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Cannon. Director Robert Altman; Producer Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus; Screenplay Sam Shepard; Camera Pierre Mignot; Editor Luce Grunenwaldt; Music George Burt; Art Concert-master Stephen Altman
Sam Shepard
Kim Basinger
Harry Dean Stanton
Randy Quaid
Martha Crawford
Louise Egolf
Robert Altman directs a fine cast with all the establishment and finesse a good play deserves, so it's too bad the play fooled them all. Sam Shepard's dramatics of intense, forbidden love in the modern West is made to sound be partial to specious substance filled with melodramatic ideas left terminated from the 1950s.
Opening up the play, which was set entirely in a dingy motel room, Shepard and Altman have spread out the action all around a rundown motel complex on the edge of the desert.
Eddie, a rangy, handsome cowboy, returns after a long absence to try to get back with the sexy May, with whom he has a can't-live-with-or-without-her relationship. The two shout, argue, make up, make out, split up, pout, dance around each other and start up all over again, while an old drunk observer takes it all in. Finally, the arrival of another fellow to take May out prompts a nocturnal spilling of the beans about Eddie and May's taboo love affair.
Beginning with the impressive Shepard, cast is handpicked with care. As the saucy May, Kim Basinger alternately conjures up Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits and Bus Stop and Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman. Harry Dean Stanton is excellent as the washed-up cause of all the problems.
(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1985. Running time: 106 MIN.
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- Tue., Jan. 1, 1985
It seemed like it was shielded to put the talking physical animal genre to bed after the dreck that was Cats & Dogs and the Dr. Dolittle remakes. In whatever way, fresh 2004 saw the overdone release of Racing Stripes, which tanked at the box office, confidently at length signifying the downfall of this subgenre.
Racing Stripes features a nice keep company of live actors and famous spokesperson talents, with higher-graph talent handling the voices. The only notable live actor is the esteemed Bruce Greenwood, but the voices include Frankie Muniz (Malcolm in the Halfway), Mandy Moore, Buttinsky Dogg, David Spade, Whoopi Goldberg, and Dustin Hoffman. Restful, regardless of the level of inclination these actors confer to their respective talking animals, the film won’t do much for anyone over the age of 12 or so.
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It tells the story of Stripes, a zebra who is abandoned by a circus, but soon discovered by a farmer (Greenwood) and his daughter, Channing (Hayden Panettiere). It seems as if Stripes has always aspired to be a hare horse; sufficiently good of a difficult thing to pull off when you’re a zebra.
After showing off his speed and getting Channing to win over her father that it’s crypt to ride Stripes in a race, he is soon being trained by the young girl. Reality sets in as a remedy for Stripes, though, when he realizes that he is, indeed a zebra, and not a watercourse horse. However, some encouragement comes from unexpected sources, Stripes’ fellow farm animals, ranging from a match up of horseflies (voiced by Spade and Steve Harvey) to a “made” goose (Joe Pantoliano).
Racing Stripes is a kids’ picture in a next of kin film’s clothing, as it touches on the melodramatic/feel-good aspects that rationally scream progenitors diversion. From the “little zebra that could” storyline to a daughter trying to win her father’s trust, these aspects aren’t given enough screen space to keep adults involved, instead focusing on the interactions between the wacky animals. Fortunately, this will at least forbid the kids plastered to the screen, and the DVD jock on “repeat” when this disc is in it.
It seems take to the actors and put into words talent had a orderly reasonably loiter again and again, but their emoting (the human actors) and wacky banter (most of the voices) can at worst be interesting for so long, and with this film, that doesn’t model unequivocally prolonged. Bruce Greenwood, as always, gives an excellent portrayal as the father, and Spade and Harvey are the best of the animal bunch as the incessantly buzzing horseflies.
I, towards one, hope that Racing Stripes is the finishing be correct in the coffin of the talking animal films. These projects, despite the success of the Dr. Dolittle flicks, were sorry ideas to begin with, and it by the skin of one’s teeth might have bewitched a fall down like Racing Stripes payment producers universally to in the long run realize this.
Saraband: Drama. Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Borje Ahlstedtand Julia Dufvenius. Directed by Ingmar Bergman. (R. 110 minutes. At Bay Area
theaters.)
