIME AFTER TIME (1979)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Meyer
CAST: Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 87%

PLOT: Before he wrote any of his famous novels, H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper to the 20th Century when the serial murderer uses the future writer’s time machine to escape his time period.


There are two scenes in Time After Time that are genuinely shocking from a story perspective.  One involves a newspaper headline.  The other involves a bloody crime scene.  The first I should have seen coming, but the second I never would have guessed in a million years, and I literally yelled at the TV when it happened.  That’s good plotting.

Those two scenes are the only things that prevent me from giving Time After Time a lower score.  That, and the fantastical, thought-provoking nature of the story itself.  Too bad both those scenes and the plot are buried under layers and layers of hackneyed dialogue and the kind of forced situational comedy that would be more at home in Three’s Company than in a sci-fi adventure.

First, the good stuff.  After a credits sequence that looks inspired by countless grade-Z movies before it, the story starts back in London, 1893, two years before H.G. Wells would write his first novel, The Time Machine.  A prostitute is murdered in a dark alley, victim of the infamous Jack the Ripper.  Later that night, Wells hosts a dinner party at his house for some friends and shows them something he’s been building in his basement: a fully functional time machine.  It doesn’t quite resemble the famous machine from the 1960 classic The Time Machine – it looks more like a ride vehicle from an amusement park than a chair with attachments – but the Victorian details are all there.  There’s some talk about a vital key needed to return to their present and a VERY important device that is discussed without being precisely explained, at least not to my satisfaction.  When it makes a reappearance late in the film, I was still mystified as to its actual purpose other than a convenient deus ex machina.

Suddenly, Scotland Yard appears.  Turns out they tracked Jack the Ripper to Wells’ doorstep.  Tricky Jack awaits his chance and uses the time machine to escape…though, without that handy key mentioned earlier, the machine returns to its point of origin on its own, leaving Jack stranded in a world 86 years in the future.  Wells feels duty-bound to bring Jack to justice, so he follows Jack, setting up the meat of the next few reels: a man from 1893 London struggling to adjust to daily life in 1979 San Francisco.

(It must be noted that the bulk of this film’s budget was clearly NOT devoted to the visual effects department.  The effects on display as Wells travels through time are cheesy at best.  I’d try to describe them here, but my words cannot possibly do them justice.  I couldn’t even find a decent still shot to embed here that would accurately convey just how low-rent they are.  I recently watched 1974’s execrable Zardoz, and I’m here to tell you, from a VFX perspective, Time After Time makes Zardoz look like Interstellar.)

H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper through time?  This is a great plot from a sci-fi perspective, a thrilling “what-if” tale.  I had heard about this film for years but was never able to find a copy until recently.  The scores on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes are decent.  Not stellar, but decent enough that I was pretty sure I would enjoy it.  The movie was directed and co-written by Nicholas Meyer, the mind behind The Day After, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  That’s not a bad track record.

But, man oh man…for most of the film’s middle section after Wells arrives in 1979, the movie’s brain goes on sabbatical.  Example: he walks into a McDonald’s, takes careful note of how the customer in front of him orders a meal, then does his best to literally impersonate the customer.  He doesn’t just order what he orders…he gives an impersonation of the customer’s voice and accent.  Why?  He doesn’t do that at a pawn shop or a bank.  No, it’s just there because someone thought it would be a laugh to see Malcolm McDowell do a broad American accent.

I can’t deny that the potential is there for real humor.  I couldn’t find it.  I thought these scenes were completely at odds with the tone of the first third of the film.  Wells meets a bank teller, Amy, (a very young Mary Steenburgen) who inexplicably falls in love with him at first sight.  She’s so taken with him she impulsively asks him to lunch, an act that, in 1979, was directly at odds with 99.99% of all other screen romances, so kudos to that, I guess.  But why?  I’m not saying Malcolm McDowell is an affront to the concept of human beauty, but…really?  As Wells, he’s the 19th-century version of a science nerd.  Amy is not a character so much as a cardboard placeholder to be moved and manipulated according to the whims of the plot.

