My 1/2-Ass Movie Blog

  THIEF James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky, James Belushi. Dir. Michael Mann, United Artists, 1981 Is Michael Mann's first film, 1981's THIEF, better than his 1995 LA Noir epic HEAT? I don't know. Is Canadian whiskey better than bourbon? And does it matter? I took an unplanned 40 year break between viewings of THIEF. I loved it first on Movie Channel in 1982, and fell back in love with my next two watches, ten days ago & yesterday.  Rewarding myself for a few months of budget discipline I treated myself to the Criterion Collection bluray & two-day delivery at the start of March. It's one of the best presents I've given myself. That comes from a guy who has taken delivery of THE GETAWAY, NETWORK, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE CONVERSATION,  MAGNOLIA & HATEFUL EIGHT in the last few weeks. In between, I've rewatched BOOGIE NIGHTS, SEA OF LOVE, THE LAST DETAIL, & DONNIE BRASCO, to give a full basis of comparison. ...

  BRICK Joseph Gordon Leavitt, Emilie de Ravin, Richard Roundtree. Dir. Rian Johnson, Focus Features, 2005 Raymond Chandler was born in 1888. In 1933, a washed-up exec in the oil business, Chandler published his first pulp fiction short. For the rest of his life, Chandler helped invent modern P.I. fiction, as well as what we now generalize as crime noir, with a literary elan suggesting Lawrence or Maugham on their off-days. While Chandler toiled in his now-immortalized Los Angeles, Dashiell Hammett & his P.I., Sam Spade, worked to promote San Francisco's virtues. Though it probably goes without saying, it's hard to imagine either foreseeing a world in which their shared style would forge a literary/filmic template often imitated, frequently parodied, but never replaced - film noir. It is impossible to imagine either envisioning a future in which their filmic champions include both Rian Johnson & Shane Black. According to Ye Olde Internet one of the more popular fan t...

  GATTACA Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Tony Shaloub. Dir. Andrew Niccol, Columbia, 1997 Between 1990 & 1997, Jon Peters & Peter Guber, exec producers of '89's mega-smash BATMAN, ran SONY Studios, releasing no significant hits & a number of notorious bombs over seven years which should have witnessed the hapless team run SONY/Columbia out of business, altogether. During those years Columbia invested in genre:scifi, scifi-horror, horror, including two films riffing on Stevenson's Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. One, 94's MARY REILLY, a literal retelling through the narative view of Jeckyll's Irish maid, flopped in large ways (though I happen to like it.) The other, Andrew Niccol's figuratative retelling involving genetics and faking one's DNA - like faking a piss-test - gained traction & a devout cult audience over the next decade+. Writing about the former film recently, I opined on the nature of Jeckyll's formula allowing him to b...

  TOMBSTONE Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Dana Delany, Powers Boothe, Sam Elliott. Dir. George P. Cosmatos, Hollywood Pictures, 1993 Some history. While our filmic portrait of Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer shifted from silent-era mythmaking like THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON to John Ford's FORT APACHE and later works depicting Custer as a vainglorious fool who led his men to certain, and preventable, massacre at the hands of Sitting Bull and a few thousand angry Sioux warriors, the story of Wyatt Earp & Doc Holliday at the OK Corral has never shed its mythos onscreen, despite telling the story in about every conceivable way. There's good reason for that. Boiled down, the true story suggests the Earps, with or without Holliday, gunned down a group of business rivals, who may/may not have been armed at the time. Evading prosecution, Wyatt Earp went on gilding that lily for the rest of his life, until the saga of the wronged Earp Brothers and their holy crusade became inext...

  JOHN DIES AT THE END Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Fabianne Therese, Clancy Brown. Dir. Don Coscarelli, Magnet, 2012 I first watched JOHN DIES AT THE END in May 2021. I saw a brilliant, self aware satirical scifi-horror movie I thoroughly enjoyed. BUT. SPOILERS!!SPOILERS!! John does not die at the end. He dies halfway through, & not for long. SPOILERS CONCLUDE!!SPOILERSCONCLUDE!! I had a few Jack&Diets that night. My sense of literalism threw a temper tantrum. I threw a tantrum. In the generally forgettable PENN & TELLER GET KILLED Penn&Teller do, in fact, get killed. They die at the end. I expected the same approach from PHANTASM's Don Coscarelli, & he partially delivered, killing John, if not at the end. In a fit of inebriated pique, I wrote the following piece, which my subsequent writeup replaces. JOHN DIES AT THE END is great scifi-horror-satire. Why can't Don Coscarelli get movies made every year? It's a crime. ***** SPOILER ...

 JOHN DIES AT THE  Spoiler alert: He doesn't. Because he doesn't, I'm ignoring all this film's many virtues. I'm ignoring its anarchic sensibility. I'm ignoring its hyper-aware, self-referential humor. I'm ignoring its deliberately-cheesy effects. I'm ignoring Paul Giamatti, who exec produced and gives a terrific performance, and veteran character actor Clancy Brown, who has a great deal of fun. I'm ignoring everything that ought to make me ecstatically recommend this movie. If the title is John Dies at the End and John doesn't die at the end, the best you can say of yourself is that you're too clever for your own good. The worst you can say is that your film is a lie and a failure. John Dies at the End is too clever for its own good. Fail.  SHARE

  LOGAN'S RUN Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Farrah Fawcet Majors, Peter Ustinov. Dir. Michael Anderson, MGM, 1976 "Never trust anyone over 30." -- Abie Hoffman In the 23rd century, according to Michael Anderson's film of LOGAN'S RUN, trusting folks over 30 will not be a challenge because no one lives to see 31. The world has suffered nuclear and environmental cataclysm. All that remains of humanity in the US live in one great city, covered and sealed off from the outside world by massive, opaque domes. Within, this remnant race lives in a sybarritic paradise of pleasure and indolence. Few work. The human body can be remade however people desire with laser surgery. Sex is available in clubs and the home 24/7. Everyone has all the food they want. Everyone has a home. As the onesheet in '76 read, however, "There's just one catch." It's a doozy. A great computer, called only "Computer," runs the city and its citizens...