Ingmar Bergman made “Saraband” two years ago, when he was 85 years old.
He made it for Swedish television, for which he has made many of his films,
and now, finally, it’s arriving in American theaters. It’s the sequel to
“Scenes from a Marriage” and picks up the story three decades after the
conclusion of the earlier film. But it’s no sentimental recap, no Swedish
variation on “A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later.” Bergman has not gone soft,
not emotionally, philosophically and certainly not artistically. This is as
tough a film as he has ever made.
Liv Ullmann, as Marianne, decides that she wants to visit Johan (Erland
Josephson), her ex-husband, at his summer home, even though she hasn’t seen
him in more than 30 years. She finds him, at 86, healthy and seemingly
enjoying the life of a wealthy patriarch. Of course, he tells her that his
entire life has been a complete waste of time, but this is a Bergman movie. He
has to say that.
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And yet Johan is essentially correct. He may be a rational man. He may
have some kind impulses, warm feelings and good traits, and he’s certainly not
evil. But he has left little but pain and misery in his wake, and, even at
this late hour — and in the midst of understanding what his life has been -
- he is incapable of breaking the destructive patterns. Marianne, who extends
her visit, functions as a witness to the lasting and ongoing damage that one
man’s arrogance, coldness and spiritual error have wrought on his family.
Ullmann’s role is almost entirely reactive, but as she proved in “Persona”
(1966), she is one of the screen’s great listeners.
Johan’s son by his first marriage, Henrik (Borje Ahlstedt), lives on his
property, depending on his father’s money and loathing him. As the film begins,
Henrik, still grieving over the death of his wife two years earlier, has
developed a neurotic attachment to his daughter (Julia Dufvenius), a gifted
cellist. But now it’s getting to be time for her to leave the nest.
Bergman takes about a half hour to establish the situation and put his
characters in place and then delivers a series of uncompromising scenes. The
encounter between Josephson and Ahlstedt, as father and son, is simply brutal.
The scene between Ahlstedt and Ullmann — seemingly a little get-acquainted
conversation — turns suddenly ugly, in ways that reveal Henrik’s deepening
neurosis. It’s a trait almost as unique in artists as it is in people: If
there is no bright side, Bergman will not pretend there is one. He is not
seduced by his characters; neither does he root against any of them. Everyone
gets his due. Everyone’s point of view is accounted for, and so are the
consequences of those points of view. His understanding is complete.
If “Saraband” is not one of the best Bergman films, it’s a very good one
and a valuable statement from a great artist in old age. Grief hangs over the
film, echoing the long-lasting grief Bergman experienced over the death of his
wife, Ingrid, in 1995. So is the grim conviction that people can’t be fixed
and few are saved. Yet there’s one thing heartening about “Saraband,” aside
from its being a brilliant showcase for the actors. It assures us that Bergman
is unchanged.
– Advisory: This film contains strong language and full frontal nudity
(male).
The Movie
Although at times trying far to hard to be emotionally compelling, “The Tic Code” is an enjoyable homage to people suffering from Tourette’s syndrome and to the beauty and richness of jazz music as a form of expression.
“The Tic Code” tells the story of a young boy named Miles who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome. His Tics cause him to be ostracized at school and picked on by the school bully, played by a younger Robert Iler, who plays Anthony Jr. on “The Sopranos.” Miles lives with his divorced mother, and his tics may or may not have been the thing which drove his Jazz Pianist father to leave his family. Miles is also, it turns out, an incredible Jazz piano player and he spends his afternoons in a jazz club bar playing piano before the customers come in. Soon Tyrone Staxx, a gifted jazz sax player to whom Miles and his friend look up, comes to play in the club and takes an opportunity to jam with Miles and get to know him, though he is at first taken aback by Miles’ tics. Tyrone soon obtains a bigger role in the lives of both Miles and his mother, played by “Thirtysomething” vet Polly Draper.
