filmandcinemapuritans

The worst kid movie ever made was probably 1993’s SUPER MARIO BROTHERS. The film tried to take the beloved video game that millions of kids held close to their hearts and try to modernize and simplify it that it would make sense to adults. The original video game nothing technical is explained; two plumbers are trapped in a fantasy world with killer mushrooms, turtles and dragons. What makes this the worst kid movie ever is that the filmmakers actually implemented technology with the characters; in the game, “Mario” or “Luigi” would touch a magic flower and be able to throw fireballs, in the film the plumbers were equipped with realistic flamethrowers. In addition to that, in the game the plumbers can jump extremely high, but of course in the film version, that had to be explained as well, so the plumbers had mechanical leg braces to make the Olympic athletes. The acting is horrible as the characters are completely miss-cast. Not saying that following people aren’t good actors but with the material given there was just so little they could do. British Bob Hoskins and Puerto Rican John Leguzamo are cast as the Italian plumber brothers and to their credit tried their best to even make the film viewable. But with this kind of a film we needed an over-the-top actor to play the Villain, enter: Dennis Hopper who basically played the same guy in WATERWORLD a couple of years ago. Throw in a lot of colored lights, am extremely expensive set and a ton of pyrotechnics and you have a physical mess on celluloid.  This film is a snooze fest for kids and a gut wrenching punch in the stomach for adults. The result: EVERY kid that loved the original NINTENDO game HATED this movie. This is probably the worst kid movie ever.

Okay, I have a review of an actor this time an actor that I never liked until I saw his performance in a small 1991 film called FINAL ANALYSIS, I am talking about the notorious Eric Roberts. My stereotype of him started when I saw him in the Mickey Rourke film THE POPE OF GRENWICH VILLAGE. He played the brother of star Mickey Rourke and I felt his performance was in a word: whiney and aggravating. The next film I saw him in was the Jon Voight prison film RUNAWAY TRAIN in it where Eric Roberts stars as Jon Voight’s partner in crime as they escape a maximum-security prison. In that film he plays a very annoying henchman who again is extremely whinny. So those films to me paint him to be the same kind of actor throughout, not saying those films were bad in any respects but Eric Roberts kept repeating phrases through out each film to get particularly under anyone’s nerves (“They took my thumbs Charlie! Or “Manny!”)

            Then the 1990’s happened and to contrast his sister, he began to be type cast as the heavy/villain.

However, in FINAL ANALYSIS, the part he played actually showed the synergy he had for playing the part of Jimmy Evans, the bad guy.

There is a part in the film where Kim Basinger who plays the part of Roberts’s wife has a confrontation with the evil Roberts. The scene takes place in a bathroom where Roberts has just taken a bath and by a few choice words in a dialogue and subtle glances he forces Basinger to be submissive and to perform a sexual act on him. Then later there is a scene between the two of them in a restaurant where Roberts delivers some of the best lines of the film, discussing the meal that they are eating. The scene is stellar acting school stuff. The film did get poor notices but I feel that it is a solid thriller after all these years, and if you look close enough you’ll see that most of the supporting parts are played by big stars of today (Uma Thurman from KILL BILL, Paul Guiloyle from CSI). Mr. Roberts I apologize greatly for calling you stereotypical, whinny and annoying, you have the power to control a scene which is a crucial for any actor. Mr. Roberts’s most recent credit is that of playing Thompson on NBC’s HEROES.

On a side note his daughter is an actress as well, Eliza Roberts and starred in such films as NANCY DREW(2007).

A very underrated action/thriller is from 1993 and it has a great ensemble cast: JUDGEMENT NIGHT. A little movie came out of nowhere in the year of 1993, where a group of friends played by Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Stephen Dorff and Jeremy Piven got to a boxing event. On the way to the match the group take a wrong turn in the wrong neighborhood; this results in them witnessing a gang murder played by the villainous Dennis Leary as the mob boss. This lights the fuse for the whole film where Dennis Leary and crew, plan to eliminate the witnesses, and the friends have only one option…run! Throughout the film the bad guys obsession goes further and further as all they want is to destroy the friends. The chase goes through a train yard, the city streets, an apartment building, to the sewer to a shopping market. The friend’s relationships change and some become heroes and some become villains, this film is a great character study. I recommend this film because of some great scenes, EXCELLENT acting and a film that you just can’t turn off. There is an incredible scene between Denis Leary and Jeremy Piven, this is forgotten film that is no doubt incredible to watch.  

