One Movie to See and Another to Skip (No. 49)

Movie to See #1: Frantic

We all know that most action movies are pretty ridiculous when it comes to the 'reality' of the hero's actions. The hero is either insanely lucky, or else has limitless abilities and/or knowledge that carry him through every impossible obstacle. Frantic is not that kind of action movie. In this movie, Harrison Ford (who is typically either insanely lucky or impossibly skilled) has lost his wife in Paris and he can't find anyone to help him find her. The police and the American Embassy are completely useless, and so this doctor sets out, blindly, to try and locate her captors (all of which is spurned by a mix-up with baggage at the airport). As an English-only-speaking American in a foreign land, that's pretty tough. He stumbles and fumbles about throughout the film, and ultimately has to rely on people with far more experience and local knowledge to help him through to the end. (Unlike a lot of action movies, his bumbling only makes things worse for himself rather than helping him find a lucky break.) It's an interesting take on the typical action hero, and honestly a refreshing change from Ford's typical roles. 

 

The key to this movie really is Harrison Ford. His character is very vulnerable and human, despite the bravery of his actions, and he makes the same kinds of mistakes that anyone would be making if stuck in such a horrible situation. He's left with many MANY difficult choices along the way: when to trust authorities, when to take things into his own hands; when to push, when to give; and of course the palpable sexual tension between Ford's character and his sexy French guide through most of the movie, Emmanuelle Seigner. His character feels very genuine, despite the madness of the world around him, and you can't help but feel his frustration and vertigo along the way. A solid thriller.

Movie to See #2: Red Doors

This is an interesting little independent drama. While billed as a newly retired man's coping with the exposure to the manic lives of his three daughters (having spent very little time with them growing up as a busy doctor), I frankly found 'dad' to be a fairly minor character in the whole thing. Dad is an emotionally drained, depressed, quiet, suicidal man who is struggling to find his center now that the quiet life that he has lead is essentially over. While the small snapshots of his life that we get are surprisingly amusing, despite their incredibly dark nature, we actually spend very little time with him on his journey -- although we do see that a journey is actually taking place. 

 

Truthfully, this is more about the lives of three very different Chinese-American women as they try to overcome a difficult (and unique) hurdle in each of their personal lives. This is, essentially, a trio of love stories told in fragmented, but generally interlocking, vignettes. It's a touching movie, sometimes heartbreaking, but gives great insight into the human experience. 

 

Movie to See #3: Strange Days

I have to get this one off my chest from the very beginning: while I know that I was watching Ralph Finnes in this movie, all I could SEE was Bradley Cooper. Maybe it was the hair? Maybe it's because I had just seen the A-Team. I don't know, but it kind of tripped me out...which was kind of appropriate given the subject matter of the movie, I suppose. 

 

This movie, which came out about the same time as Johnny Mnemonic, feels to me like Kathryn Bigelow's own (and better) cyberpunk nod to William Gibson's Neuromancer. I guess when we're talking about the 2010 Best Director for The Hurt Locker, a brilliant film, I shouldn't be surprised. 

 

Despite technology running amok, there is still a very visceral feel to the movie that keeps things on a deeply human level... something that Johnny Mnemonic can't claim. The idea that people would pay for other people's memories and experiences is just very... telling about our society. After all, isn't that exactly what we're up to when we go to the movies? Borrowing other peoples' imaginations and experiences for a short while? While Strange Days takes that idea to its extreme, it is an interesting commentary... although that commentary is certainly buried in the crime thriller action (but perhaps in a very shallow grave). An interesting movie that is well worth a watch.

 

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Movie to Skip #1: Russia House

I wanted to like this movie, but I just couldn't get into it. This is a cold war "thriller" where an editor from the West (Connery) is trying to make contact with a Russian who is ready and willing to spill the beans about the Soviet Union's actual nuclear capabilities (Pfeiffer). While this could have been an intense spy thriller, it just seemed kind of flat. I didn't feel any real tension, despite the ominous threat of the KGB swooping in to capture Pfeiffer at any minute, and I didn't care about the May-September "relationship" blossoming on the screen. The movie just moved too slowly, and frankly, not enough really happened to keep my interest. 