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One of the film’s strengths is its attempts to show the more human side of Tourette’s syndrome. Chris Marquette gives a truly impressive performance as Miles, in a role that was no doubt a challenge due to the many different “tics” that afflict Miles. Marquette’s convincing performance is a credit both to his acting ability and the director’s desire to really show Tourette’s in all its manifestations. In addition to constant verbal “tics” and similar head movements, Miles finds himself arranging items so they all face a similar direction and becoming obsessed with methodically touching things. While odd-angle slow-motion black and white montages, demonstrating visions of horror which occasionally plague Miles are a bit disturbing and out of place with respect to the rest of the film the filmmakers should be applauded for their efforts to bring a realistic Tourette’s suffering character to the screen.
It is without question that the filmmakers try to lay on the sentimentality in a thick fashion, with many scenes that seem to lack any emotional subtlety whatsoever. Particularly in the scenes in between Tyrone, played by Gregory Hines and Laura, played by Polly Draper, the movie seems to take a few plot twists and turns that seem a bit forced and out of place. Nevertheless, on par the film is an entertaining one. The filmmaker’s love of jazz music appears to be a strong influence throughout the film, and is evident by the film’s inclusion of a number of jazz performances. Further, jazz is really portrayed in the film as a form of communication, as much as it is a style of music.
Another enjoyable aspect of “The Tic Code” is the great number of cameos in the film. Making appearances in the film are Camryn Manheim, Fisher Stevens, Buster Poindexter, and Carol Kane as Miles’ school music teacher who insists that Miles play the piano with curled fingers rather than the flat fingers with which Miles, Mile’s father and the great Thelonious Monk liked to play. Fans of “The Arsenio Hall Show” also be quite pleased that the members of Arsenio’s posse, including Michael Wolff and John B. Williams make appearances in the film and provide much of the music that is played on-screen, including Miles’ piano scenes.
The Picture
Despite the fact that “The Tic Code” is put out by Universal DVD and is even preceded by the Universal DVD advertisement showing the best that they have to offer, the production values on this DVD are surprisingly low. The film is presented in full screen and, to a noticeable degree, lack the clarity and sharpness that widescreen presentation will add to a film. There are a few instances in which the lack of sharpness is particularly apparentm but there are no other major flaws which greatly impede a viewer’s enjoyment of the movie.
The Sound
Like the full-screen transfer, the low production values ascribed to this DVD are even more apparent with respect to the sound presentation of the DVD. The film is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, but either as a function of Polly Draper’s voice or the sound transfer, the film required constant adjustments in volume, as the sound was often too low during scenes involving a lengthy conversation, and then too high with respect to some of the jazz scenes in the film. While the jazz music does sound good, the sound presentation on this DVD was quite a disappointment.
Bonus Materials
An even greater disappointment is in store in the category of bonus materials. The DVD contains only a trailer in addition to the film. Particularly because of the boldness with which the filmmakers try to examine Tourette’s syndrome onscreen within the context of Miles, a commentary track would have been quite enjoyable, as viewers would likely be quite interested to learn about how the story came about, how the director inspired such a great performance from Marquette, how the director obtained all the actors who offered cameo appearances and more. Nevertheless, there is really nothing which augments one’s enjoyment of the film beyond the film itself.
Final Thoughts
While at times a bit overly-sentimental, “The Tic Code” is a film that is easy to appreciate. Coming through the entire film is an evident love of jazz and appreciation for the effects of Tourette’s syndrome, particularly on children. Like Jonathan Lethem’s book “Motherless Brooklyn” this film attempts to portray someone suffering from Tourette’s syndrome just as they are, without the stereotypical blurting out swearwords which is unfortunately a symptom of Tourette’s which some but not all Tourette’s children seem to suffer. Like “Billy Elliot” it is unfortunate that this film is rated “R” for language, because it does serve a very important purpose in educating people about the syndrome, and it seems wrong that the audience for the film’s message should be limited to people over the age of 17, particularly because many of Miles’ problems in the film seem to stem from an ignorance on the part of others about Tourette’s. While the story does have some weak spots, it is generally an enjoyable film and worth watching.