The dialogue is clunky, to say the least.  There is a foot-chase between Wells and Jack that is devoid of suspense.  The score by Hollywood legend Miklós Rózsa feels utterly out of place, as if someone simply lifted Rózsa’s score from some other film and plugged it in where necessary.  There is simply no romantic chemistry between McDowell and Steenburgen, as evidenced in a painfully unfunny scene when they sit on a couch and she declares: “Herbert, if you don’t take me into your arms, I’m going to scream.”

Another actual line of dialogue: “My mother was rather an atrocious woman in her own way, but her many failings did not include raising mentally deficient sons.”  That’s not a real person talking, that’s a writer trying to imitate George Bernard Shaw.

No doubt someone out there will tell me I missed the boat with this movie somehow.  Perhaps Rózsa’s score is intentionally “retro” to make the whole movie feel as temporally displaced as its characters.  Perhaps the intention was the same with the hopelessly amateurish visual effects.  Who knows.  It’s possible.  Maybe there’s a better movie here somewhere and I’m not equipped to find it.  I doubt it, but it’s a possibility.  In the meantime, I’m going to keep this movie in my collection as an example of how a great story can be derailed by poor execution.

And maybe I’ll bring it out if my fellow Cinemaniacs are in the mood for a “So-Bad-It’s-Good” movie day.

[P.S. Keep your eyes open for the screen debut of an 8-year-old Corey Feldman.]

DON’T LOOK NOW (United Kingdom, 1973)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Nicolas Roeg
CAST: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Certified Fresh

PLOT: In Venice, a married couple grieving the recent death of their young daughter encounter two elderly sisters, one of whom is psychic and brings a warning from beyond.


I’ve only seen two films from director Nicolas Roeg.  The first was Walkabout, which I’ve now seen three times in an effort to “get” it.  While I admire Walkabout’s visual strategy, that film has always left me cold and frustrated, and I do not imagine that will ever change.

However, Don’t Look Now, Roeg’s adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier short story, is about as expertly made as any supernatural thriller could be.  While the story may feel a little thin when all is said and done, this is yet another case of a movie not being what it’s about, but how it’s about it.  The entire film utilizes an editing and cinematographic strategy to convey an aura of dreamy dread and paranoia.  Of course, the performances from the two leads, Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, are exceptional, but the direction, editing, and cinematography are really what make Don’t Look Now so disturbing and compelling.

Christie and Sutherland play married couple Laura and John Baxter who are grieving the death of their daughter, Christine, who drowned in the pond behind their cottage.  The scene of her death which opens the film showcases the visual and editing strategy that will come into play so heavily later in the film.

They relocate to Venice, leaving their other child, a son, behind in England in a boarding school.  In Venice, John works on restoring an old church while Laura…well, it’s not clear what Laura does to pass the time in Venice.  One day she bumps into two old women in a café restroom, one of whom is a blind psychic.  The psychic abruptly tells Laura that she’s seen Christine, happy and laughing, and wearing the red raincoat in which she drowned, information the psychic could not possibly have known beforehand.

Later, as John wanders the Venetian streets at night, he gets a brief glimpse of a small figure darting among the buildings ahead…wearing a red raincoat.  When Laura visits the psychic again, the psychic warns Laura that she and her husband are in danger and must leave Venice as soon as possible.  Meanwhile, a body is discovered in the canal near their hotel…

Because the film’s effectiveness relies so heavily on its visual style and editing, I’m finding it difficult how to convey how strongly I recommend searching this movie out, while simultaneously acknowledging the story itself is not as “meaty” as, say, a thriller from David Fincher or Alfred Hitchcock.  I was actually reminded more of the films of Brian De Palma and David Lynch, two directors whose visual and storytelling styles were clearly influenced in one way or another by Don’t Look Now, which was itself clearly influenced by the early films of Dario Argento (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Suspiria), though without quite so much bloodshed.