 

Movie to Skip #2: Dracula II: Ascension

I thought Dracula 2000, while a typical slasher-style vampire movie, had an interesting take on the vampire mythology. While it wasn't necessarily the first vampire story to have Judas play the role of bloodsucker, the imagery and story telling tied in very well to the biblical story, which was kind of interesting. Not a great movie, but there was enough there to keep me thinking and entertained. 

 

Dracula II is the sequel... despite the fact that none of the original actors return... and Dracula has already been killed. So, this direct-to-video movie first has to give us a whole new cast of actors, and then resurrect our vampire so that the movie can begin in earnest. It's pretty tough to get into a movie that spends half of the film trying to make the case for the second film's existence. Throw in the fact that the morons decided to knock off the eye candy (centerfold Brande Roderick) before things even get started, and you really have to question what the geniuses who put this film together were thinking. (Don't get me wrong, Diane Neal - best known as A.D.A. Casey Novak from Law & Order: SVU - is no slouch, but why limit yourself to just one scream queen for the bulk of the movie when you could have had two insanely beautiful women running around in sweat and blood soaked t-shirts? Am I right?!) I mean, duh, they were thinking they could rely on Neal and Rutger Hauer to carry this little bridge piece into a more interesting third movie in Dracula III... but I mean, really? And that's not even mentioning that while I've always like Rutger Hauer - Bladerunner is one of my all-time favorite movies - he doesn't quite pull off the same kind of menacing and internally troubled Dracula that Gerard Butler does in the first movie. 

 

In short, Wes Craven got a little greedy with this little franchise, and it all resulted in a pretty lame movie. While not the worst vampire film I've ever sat through, no amount of money that they could throw at this one could make it anything more than a mere transition flick. It just wasn't very good.

 

Movie to Skip #3: Nightmare Man

While I generally like the the Horrorfest offerings, I can't agree with this movie's selection. The 'twist' plot is so transparent that my dog sighed with frustration within the first twenty minutes of the film. Couple poor writing with some of the worst acting in a b-movie horror film that I've seen in a while, and some laughable special effects, and this one has 'stinker' written all over it. In short, this movie is just bad. Unbelievable. Nonsensical. And a complete and utter waste of your time.
 

40k: Dirty Tricks (No. 14) - Deepstrike by the Numbers

5th edition 40k made deep striking a LOT safer and more productive than earlier editions.  That having been said, however, it is still a scary proposition for most.  Unless there is a locator beacon (or similar functioning device) on the table, many commanders simply won't drop their troops onto the table.  The reality of the matter, however, is that deep striking is really not as dangerous as people think it is.  Take a look at the picture below:

If you click on the picture, you'll see that in this drop pod example (ignoring the guidance system for the moment), you're going to land right on target 33% of the time.  When deploying, you're guys will end up right inside that little green circle with no worries.  50% of the time, you'll land within the yellow circle, which is just about the size of the pod.  And 70% of the time you'll land within the red circle.  Only 30% of the time will you land anywhere in the purple zone.  You have a slightly better chance to land right on target! 

And the same thing is also true for personnel:

Here you've got a vanguard squad that has dropped onto the table.  33% of the time they'll also land on target... 50% of the time they'll land within 5" of their target... 70% of the time within 7" of their target.  For something like vanguard, who can actually charge after they land due to heroic intervention, you've got a damn good chance of landing within range to pull off that charge. 

So, what does this mean in practical application?  Look at it this way...  If you place this same squad just 5" away from your target squad, look at the possible scatter locations below.

Out of all of the possible landing locations, the green areas are spaces where your charge may fail, but your squad will still be safe from mishap.  If the squad lands anywhere in the red area, this means your squad will still be within range to charge the target squad... even if it scatters within that scary 30% range of 7-12" of scatter.  And there is only a tiny area of the possible scatter locations, almost all of which lies outside the 50% scatter distance range, which will actually cause a mishap.

And this is with a regular squad's deep striking ability.  If this was a Blood Angels squad, your full scatter distance would actually be inside the red circle by 1" -- which would allow you to attempt to land even closer to the target squad with less probability of scattering into a dangerous area.

Regardless, I hope the pictures above give a clearer example of just how safe deep striking really is.  The vast majority of the time, you'll probably have a safe landing... provided you pay attention to what else may lie within that circle of scatter, of course.