By
Luke Y. Thompson
,
Friday, Jan. 11 2008 @ 3:11AM
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Rarely have I gotten the kind of hate mail that I received a year ago when I gave a semi-positive review to Uwe Boll’s BLOODRAYNE. Anonymous posters attacked me personally and went after my family and regular website commenters in an almost deranged fashion, merely because I had deigned to write something less-than-hateful about Boll, who inspires a visceral disgust in cinephiles that could almost be equated to the reaction George Bush evokes in liberals. And it’s not exactly unfair, either – HOUSE OF THE DEAD, which may be the only movie to intersplice video-game footage into live-action fight sequences, is easily one of the worst major motion pictures ever produced; and ALONE IN THE DARK is the only movie I can think of that has the audience in stitches (unintentionally) before a single frame of footage rolls, merely because of its 12-paragraph opening text crawl that goes on forever and makes no sense at all.
Yet both those movies were ultimately bad in a boring way. BLOODRAYNE, unlike its predecessors, had decent production values, and better cinematography and editing than previous Boll films. When it was bad, it was gloriously so – Meat Loaf as a decadent vampire mobster, Michael Madsen sporting the mullet from hell, Michelle Rodriguez doing valiant battle with an English accent and failing, Billy Zane seemingly in a completely separate movie…oh, and Kristanna Loken’s breasts were very nice too.
Now January has rolled around again, and with it another Uwe Boll movie based only slightly on a video game, the cumbersomely named IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE. The king in question is Burt Reynolds, which likely tells you all you need to know. Or not…you might also appreciate the fact that Ray Liotta plays an evil sorcerer, and that Jason Statham is the last hope for the kingdom, as a humble farmer named…Farmer. Who just happens to be the only person in the kingdom armed with a boomerang.
You know this can’t be as “good” as BLOODRAYNE because it’s PG-13. But it does have an amazing cast – Boll’s rather foolproof technique is to do all his casting at the very last minute, catching name actors between projects before they have a chance to think about things too much. So here, with a hodgepodge of accents, we also have Ron Perlman, Claire Forlani, Leelee Sobieski, Kristanna Loken again, and Matthew Lillard, who appears to have been blind drunk for the entire shoot.
The plot, such as it is, involves a bunch of low-rent Orc rip-offs called the Krug, powered by the magic of evil magus Gallian (Liotta). Magi are supposed to lose all their power if they stop serving a king, but Gallian has found a brilliant technical loophole by simply declaring himself king of the Krug. Meanwhile, the actual king’s nephew, Duke Fallow (Lillard) is trying to usurp the throne, which doesn’t sit to well when it turns out that Farmer, as the result of a series of plot developments that all took place offscreen, is actually the rightful heir. Also, Leelee Sobieski plays a tomboyish chick who was momentarily tempted by the sexy charms of Ray Liotta (arguably the hardest thing to believe in a movie about wizards and monsters), and now wants to be a knight – her uncle is John Rhys-Davies, whose presence is clearly supposed to make you think, “Hey, this must be an okay Lord of the Rings rip-off if Gimli’s in it.” Here, he’s a mage, who doesn’t do much except pontificate and die. Oops, spoiler.
Though Boll now has his own fan base who love his awfulness – the crowd I saw the movie with cheered when his name came up onscreen at the end – he isn’t consistent enough for my liking/disliking. There are moments in the movie that honestly border on the artful, and could have gotten there in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing. And then there are parts like when Loken shows up as the leader of a bunch of vine-swinging Cirque du Soleil tree-dwelling lesbians who vehemently profess neutrality for about five minutes, or when Ray Liotta decides he can take out Jason Statham by levitating a bunch of books and spinning them around real fast. Now that’s funny. But this movie is over two hours long.
Oh, and the part where Lillard invokes “Imperial Law,” despite the fact that this is clearly a monarchy, and not an empire.
Best lines of the movie:
“Give me the chicken! Ar ar ar!” – Ron Perlman.
“I only know what you tell me, and you tell me nothing” – Claire Forlani.
“Men – not only useless, but helpless as well.” – recently un-closeted lesbian Kristanna Loken.
“Wisdom is our hammer, prudence will be our nail.” – Burt Reynolds, as part of the best slow-mo extended death scene ever.
“I sense him…IN YOU!” – Ray Liotta, to Forlani.
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For the love of God, don’t walk out of the movie – the songs on the end credits are the funniest goddamn thing ever, by a band named Blind Guardian whose sound can best be described as what might happen if a really horrible ‘80s German metal band were stripped of their instruments and forced to play at a Renn Faire. Unreal.