Making a movie like this is tricky.  Use too much cross-cutting and non-sequitur edits, and you risk simply confusing the audience.  One plot point involves John putting Laura on a plane back to England, but hours later he clearly sees her on a funereal gondola in Venice.  Convinced the two elderly women are somehow behind it, he tracks down their apartment, only to find it abandoned.  Quick cut to the sisters in another hotel somewhere…laughing.  Are they involved in some kind of sinister plot?  Or is he having a breakdown?  Is this the director just yanking the audience’s chain simply because he can?  One could make the argument, but the process and style of the storytelling kept me intrigued rather than confused.

All sorts of small details become ominous.  A single glove abandoned on a windowsill.  A child’s plastic baby doll left on the steps leading down to a canal.  Old family portraits on a table.  The lingering glance of a stranger in a police station or a café.  In one scene, John visits the police, convinced the two sisters have kidnapped his wife.  IMDb trivia reveals that the Italian actor playing the captain had no knowledge whatsoever of the English language, so he simply read the lines phonetically without understanding what any of it meant.  As a result, his dialogue with John sounds oddly stilted and detached, almost menacing.  Is he part of some kind of conspiracy?  During their conversation, he actually sees the two sisters walking outside his window but fails to mention this fact to John.  Is he in on the conspiracy?  Or does he simply not recognize the two women?

After a few more plot developments and a couple more sightings of the small figure in the red raincoat in the distance and the discovery of yet another murder victim, everything finally gets wrapped up in a way that I found satisfying even though it didn’t exactly bring the kind of closure I was hoping for.  However, it does bring all the story threads together, including the possibility that John himself might be psychic without realizing it.  Don’t Look Now doesn’t pack quite the punch of Psycho or Mulholland Drive, but it is exquisitely well-made, well-acted, and well-directed.  Watch closely, and you can see how many other filmmakers have been influenced by this movie decades later.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

By Marc S. Sanders

The moment finally arrived where I was able to see David Lean’s epic, also regarded as my colleague Miguel’s favorite film, Lawrence Of Arabia.  It truly is an eye-opening spectacle, and one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen, especially enhanced by an up-to-date Blu Ray restoration.  With a near four hour running time there is hardly an element or sliver of film that does not appear out of place.  Far ahead of the conveniences of dazzling special effects and CGI to arrive later in the twentieth century and beyond, Lawrence Of Arabia must be one of the greatest cinematic achievements ever created. 

When you factor in what David Lean made with an earlier picture, The Bridge On The River Kwai, it is fair to say that he was the James Cameron of his time – a bold, daring film director who did not surrender until every shred of a masterpiece was included in a final cut.  What puts a man like Lean ahead of Cameron perhaps, is that he depended on the resources of thousands of human extras and animals, broad desert landscape locations, painstaking architecture to set designs and buildings, along with authentic explosions and battlegrounds while delivering the story of British Lieutenant T.E. Lawrence and his efforts to aid an Arab nation into battle against the Turks during World War I. David Lean was persistent in bringing as much natural quality to his finished product as possible.  In fact, Miguel informed me that Lean was seeking out any possible way to point his cameras at the desert sun to heighten the feeling of the sweltering, unimaginable heat endured by his cast of characters.  It likely pained Mr. Lean that he had to settle for an optical illusion.  Nevertheless, when I was watching the movie, it did not occur to me once.  I was still appreciating his strive for absolute authenticity.

Peter O’Toole is the title character in his unforgettable film debut.  A daring, handsome, charming blond leading actor poised for adventure.  Lawrence is assigned to ally with the Arabs during the war to hold on to the necessary access of the Suez Canal which is a through way for oil, supplies and territory.  His determination for crossing wide, endless desert plains under a sun drenched open blue sky turn him into a leader, and a hero to the Arab soldiers, particularly represented by Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif).  They are a small band of fifty men, but Lawrence proceeds with the intent of gaining fifty more as he begins a long trek from one side of the desert to the other with persistent walking or by riding camel.  Lawrence won’t even leave a single man behind.  His resolve is courageous but could be costly later.