One Movie to See and Another to Skip (No. 48)

As my backlog of movies to review is growing at a pretty alarming rate, I'll probably be doubling (or tripling, or more!) up on movies for the next month or two.  That means MORE reviews for YOU, and a smaller backlog for me... which is a good thing.  After all, I wouldn't want to forget a movie before I review it or else I'd just have to go back and watch it again.  Ironically I'd have to spend even more time with the more forgettable movies in order to recommend against seeing them in the first place.

Movie to See #1: Hopscotch

Filmed in the 80's during the cold war, this film is certainly becoming more and more dated as time goes by. That being said, however, this is a very light-hearted cat and mouse style movie. Not surprisingly, the big bad beaurocrat is the butt of all the jokes, and the one man he is trying to force into retirement from the CIA is somehow smarter than evryone else in the film and is able to sidestep every attempt to capture him with alarming ease. This is not the Jason Bourne CIA; this is the Keystone Cops with suits and revolvers... yea, revolvers. You won't see any satellite imagery, highly trained assassins, high speed car chases through inexplicably populated European cities that don't have any cops, or techno-gadgetry that would make James Bond petition M for a new Q. It's just Walter Matthau, a typewriter, a few well placed phone calls, and a bag of secret identities that the CIA can't seem to track until the trail has gone ice cold. Frankly, in this movie's version of the CIA, the United States should have been overthrown by a covert movement lead by six monkeys, three hippie minders, and a magic 8-ball. Given the current state of our government and the constant bumblings of the 'brightest' minds in politics who are unable to even fathom the concept of compromise... maybe the magic 8-ball is already in charge. 

 

But I digress... This is a fun movie. Dated, but worth your time if you like Matthau and can suspend disbelief for 90 minutes. 

 

Movie to See #2: Daybreakers

Let's sum up this movie: "Hooray, we're vampires and we've taken over the world! Now what?" I think of this movie as starting at the point where Blade (or a similar themed vampire hunter movie) leaves off if the hero loses. After all, what do you do once you've drained all of the resources necessary to keep you alive, right? This is a very good 'night after' type of movie where the evil overlord (or car manufacturer, or oil company, or insert whatever poisonous vipers you can think of that care less about humanity than an incoming 'planet killer' meteor) gets to face the reality of his success and try to figure out how to deal with the fallout from having won at all costs. 

  

While there are certainly some silly elements to the movie (Dafoe's character had to have been dreamed up as the result of a whiskey and/or drug induced stupor), ultimately it is fairly thought provoking. The message about 'consequences' goes beyond the blood suckers if you bother to look for it, and it feels timely and relatively honest. I like that in a movie. How this was ever classified as a horror movie is beyond me, however. This is an action/drama(?) with a little more gore than most, but still far less overall gore and violence than Rambo (2008).

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Movie to Skip #1: Night Train

What do Leelee Sobieski, Steve Zahn and Danny Glover have in common? That's right, the same thing that a med student, salesman and train conductor have in common: they are all featured in this bizarre little movie -- and that's about it. While the set up is surprisingly decent in this movie (you'll just have to trust me on that one), the movie just doesn't deliver. The characters (and the actors) just don't gel very well, and the plot gets more open ended and nonsensical as time goes by. The movie looks good, but the story is not well written and it's really hard to get into the characters. Steve Zahn in particular proves that he can't play anyone other than Steve Zahn pretending (poorly) to be someone else; and neither Steve Zahn, nor the person he is pretending to be, have any good reason for being on the stupid train in the first place. Glover does a good job, as does Sobieski, but only Glover's character's reactions to the oddities surrounding this story have any apparent depth or sense of genuineness. Sobieski is apparently supposed to be there to be a catalyst for some kind of action by the three main characters... and to strip down to her underwear at the end of the movie... but we never know enough about her character to see her as anything more than a simple plot device. That's disappointing.

  

But what's even worse than the poor character development is that the plot is pretty hard to follow. At no time do we really know what's actually going on in the story. You can see 'surprises' coming from a mile away, but the reason those surprises occur is just completely unexplained. Think of it this way, if you were watching Aliens, and in addition to a scared little girl, Ripley also discovered a "woman" who was clearly a man in drag, and three quarters of the way through the movie the "woman" reveals herself to be a man (which inexplicably takes everyone by surprise), but then gets eaten by an alien before any explanation is given as to why this guy was hiding out in drag... well, then I think you probably get the level of confusion that the 'surprises' of this film have to offer. The plot twists don't really offer anything more than another reason to furrow your brow.