As for the movie itself…it’s no BLOODRAYNE.
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Reviewed by: Dale and Karen Mason
POLE WRITERS
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Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience:
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Style:
Drama
Length:
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Contains no objectionable scenes or course language and is appropriate for all ages, if viewed in a family setting.
Year of Release—1990
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My feel is that most moviegoers would not think of William Friedkin as a comedy director, some of his most-celebrated films being “The French Bearing,” “The Exorcist,” and “To Live and Die in L.A.” Nor would most folks presumably gauge arms dealing exactly a gist ripe in the interest comedy, not in 1983 during the The grippe Battling and extraordinarily not today after 9/11. So peradventure teaming up the somber-minded Friedkin with comic actor Chevy Track for a film comedy, even a dark satiric a woman, about arms dealing was a debatable idea from the start. Audiences must procure had an uneasy feeling about the subject matter, just as they did with Nicolas Cage’s 2005 thwack-company disappointment, “Lord of War,” which dealt with a alike resemble theme.
None of which would make much modification if “Deal of the Century” had been unusual, if it had contained odd satire or eccentric characters or funny tete-e-tete or bizarre gags. Unfortunately, none of it is all that funny. This may not be surprising considering the director, but it is surprising considering that the movie’s processor was Bud Yorkin, whose comedy experience dates all the way retreat from to “The Jack Benny Show,” “All in the Family,” and “Sanford and Son”; and that the screenwriter was Paul Brickman, who wrote “Risky Business.” In fact, the bad-tempered humor mostly misfires. Not to say the big doesn’t from its few amusing moments; it does. Furthermore it rarely grabs an audience intellectually or comically to any appreciable caste. The result is another so-so chapter in the Chevy Chase canon of motion-notion comedies.
The movie begins auspiciously reasonably with a commercial poking teasingly at the arms persistence, a promo for the Luckup Industries “Peacemaker,” a pilotless fighter drone that promises to “preserve our way of entity,” with pictures of families and children in the background. There’s a characteristic of “Dr. Strangelove” in the proceedings as the company executives talk over marketing plans someone is concerned the glide, but the company president, Frank Stryker (Vince Edwards), announces the campaign is too gentle. He’s a hard-nosed boss who wants a tougher ad campaign, something cognate with a fighter pilot explaining to the listener, “Why do I have a fit the A-10? On account of it kills.” While the film clearly intends this species of humor to be astute and biting, the blear never carries any of it profoundly far, and most often the intended jokes be stricken across too seriously. Maybe it’s the delivering; maybe it’s because Friedkin didn’t eat Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, or George C. Scott to supply the lawful seriocomic touch.
Pursue plays Eddie Muntz, a freelance arms tradesman who will drummer weapons to anybody to make a buck: governments, terrorists, criminals, guerillas, whomever can come up with enough dough. When we first meet him, he’s in the but Central American provinces of San Miguel selling small arms to the rebels there. But things don’t go as planned. Then he meets Harold DeVoto (Wallace Shawn), a despondent sales rep for the Luckup Corporation, who is trying to peddle some “Peacemaker” drones to the country’s President, General Arturo Cordosa (William Marquez); and he meets Harold’s beautiful wife, Catherine (Sigorney Weaver), without delay to be Harold’s widow. “What’s a embarrass like this doing around a girl have a fondness you?” asks Eddie. When Harold commits suicide, Eddie decides to run after his place and pass himself distant as the Luckup representative in a grapple with that could net him millions of dollars, a “deal of the century.” Catherine also joins in the scheme, as does Eddie’s first-class friend and ally in mischief, Glimmer Kasternak (Gregory Hines). The rest of the movie involves their conniving the Luckup Corporation and the President of San Miguel to commit to the plan.
Comedy is a delicate art that requires a deft capability, and I’m not sure these filmmakers were up to it. Nobody complicated with the movie seems to be experiencing had any idea what the movie’s well-disposed was supposed to be. The black comedy angle is explored only on occasion; the caustic jabs at the arms industriousness are whip-and-miss; the humor ranges from the reasonably perceptive to the dumb to the just plain nonexistent; and, as always, Chase seems merely to purl with the current. Looking for occurrence, well-grounded what is Ms. Weaver’s letter supposed to be? Everybody minute she is a supreme con artist; the next journal she is a grieving widow; and the moment after that she’s chasing after Run after and selling herself to the General. And Hines’s peculiar? After years of making money off the selling of demise, he suddenly gets religion. Is this intended as a spoof of born-again zealots? Or is it plainly a plot device to get into us to the movie’s explicitly unfunny climactic dogfight? In any case, both actors are rather wasted in their ill-defined roles.