The technical construction of Lawrence of Arabia is likely what many notice and remember first, but the film comes with a well-set character arc for its protagonist.  Peter O’Toole was a perfect casting selection for this role.  Lawrence changes over the course of the film and it’s not a celebratory transformation.  Oft times, it seemed ironic to consider him the villain; perhaps a hero who falls from grace.  His derring-do is impressive, but likely also his undoing.  Lawrence allows strength and confidence to awaken a weak Arab nation who only survived for themselves with what little they held onto before their encounter with him.  Yet, the monster Lawrence creates within his own psyche may have also spawned a challenging threat from the Arabians for many years to come, long after this war is over and further generations come into play.  Bless a people with power but be aware of how that gift is used thereafter.

Lawrence accomplishes what has been regarded as seemingly impossible and now the Arabs adorn him in heroic white cloths (which must be one of the memorable costumes in film history).  He is who they look up to as the giver of their strength and confidence.  However, like most heroes that we find in the best of stories, T.E. Lawrence is weighed by fault, particularly his own hubris.  After his conceit gets him captured and tortured, it is not so easy to return to his home country who insist he continue to carry out his leadership.  Madness is invading his mindset and the hero we have borne witness to for well over two hours of film is now significantly diminished.  Parallel to that is the overconfidence and newfound freedom a political leader like Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) absorbs for his Arabian people.  The end of David Lean’s film seems to imply what came of T.E. Lawrence’s contributions to the Arabs.  Was the world better or worse for what he achieved with his pioneering, yet dedicated military efforts?  What about Lawrence?  How did he fare, personally?

Forgive my incessant urge to compare David Lean to James Cameron.  I look at a film like Avatar and I see the monies and efforts invested to make that piece.  Yet, I feel like I walk away with little substance.  The films of Cameron not only fall short of story, but often lack texture as well.  I could never reach out and shake the hand of a “Pandoran.”  When I see Lawrence Of Arabia, though, I can feel the sweat and heat that O’Toole and Sharif experience.  Both are big films, not made on the fly. Rather, time and stress and a means to improve and show what’s never been seen or done before are offered.  David Lean might have been given all the monies in the world or the keys to kingdom to make his masterpiece.  However, it’s how he used these resources to painstaking perfection that lend to longevity in reputation for his career and Lawrence Of Arabia.

A train explosion near the start of third act is very impressive.  Lawrence and his men detonate a planted bomb on the tracks, and we see the locomotive derail onto its side, plowing into the hot desert sand.  We feel the immense weight of that steam engine.  We can detect the sand cloud that forms from the crash.  The collision of the cars being ripped apart and burned black thus create a new setting as Lawrence’s Arab followers rush to loot the train.

Grand battle scenes on horse and camel backs are meant to be seen at least ten times over in order to capture every piece of activity from the numerous extras and animals occupying a thousand different corners of the screen.  The bigger the screen, the better enhanced is the viewing experience. 

Long walks and camel rides in the desert may seem tedious for some, but not for me.  I was accompanying T.E. Lawrence and Sherif Ali on this journey.  This is another film where its running time affects what Lean set out to accomplish.  A trek through the desert is impossible to rush and this film is a testament to that notion.  I can’t say I’ve hiked through a desert plain that bears no end in near sight, but now I can lay claim that I’ve watched Lawrence Of Arabia.

Having only seen David Lean’s picture once thus far, I know that on repeat viewings I’d likely see something new each time hereafter.  This film is so alive of its period setting and backdrop and the unforgettable original score from Maurice Jarre give definition to the sweeping adventure that awaits with T.E. Lawrence’s travels.  The cast is marvelous as well.  Peter O’Toole is positively engaging.  Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn are scene stealing character actors, much like Robert Shaw would become known for a decade later with Jaws.  Alec Guinness may be doing a brown face appearance as an Arab leader, but I’ll just salute the performance.  A charming actor of grand, yet subtle, skill.  I’m glad I’ve discovered him all over again from beyond …River Kwai and Star Wars.

Movies like Lawrence Of Arabia must remain at the top of the broad lexicon of films to watch.  It’s length and scope may be challenging, but its edits, its score, its immense visuals, and the performances therein, are unmatched by most anything else available to watch. 

