Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Members of the Starship Enterprise sit marooned light years away from home with their vessel destroyed, in possession of an alien Klingon craft, and facing a laundry list of Federation charges. When an alien probe inadvertently begins to destroy Earth due to their inability to contact now extinct whales, the crew travels back in time to the twentieth century to retrieve a pair of cetaceans and end the planetary meltdown. The Voyage Home is a well-filmed, satisfying entry with a ridiculous premise and corny, sometimes amusing screenplay which still ultimately feels like a prolonged episode.

*** out of *****

The Mission

After the martyrdom of one of their own, a Jesuit priest (Jeremy Irons) is sent to the Amazon jungle to bring Christ to the indigenous people and, after converting a stern mercenary (Robert De Niro), finds himself engaging against the Portuguese who have come to exploit the land and cast its people into servitude. Roland Joffe's The Mission contains beautiful cinematography, breathtaking even with great performances from Irons and De Niro and a literate screenplay that doesn't know where to take its story and winds up being muddled and confused.

** 1/2 out of ****

She's Gotta Have It

An individualistic female feebly attempts to balance her love life consisting of three disparate, possessive suitors. Spike Lee's black and white debut feature feels free and breezy for awhile, but grows tiresome and ultimately resembles little more than an early Jarmusch knockoff. It's occasionally funny, with dialogue that leaves a lot to be desired spoken by inept though appealing performers (aside from Lee himself who would have been better off casting someone else). The film is interjected with too many stupid interludes, including a jarring color dance sequence, which indicates there wasn't enough material for a feature, and the material probably would have worked better as a short anyhow.

** 1/2 out of *****

The Mosquito Coast

A brilliant, principled, irascible and uncompromising inventor relocates his browbeaten family from their New England home to the coastal swamps of Honduras where he plans to lead his own empire which will be based primarily on a gargantuan ice generator of his own creation. Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast is tremendously, almost slavishly faithful to Paul Theroux's book (which was adapted by Paul Schrader) but tries to cram in way too much in under two hours (glossing over much in the process), loses momentum, and really drags its heals following the Act 2 climax. Ford is excellent in one of his finest roles, fully embodying his complex, larger than life character, and Helen Mirren and River Phoenix are great per usual.

** 1/2 out of ****

River's Edge

A high schooler strangles his girlfriend and fetches his friends to regard her unclothed, unburied body on the shielded river bank who in turn respond with horror or disinterest and ultimately decide to aid in concealing the crime. River's Edge is a bizarre, tragic, genre bending, purportedly true story featuring an amusingly manic Crispin Glover, a surprisingly appealing Keanu Reeves, and an oddly affecting Dennis Hopper.

*** out of ****

'Round Midnight

The last days of a drug addicted, alcoholic, world weary saxophonist (real life jazzman Dexter Gordon) are spent abroad in Paris where he lives on a tight leash held by his manager and receives alms and friendship from an adoring local (Francois Cluzet). Bernard Tavernier's 'Round Midnight is a simple story, beautifully and gloomily constructed, with amazing musical sequences, a powerful performance from Gordon, and an empathetic one from Cluzet.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Patton/The Last Days of Patton

Patton

Sent to command the undisciplined and outmatched American outfit in 1943 North Africa, General George Patton leads his troops to victory over Rommel and on into Italy where his great success was challenged by his own ego, stubbornness, and pride. George C. Scott towers over Franklin J. Schaffner's epic WWII biopic in a commanding, larger than life, and even sensitive performance, one of the greatest ever committed to celluloid. Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar winning screenplay is intelligent, humorous, and highly watchable, and Karl Malden contributes excellent support as General Omar Bradley. 

**** out of ****

The Last Days of Patton

Sixteen years following the release of Patton, Scott returned to the role for the made for TV movie which details the great General's difficulties in overseeing the reconstruction of postwar Bavaria, his relegation to a toothless, bureaucratic position, and his impending death following a road accident. The Last Days of Patton marks a continuation of Scott's iconic, still remarkable performance in a mildly engaging, overlong movie which suffers from flashback structure which details Patton's years as a young soldier.