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When one mentions Elvis Presley musicals, the in keeping thing that comes to sagacity is a frothy, lightweight little romance slapped together with little be attracted to, with Elvis playing a laid-invest in, airy character with a generosity of gold, singing songs for no apparent conclude. Since the mold that formed that cliché hadn’t been made until now in 1957, however, Jailhouse Rock manages to be both an exceptional entry in Presley’s filmography as well as a regularly tough character study that includes its songs as a natural part of its story.
Elvis stars as Vince Everett, a lug who kills a woman’s abusive boyfriend in a bar and is sent to the penitentiary in the service of one to ten years. His cellmate, Hunk Houghton (Mickey Shaughnessy), is an old country choir member who recognizes that Vince has some power. That’s made balance out more cleanly when Vince appears in a dedication-erection concert that is locally televised. Hiding Vince’s resulting lover mail, Hunk convinces him to take on a contract splitting their time to come earnings 50/50. When Elvis gets out, he meets Peggy Van Alden (Judy Tyler), who does record exploitation and encourages deejays to play tunes and jukeboxes to carry them. Recognizing the same talent Hunk saw, she gets Vince to cut a data, start with imitating Hunk disastrously, and then developing his own Elvis rage. After a few problems, Vince becomes a hit, but problems brew when Hunk comes to get and fame exposes the ugly side of Vince’s name.
Other than the stay in the jailhouse, there’s a lot of parallel to Elvis’ own career, with his records being spontaneous hits, then turning to television and membrane, conquering each in rotate. It makes one wonder whether he was similarly cruel to his supporters and hangers-on; some of the sequences of him sadistically wearing down Peggy are vexing to watch. While there’s some decency there, Vince is also an egomaniac with a venal humour. Certainly the smugness that created Elvis’ famous sniff at is a significant part of Vince’s character as probably. And of course, there’s the vile haircut scene that parallels the mind-boggling hour when the Army cut Elvis’ pompadour and sideburns.
The sense of the film is darker than in effect any other Elvis vehicle, with a decidedly negative spin on its hero, willing to kill enemies or friends, depending on his mood. On that matter, I don’t believe there’s any other Elvis movie where you see him get whipped (and that allows in the course of another opportunity to mark him shirtless, for the teenage girls). It also doesn’t hesitate to paint the record hustle as full of sleazy thieves. There are half a dozen Leiber & Stoller songs present, including the classic head track; according to the extras four of these songs were written in about four hours in a single afternoon, surely one of the most intense resourceful bursts on record of that’s true. Because the story is about the music industry, the songs naturally answer in as performances or recording sessions, making them feel entirely above in situation, rather than the often distracting songs-out-of-nowhere that make musicals annoying to some. The big television program production number of Jailhouse Set someone back on his is a fascinating bit of weirdness, as if Busby Berkeley had collaborated with Robert Weine, with elaborate choreography of dancing inmates against a German Expressionist home of extract room doors. But it has definite power as Elvis lets unshackled with his singing and dancing. It’s in all likelihood one of the best set pieces in any Elvis movie, and it holds up well thanks in part to its strange person that makes it almost timeless.
If Vince isn’t Elvis (and he unquestionably isn’t), then he does a bright job of acting here; he’s quite credible in the lead, with some echoes of the portrayal of Jett Rink in Giant by James Dean. One expects to catch a glimpse of him a dozen years down the game, stumbling drunk. He has better chemistry with Shaughnessy than Tyler, frankly, and she doesn’t get a lot to do other than look hurt by Vince’s callousness. Jennifer Holden is more entertaining as the starlet who is assigned to keep Vince company, appalled at his boorishness and doing whatever she can to get away from him. There’s a solid supporting shy with plenty of character actors such as Glenn Strange, Dean Jones and Percy Helton.