HALLOWEEN REMAKE People have been asking me, why do I pick on the Rob Zombie remake of HALLOWEEN so much, and my answer is simple: THE FILM SHOULD NOT OF BEEN MADE AND IT SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN MADE BY A SO CALLED HORROR FAN.  Okay this blog has major spoilers about this film (and I use that term lightly) so if you still want to see it stop reading right now.  I give Rob Zombie the credit for actually having the stones to attempt a remake of the horror classic (or a horror movie that is a staple of 70’s horror), having said that I would think, on behalf of the horror movie fans and the legacy of the character of Michael Meyers (a 007 of horror) he would’ve respected the fundamentals of what made the character so unique. The basics of Michael Meyers is his fluid movement, the infamous breathing and most of all his mystery, the motive of him doing evil things is never really revealed. That brings us to the opening of the remake: We find Michael Meyers being a slightly obese little kid who likes to hurt small animals. We then discover that he has a step dad (we don’t know who Michael Meyers father is and we never find out, great opportunity not taken); played by William Forsythe and his mother who is an exotic dancer played compassionately by Sherri Moon (Rob Zombie’s wife). He has two sisters (like in the original), one is much older and the other is only an infant (which is revealed in HALLOWEEN 2), it seems like the quiet and shy, Michael Meyers has affection for the young infant girl. So at this point the events that carry out in the remake are similar to the events in the original, but the remake of course elaborates more (because Rob Zombie wanted more blood and gore instead of style). Michael Meyers is ready to go Trick or Treating but his sisterSo based on what is presented here, the motivation for Michael Meyers to turn into the penultimate evil serial killer is his father is dead, his step father is a degenerate, his sister is a slut and his mother is a stripper. This result is weak and poor character development that does not justify the means.            The actual instances in the film such as the brutal over the top violence fest of a beginning lends little or no credence of the legacy Michael Meyers. The fact that the kid actually puts on the adult size Michael Meyers mask made me want to just leave the movie theater and demand my money back. Michael Meyers kills people and kills people and kills more people, to what else but classic rock (thanks Rob Zombie, I really want to think of RUSH as Michael Meyer is stabbing someone). Plus the injection of all of Rob Zombie’s stock characters: Bill Mosley, Sid Haig, Danny Trejo (Who played actually a great role), Tom Towles, Udo Kier and Clint Howard. Time is another major factor while watching the remake, when we first see the teenage girls walk down the street in “modern day” we try to imagine what “modern day” is, all the cars are less than vintage, one of the characters is wearing a SLAYER shirt, one of the characters has a cell phone and going back to the childhood Michael Meyers scenes we think we’re in the seventies when it looks like we might only be in the mid eighties, so we don’t know exactly when the time period is. If you are watching a film and you don’t know what decade you’re in, then that film is in trouble.  When Doctor Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) saves the day (sort of), he does the most clichéd thing any horror movie character does, he takes a “pause” so that the killer could pop up again to kill again; you would think that after Doctor Loomis unloads on his killer patient he would save the young girl by throwing her in the car and flooring it to Canada, not to pause about how he failed in life. If you actually watch the scene again in slow motion, I think Malcolm McDowell didn’t want to do it because he gives the most fakest “sigh’s” I’m ever heard. Which brings me to the point of why was the original ninety minute film just squeezed in too the last forty minutes of the remake. The cliff notes version of the original which was crammed in the last part of the movie was insulting to not only John Carpenter’s classic, but to movie goers everywhere. At that point at act three, I don’t understand why didn’t Rob Zombie just take Michael Meyers to another location or just pinpoint him in the direction of his sister and get this nonsense over and done with. If Rob Zombie would have just stayed with Doctor Loomis in the mental institution and just ended the film where Michael Meyers escaped, then the film might have been an acceptable prequel.   This is a weak, nasty, clichéd, sexist and non-artistic film, Rob Zombie delivered almost a snuff film that could test the ranks of Italian horror movies as the dreadful and tasteless CANNIBAL HOLOCUST.             In Closing HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES was a fresh homage to horror films of yesteryear, THE DEVILS REJECTS was an almost artsy portrayal of obsession and crossing moral lines, HALLOWEEN: THE REMAKE was a cheap way to make some money by exploiting a property that had already been proven to be successful. The fan base was established so nothing new was needed to get people to go see it, so by goring it up to have fans from Rob Zombie’s films would having something to drool over is irresponsible and disrespectful.Mr. Zombie I suggest the next film you make, subtract all the hookers, and rednecks and rejects and pick up an actual screen-writing book to write an original and interesting character. Learn about drama, learn about fundamental story telling and not about how violent you could make something or how naked you get each actress; it’s about the horror of the human mind and what pain makes which character do a certain action. So please, take a breath the next time you sit down to a typewriter and think outside what you have already done and write something original. I do believe Mr. Zombie has talent; I just want him to keep his greasy tattooed arms off my classic horror movies! Side note: CANNIBAL HOLOCUST is probably the worst film I have ever seen, and I do not recommend the film to anyone. What I mean by “worst film” is the film is so vile and putrid that it makes you feel guilty for watching it. The actual actors in the film murder live animals on screen in unsettling ways and at the end of the picture, you just want to know what artful reason was justified to put such real horror on a film screen. The reason was two Italian directors trying to out do each other in the gore and shock factor. I DO NOT recommend CANNIBAL HOLOCUST and in fact if you ever find a copy I suggest burning it. 