 

This is kind of a dumb movie. I wanted it to be a 'fast paced thriller', but it was really more of a medium-paced head soaking. You're probably better off skipping this one altogether.

Movie to Skip #2: A Dirty Shame

If you read the Netflix reviews, a LOT of folks blame the poor quality of this film on the heavily censored 'network' version of the film available for streaming. And while, generally, I think 'family friendly' censorship can take a lot of wind out of the sails from otherwise decent films on the risque side, censorship is still a pretty lame excuse for what is really just a stupid movie. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I've always found that there is truly no amount of foul language (however funny and inappropriate) that can rescue a stupid plot any more than inserting copious amounts of tits and ass can save a stupid movie (see Showgirls for proof of that one). A lame movie is going to be a lame movie no matter how much the director wants to shock me. I realize that the "shock" is the point of this film, and that removing that element is kind of like taking the xenomorphs out of Aliens. But I don't think I would have bought into it even if the shock was still there. 

 

I suppose my biggest reason for panning this film is probably because I've never been a fan of Tracey Ullman. I don't "get" her any more than I "get" the alleged comic genius of Andy Kaufman. They both annoy me, albeit in different ways, which makes it difficult for me to find redeeming qualities in their work. If you don't feel similarly about Ullman, then maybe you'll feel differently about this film. But trust me, if you feel the same way about her as I do, then you will most definitely dislike this movie. 

One Movie to See and Another to Skip (No. 47)

Movie to See: In the Mouth of Madness

This movie feels like a mash-up of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, although not quite achieving either one. I suppose that makes sense since it's John Carpenter's homage to both of them. And of course since this is a John Carpenter film, you can be rest assured that it has all the elements of a classic camp horror film while staying just this side of pedestrian. Oh, and there are lots of tentacles as well -- another John Carpenter "must." 

 

John Carpenter is one of those directors where his movies are (in my opinion) a hit or a miss without much in between. While he may have tons of devoted fans out there, some of his films are, frankly, crap. He does have a couple of good ones out there, but I generally think of him along the same vein as Ed Wood: his films have an element of "bad" that makes them fun to watch. That having been said, I did enjoy In the Mouth of Madness on its own merits (I didn't know it was a Carpenter film until after I watched it). 

 

Sam Neil does a fantastic job with his role; his slow spiral into madness is compelling and almost as disorienting for the viewer as it is for his character... but in a good way. This film definitely has a Stephen King feel to it, albeit with a LOT of references to the Lovecraft mythos. There is a strange disjointed feel to the storytelling element that is a lot like a King flick (and his novels). You never quite know what's going on, and just about anything can happen because there are no rules as to how the world works. And just when you think you've figured it all out, a tentacled beast jumps out of the closet, or your bowl of Cheerios tries to eat YOU for breakfast. It is an intriguing movie that can really be summed up by a scene very early in. When Neil's character is familiarizing himself with the mysterious writer, Sutter Cain, he slips into a bizarre (and fairly menacing) day dream... which turns out to be within another dream... and another, until you can never quite be sure when he's actually awake and when the strange things going on around him are really occurring. Wait... isn't that one of the driving plot elements to Inception? Hmmm... 

 

Anyway, while this isn't one of the greatest movies ever made, and is really a non-traditional Carpenter flick in many respects, it is still worth a watch. This is definitely a creepy little jaunt down the rabbit hole...

Movie to Skip: Bear

There really aren't a lot of redeeming qualities about this film. It isn't scary, the main plot is sheer nonsense, and there is simply nothing interesting about the underlying "twist." I mean, is this a movie about a renegade man-eating bear, or some kind of twisted redemption story? I don't think the writer knew when he sat down to pen it, and I'm damn sure I don't know now that I've seen it. Sadly, the "twist" adds nothing to this story, as you have already written off all of the characters as too stupid to justify surviving the film by the time the movie bothers to get to it. In fact, I really started questioning the worth of all of these idiots after it took them a half a day to change a friggin' tire. Talk about a car full of dim bulbs...

This is a waste of film. Skip it.