*** out of ****

Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah (Mia Farrow) lives a well-adjusted life,  acting as the center for the rest of her dysfunctional family: stage parents who continue to act out their arguments from forty years prior. her stuffy second husband (Michael Caine) who longs for her younger sister (Barbara Hershey) and who herself is ensnared in loveless marriage to a tortured and much older artist (Max von Sydow). Her hypochondriac ex-husband (Woody Allen), who quits his job, seeks a major life change, and stumbles into the orbit of her other scatterbrained sister (Dianne Wiest). Hannah and Her Sisters is one of Woody’s finest achievements, a disparate group of stories deftly woven together and presented with warmth, humor, and depth. The cast is impeccable with Farrow, patient and lovely, Woody crafting one of his most neurotic and perfectly situated roles, and Oscar winners Caine and Wiest plus Hershey and von Sydow absolutely riveting in support.

**** out of ****

At Close Range

After the latest row with his mother, an aimless, rural Pennsylvanian teen (Sean Penn) reaches out to his wayward  father (Christopher Walken) for a role in his low rent criminal enterprise. As the law starts to bear down on the operation, the father's true colors show as the son, along with both his brother (Chris Penn) and girlfriend (Mary Stuart Masterson), is placed in severe jeopardy. Now, he must face the difficult choice of going to the authorities or remaining loyal to his psychotic and erratic father. James Foley's At Close Range is a well made true life thriller that boasts tremendous photography, is hurt by turgid plotting, and features acting that is all over the board. Sean Penn is strong in an early career gig, his brother Chris and Masterson add virtually nothing in pivotal roles, and Walken delivers one of those token performances where half the time he's strikingly powerful and the other half you're shaking your head in bewilderment.

I couldn't resist posting the video below, but don't watch unless you've seen the movie. Major spoilage:

Manhunter/Red Dragon

Two families are brutally massacred with identical modus operandi exactly a month apart from each other. This gives FBI profiler Will Graham no more than the course of one moon cycle to consult with imprisoned diabolical psychopath Hannibal Lecter and capture the media dubbed Tooth Fairy before he claims his next victims. Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon has been adapted twice for the big screen, first by Michael Mann in 1986 as Manhunter and than as a prequel to Silence of the Lambs by the classic's Oscar winning penner Ted Tally in a Brett Ratner rendition. Mann's version is done in his cheesed out 1980s Miami Vice style, is aided by his visual flourishes, hampered by an insufferable soundtrack, and is very effective until it loses steam midway and somewhat collapses during its uninspired concluding shootout. William Peterson as Graham and Tom Noonan as the killer are unconvincing while Dennis Farina as a senior FBI agent and Brian Cox as Lecter (if you can get past Anthony Hopkins portrayal) are strong. 

Ratner's followup to Lambs is unnecessary and mostly does not do justice to its predecessor, except for scenes involving Ralph Fiennes as the killer trying to go straight while wooing a sweet natured blind woman played by Emily Watson, whose moments together are eerily moving. Ed Norton is surprisingly bland in the lead role, as are Harvey Keitel and Philip Seymour Hoffman (who star as the senior agent character and a snarky reporter, respectively) and Hopkins is extremely overcooked in an attempt to savor his return to his legendary character.

The Proletariat Trilogy (Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, The Match Factory Girl)

Kati Outinen in The Match Factory Girl

Three droll, alternately funny and melancholic films from Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki detailing lives of quiet desperation on the bottom rungs of the social order. Each center on excellent lead performances with the best of the lot (and the most devastating) being the concluding film. Shadows in Paradise tells the story of a lonely garbage worker (Matti Pellonpaa) whose business ventures are crushed when his partner dies unexpectedly and he renews his life with a homely grocery store check-out girl (Kati Outinen). Ariel tells of a coal miner (Turo Pajala), forced to start over following his termination and his father's suicide, who soon finds himself in hot water with the law. Lastly, The Match Factory Girl details the life of a victim of unremitting cruelty and desolation (Outinen again, heart achingly good), whose existence is as mundane and repetitive as the matchbox making machines she mans.