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s an irony to John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy.  At first, the film centers on a Texas bumpkin eager to relocate to New York City and succeed as a hustler.  Upon his arrival though, he could not appear any more virginal.  The cowboy’s name is Joe Buck, portrayed by Jon Voight in his Oscar nominated breakthrough role.

The first act of the film follows Joe on his long cross country bus ride.  He’s dressed in his finest country western shirt, stitched with floral patterns.  He’s got his black leather cowboy boots and of course the cowboy hat.  His origin bred Texas twang completes his image.  He meets a variety of comers and goers on the bus and then finally he reaches his destination. 

Schlesinger’s camera follows Voight as he treks through the city.  A man is passed out (heck, maybe he’s dead) on the street in broad daylight.  My Cinemaniac pals that I watched the film with noted how it’s funny that the streetwalkers don’t take one look at the poor fellow.  Rather they’re looking at Joe’s get up as he clearly stands out among the masses. Joe is the only one looking at the guy on the street.

Interspersed within Joe’s travels and entry into the city are quick flashbacks to where he stemmed from.  It does not look like a favorable upbringing spent with his grandmother.  There are flashes of Joe being victimized by possible sodomy.  There also appears to be a gang rape that he might have participated in.  None of it is made completely clear.  Though, it is evident that Joe has been trying to escape that environment for good. 

Eventually Joe encounters a sleazy, squat fellow who calls himself Rico Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), addressed by others as Ratso.  Joe is so naïve that he’ll trust Ratso to get him some action where he can earn some money.  In exchange, Joe is completely willing to surrender the cash in his wallet.  He’ll learn from that mistake once he’s drained of everything but a few coins, locked out of his hotel room he can’t pay for and denied of his cow skinned suitcase that contains his possessions.  Eventually, he has no choice but to live in a condemned tenement building with Ratso. Joe Buck is about to lose a second virginity as he experiences how hard it is to live within the city.  He’ll also realize the value of friendship as he sees no choice but to take care of Ratso who is very sick.  Hoffman’s appearance shockingly changes as Ratso’s health submits to a harsh, unknown illness.  The sweat all over his face is palpable.  The chilling, sickly feeling he exudes is clearly felt.

Waldo Salt’s award-winning script, based upon a novel by James Leo Herlihy, explores the good nature found within two different walks of life despite the dodgy pasts that follow them. Ratso and Joe are one of the oddest couples in cinematic history.  There’s no way these two would want to be together unless one was trying to take advantage of the other or one was left with his guard down, open to being taken for and deceived.   Jon Voight has a tall youthful stature, a handsome man.  Dustin Hoffman is scrawny and significantly shorter with greasy hair, an uneasy limp and a weird squawk to his voice.  The often-times method actor seems to make himself increasingly hideous. 

Perhaps I needed to see Midnight Cowboy at the time of its release.  It surprises me the film merited the prestigious accolades it collected, including Oscars for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay.  The two actors also received Oscar nominations.  It remains an honest film of its time in the year 1969.  Yet, it is disturbing and ugly too as it captures the seedy side of New York with experimental drug use and Joe’s victimization for sex.  He gets ripped off by who he thought was a kind woman (Sylvia Miles) looking for an intimate evening with his hustler capabilities.  Later, he’ll surrender himself to a man looking for oral pleasure in a movie theatre.  It’s not the typical glamourous epic of a Hollywood yesteryear.  In fact, for a time it was the only film to be recognized for winning Best Picture with an X rating.

The celebration of Midnight Cowboy’s achievements falls upon the relationship between Joe and Ratso.  Had Joe not been so naïve to how lowlifes operate and had Ratso not become so ill, yet welcoming to Joe when he needed a place to stay, then a friendship would not have gradually developed. 

The ending to Schlesinger’s film is touching, though sad.  As the story began, it also ends on a bus heading towards a new destination – another new way of life, different from what Joe experienced in small town Texas or New York City.  The two characters sit together in the back seat and the other passengers eventually observe them like they had on Joe’s first journey.  Either individually or together Ratso and Joe are simply strange to any sort of environment.  Yet, they’ll learn from each other and that’s where Midnight Cowboy triumphs.