The original trailer for the classic film:

My next review is of the mediocre “remake” of PROM NIGHT and my generous support to an up and coming starlet Ms. Brittany Snow.             First the film PROM NIGHT, is in my opinion not a real remake of the original Jamie Lee Curtis, 1980, slasher flick, it has it’s own story, own plot and stands on its own to legs as a horror movie. The fact that it just used the title is a really insulting to its own script and own writer, where he wrote an almost original story which could have gotten it’s own title and not piggyback it’s name and reputation on a 1980’s film With that being said, the film as a whole is not original and is not the most entertaining entry in the remake world. The story revolves around the fabulous Brittany Snow and her friends attend their prom at a ritzy hotel, however Snow’s character has a past stalker who of course infiltrates the party and eliminates more than one of her friends in order to get to her. (MINOR SPOILERS) First, the suspense is taken away completely with the identity of the killer being revealed in the first five minutes of the film, we know whom we’re dealing with, and we know that he’s going to be the machine that has to be dismantled. We establish Snow’s friends and we see their relationships as nothing but a-typical characters that we know are going to be targeted because they have flaws and we have sympathy for them. But as in all slasher flicks, the characters aren’t developed to completion because most of the time, they get a hatchet or a machete embedded in their heads. The film is completely predictable and there is nothing left to the imagination, as the police are all idiots and completely are incompetent, when in reality the killer would have been caught in minutes. My question is how come all the dangerous serious killers somehow manage to escape? I mean they can’t all be geniuses like Hannibal Lecter or possessed by evil like Michael Myers. I mean don’t these prisons or sanitariums have more than one or two guards on duty in the middle of the night and don’t they lock the doors? Anyway this film follows the diagram of slasher movies to a Donald Pleasance/WHEN A STRANGER CALLS ending, to perfection. This is a very clichéd, not original, predictable, stale film where if the writer actually was allowed to use a bit more of his talent he could’ve made a suspenseful, witty killer in a hotel film.            HOWEVER, this film’s abysmal appeal is actually saved by our lead heroine played delightfully by Brittany Snow. She has the appeal of what makes a movie star: charisma, charm, wit, looks, talent and did I mention her looks? She is a young actress who appeared in the drama NIP/TUCK as a fascist teen and she starred in the hit musical HAIRSPRAY. I’m sure we will see her in many films to come and will definitely the next big thing. The following video highlights more of her career goals and her take on PROM NIGHT.

            Ms. Snow, I will be watching you and will be a fan of your for life, please don’t confuse me for the stalker in the film you were just in though.

GENE WILDER MOVIES!!! Here’s an actor from the past, Mr. Gene Wilder star of many classic films, it’s almost a shame that we don’t here about him anymore. Considered like the Jim Carrey of the 70’s here’s an actor that has starred in numerous comedies that became instant classics: YOUNG FRANKENSTIEN, BLAZING SADDLES, THE PRODUCERS (the following have all been Mel Brooks collaborations), WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, and even the murder mystery MURDER IN A SMALL TOWN. Gene Wilder has been semi-retired from the film and television business since 2003 because he wanted to focus more on writing novels and spending time with his family. In 2000 he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and with the help of chemotherapy his cancer has been in remission ever since. This man is a legend and I think we need to revisit some of his films: FRISCO KID and SILVER STREAK.

THE INVASION is another clunker of a remake film from Hollywood. This is the third remake (that I know of) of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. The original film from the 1950’s was very innovative back then and was surefire entertainment, the film in the 70’s had a more realistic tone to it and was very scary, and this one just missed the mark all together. THE INVASION stars Nicole Kidman as a psychologist who discovers that the city she lives in is being taken over by alien beings that take over people’s bodies. The film was short and had some good scenes, including an action sequence on a subway, but the ending of the film (MINOR SPOILER) turns super happy, which just doesn’t make sense to the rest of the film, everything turns out great. This film has no shelf life and is only worth the viewing on cable television. Avoid this film at all costs.

MICHAEL CLAYTON is finally a thriller that doesn’t have a computer-generated monster or many flashing lights that will give you a seizure. A good old fashioned, classic who done it. George Clooney plays the title character as the “go-to-guy” in a prestigious law firm. When one of the partners actually goes insane its up to him to find out the cause of his insanity, his inquires actually lead him down a path of foul play, and he has to find out who wants to kill him now and why. This film has an astounding cast: Tom Wilkinson, Michael O’Keefe, and Tilda Swinton and one of the most entertaining final scenes I’m ever seen in a film. Defiantly worth the viewing if you’re into a great talking heads flick with a great ensemble cast.