Sid and Nancy

Sid Vicious was the best known rocker of the British Punk scene, but still found himself shooting smack, playing two bit gigs with his Sex Pistols bandmates, and sleeping in alleyways and abandoned buildings. Sid and Nancy tells the story of his turbulent relationship with Nancy Spungen, an American groupie whose murder he would be accused of in the months before his overdose death. Alex Cox's film is a well made descent into the void with an uncanny, indistinguishable performance from Gary Oldman who is matched by Chloe Webb as Spungen. It also contains some remarkable, stylized visual sequences, marked by the concluding one in particular.

Blue Velvet

On a picturesque day in an idealistic suburban setting, a young man (Kyle MacLachlan) returning home from college to visit his hospitalized father discovers a severed ear. After notifying the police and reacquainting himself with the assigned detective's beautiful daughter (Laura Dern) he begins his own investigation which leads him down a nightmarish path to a tormented nightclub singer (Isabella Rossellini) who is being held as a sexual prisoner by a gas huffing psychopath (Dennis Hopper) and his band of underworld miscreants. Blue Velvet, the most famous film from the terminally weird David Lynch, may be the one that first put me off to the cultish director, but watching it again I began to understand its appeal, and appreciate what he is getting at, in depicting the seedy depravity that lurks behind the artifice of our day-to-day lives. The mood and photography are perfect, MacLachlan and Dern are just right as the sunny innocents, and Hopper is unforgettable as the frighteningly maniacal Frank Booth.

The Fly

After meeting at a convention, a magazine journalist (Geena Davis) goes home with a scientist (Jeff Goldblum) to get the scoop on his top secret invention which carriers Earth shattering potentials: a teleportation machine that can disassemble living particles from one place before reassembling them in another. After demonstrating his creation on a live baboon, he becomes amorous with his new reporter friend. Soon, convinced of his triumph and carried away by his own zeal, he sends himself through the transporter, not realizing he is being accompanied on his journey by a housefly. The Fly  is gruesome yet intelligent and involving science fiction from David Cronenberg, which features great special effects, an uncompromising ending, fine work from Davis, and a typically obnoxious, but serviceable performance from Goldblum. I also really liked John Getz (Blood Simple) who plays Davis' editor/on again, off again boyfriend.

Sherman's March

When depressed filmmaker Ross McElwee leaves New York to return home South to film a documentary retracing General Sherman's infamous March to the Sea, he becomes sidetracked upon his girlfriend leaving him, and the project quickly devolves into a profile of the former flames he seeks out. Sherman's March is exorbitant, overlong, and occasionally amusing (particularly in a running gag involving Burt Reynolds) film that may have played better if I could have seen it removed from the memories of today's self-indulgent documentarians who pollute the field, the likes of which McElwee surely inspired.

Castle in the Sky

What can you say about a film that is all around masterful that doesn't line up with one's own personal taste, or a director who makes consistently ambitious and imaginative films whose style you just don't dig? "Castle in the Sky" is the fourth of legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki's films I've seen following "Nausicaa", "Howl's Moving Castle", and "My Neighbor Totoro", and again find myself failing to be drawn in by the material for no good reason than its not really to my liking (oddly, I did enjoy the recent "The Secret World of Arrietty which Miyazaki wrote but did not direct). Like many of his films, "Castle in the Sky" is an tells an environmentally conscious tale of lonely, young people finding inner courage, here a young girl living in an aircraft and in possession of a vital crystal who, with a friend, must ward off pirates and other devious types who seek its power. I don't wish to offend any of the many who are justifiably ardent towards Miyazaki's work and, as mentioned earlier, I just don't enjoy this brand of animation and storytelling.

Aliens

Fifty years after surviving the extraterrestrial onslaught, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finally awakens from her slumber only to be informed that the same colony, which has since become inhabited by humans, has now become unresponsive. Equipped with a team of highly trained soldiers, Ripley returns in an advisory position to see that in fact aliens have wiped out the entire population (excepting one little girl) and again finds herself in combat against the snarling, remorseless beasties. James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece is heralded in many corners as the finest achievement in the series, but I find it to be somewhat of a lame and uninspired followup. Cameron turns in a typically lousy screenplay, absent of fresh ideas and replete with cliches and plot devices (i.e. Newt, the little girl). Early on in the picture, you can sense him trying to emulate Scott's slow burn approach, but gradually losing patience, and ultimately resorting to special effects and action film pratfalls. Weaver is expectedly strong again and she is given strong support from Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Paul Reiser (although Bill Paxton is downright insufferable). I have no clue how this has attained its stature or how people even have the gumption to rank it over Scott's original. For me, its a typical first sequel: able to skate by on the remaining offerings of the original, but barely bringing anything new to the table.

The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn

Spencer Tracy embodied the qualities of an everyman and his folksy characteristics made him more immediate than a starry eyed idealist like Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda. In a career spanning nearly 40 years and garnishing two Academy Awards, Tracy contributed a number of wide ranging and powerful performances in films such as "Captains Courageous", "Bad Day at Black Rock", "Inherit the Wind", and "Judgement at Nuremberg." In this loving retrospective of his work, kindred spirit and longtime collaborator Katharine Hepburn takes us through his remarkable career with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Lansbury, Lee Marvin, and Sidney Poitier making appearances to pay tribute to the screen legend.

The Color of Money

25 years following his banishment from big time pool, "Fast Eddie" Felson has found success as a liquor salesman, while staking small time sharks on the side. One day he sees a kid who has what it takes, a shadow of his former self, and convinces him and his girlfriend to go on a cross country tour of pool halls, learning the tricks of the trade, with all roads leading to a championship tournament in Atlantic City. Following the 1961 classic "The Hustler", Martin Scorsese directed "The Color of Money", the film that won Paul Newman his long overdue Academy Award. Newman's performance doesn't miss a beat and is as natural as any in his career while Tom Cruise shines in an under appreciated performance. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio delivers fine work as Cruise's insatiate girlfriend. I liked how Scorsese worked from Walter Tevis' similarly delayed sequel to his original novel, and his direction is refined and unrelenting, almost to the point of overdirection. I also found the latter parts of the movie (the tournament) to be less compelling than the set-up, but "The Color of Money" is a worthy sequel made with reverence to an undeniable classic.

Stand by Me

A writer recounts a Labor Day weekend when he was twelve years old in the small town of Castle Rock, Oregon when he sought out with three of his close pals  in search of the dead body of a missing boy one of them overheard their brother talking about. Their journey becomes a pivotal point in all of their lives as the four ruminate about life and enjoy what may be their last summer of childhood. Rob Reiner's "Stand by Me" is based on the Stephen King novella The Body and is a coming of age story that plays as a series of vignettes and conjures up feelings of childhood nostalgia. The events in the movie did not specifically remind me of my own childhood, but the general longing for those years that the film creates is remarkable. Reiner's direction is wonderful as he follows the boys down that wooded railroad path and fully engages all of his child actors. With the exception of Corey Feldman, who is irritating as one of the four, and John Cusack, who has always bothered me, as the protagonist's recently deceased brother seen in flashback, the cast is extraordinary. I really liked the work of Kiefer Sutherland as the sinister yet well spoken teenage punk and Jerry O'Connell as the hapless fat kid in the group, but who towers over all is River Phoenix who plays an underestimated poor kid and reaches depths that are not usually associated with child actors. The film also has a wonderful soundtrack comprised of 1950s jukebox hits. I had some problems with the movie. Richard Dreyfuss' reflective narration is distracting and unnecessary and when the film seeks to be more existential in nature it just comes off as haughty. Still, the movie wonderfully captures the essence of childhood and brings us back to a time when are main concerns were comic books, spitballs, and baseball.