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marko

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24 reviews in total

Gentle and loving send-up of the Singing Cowboy westerns of the 30's and 40's with Tom Berenger playing it absolutely straight as a "good guy," complete with more matching ensembles than Oscar de la Renta. Berenger is very good; Andy Griffith and Fernando Rey are suitably sinister as the "Colonels"; both Sela Ward and Marilu Henner are gorgeous and funny. G.W. Bailey steals the show as the town drunk/sidekick/narrator.

It's clear the filmmakers loved the genre they were spoofing. An especially poignant touch is the closing theme music "The Last of the Silver Screen Cowboys," sung by Rex Allen Jr., the son of Rex Allen, who starred in many of the films which are lampooned in this picture.

Your kids will enjoy it, but not as much as you will -- especially if you grew up watching all those wonderful old Westerns on tv.

While well done in its way, this film pales by comparison to the excellent Murder By Decree (1979), a movie which has been relegated to memory and infrequent cable appearances until recently. Good news -- a DVD version of Murder By Decree is slated for release in early 2003. Compare the two and you'll see what From Hell could have been.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Richard Brooks, Lee Marvin, and Burt Lancaster are at the top of their game in this turn-of-the-century Western classic.

As the Old West dies, on the eve of World War I, a rich businessman assembles a team of ex-revolutionary mercenaries to rescue his kidnapped wife. The task is complicated by this twist -- the kidnapper is an old compadre of half the rescue team. Brooks makes the most of his material, exploring the rigid code by which such men live, and how contact with the cynical Twentieth Century can use that code as a weapon against its adherents.

Marvin was rarely better than his role here as Henry "Rico" Fardan, a tough soldier, torn between his own memories and his professional sense of honor. His performance is matched by Lancaster, in the role he was, perhaps, born to play. Bill Dolworth is a cynical scoundrel who rediscovers his own sense of decency during the mission. Lancaster is a letter-perfect smartass, and his stunt work is impressive, particularly considering his age at the time this film was made. Robert Ryan and Woody Strode have less to do, but are still interesting. Claudia Cardinale is gorgeous, Ralph Bellamy, suitably slimy, and Jack Palance even manages to invest a little dignity into the only strained sequence of the film -- his monologue about love and the revolution.

The dialogue is rich and memorable -- you may find yourself quoting whole passages. Maurice Jarre's stirring score is apt without being obtrusive. The splendidly photographed desert becomes a virtual character in the story.

A word about weaponry. Hollywood goofed more often than not when showcasing Western armaments. It could easily have happened in this film, set at a time when the Colt .45 and the Lewis gun both coexisted on the frontier. But Marvin's sequence with the Model 1897 Winchester Trench Gun is one of the best photographed gunfights in history, and shows clearly why this pump shotgun was the most fearsome close-quarters weapon ever made.

This film is rarely shown on television or cable. Fortunately, it is available once again on VHS tape, and may be available on DVD as well. While the picture is not well known, it deserves to be mentioned with "The Wild Bunch," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," and "The Searchers."

Superbly written and acted, Hombre is one of the two or three best end-of-the-West Westerns ever made.

Based on the Elmore Leonard novel and starring Paul Newman, Hombre is the story of John Russell, a white man raised by Apaches forced by circumstances to be responsible for the lives of a group of people who despise him.

Dr. Faver: You've learned something about white people. They stick together. John Russell: They better.

Newman is sterling as Russell, whose sense of honor puts him into a no-win situation, and whose tenacity will not allow him to back off. Richard Boone was rarely better than as Cicero Grimes, who matches Russell, steely-eyed glare for steely-eyed glare. His performance here is on par with his portrayal of gang-leader John Fain in Big Jake, just a few years later.

Grimes: Well, now. Now what do you suppose hell is gonna look like? Russell: We all die. It's just a question of when.

Also outstanding are Diane Cilento, Barbara Rush, and Martin Balsam. A strong performance by character actor Frank Silvera as an unnamed Mexican bandit is one of the film's many gems.

Russell: (after wounding the Bandit)I would have done better, but I think you moved. Bandit: You can be sure I moved!

The magnificently desolate northern Arizona desert becomes an additional character in the film.

If you are looking for the ultimate tough-guy film, you need look no further than Hombre.

Based on "The Killer Angels" by the late Michael Shaara, "Gettysburg" gets so many things right that it can be pardoned for its faults.

The novel and the movie stand virtually alone in crediting Gen. John Buford in choosing and preserving the ground on which the Union army would fight this critical battle -- a strategic choice which may have dictated the battle's outcome. The film also effectively makes the point that Longstreet and Hood BEGGED Lee to allow them to sideslip right and attack the Union flank, bypassing the Round Tops. Having accurately dealt with these two critical themes, the film accomplishes more than military historians can expect of most historical movies.

But "Gettysburg" succeeds as a movie because of the people who populate this story, and the actors who play them.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is one of the authentic heroes of the Civil War. His action in holding Little Round Top can be classed with Thermopolae, Cannae, Waterloo, and the Normandy invasion for historical significance. Jeff Daniels is perfectly cast as a college professor-turned-soldier, who recognizes the importance of the role into which he has been thrust, and inspires his men to help change the world.

Tom Berenger is terrific as an anguished Gen. Longstreet, who knows the revered Robert E. Lee is making a monumental blunder, but is powerless to affect the resulting slaughter he foresees so clearly. Sam Elliot may have been born to play the role of the tragic Gen. Buford, robbed by history of the credit he deserves, and dying of pneumonia within months of this battle. And Richard Jordan embodies the brother-against-brother nature of this conflict with his sterling portrayal of Gen. Lewis Armistead, who was killed while attacking troops commanded by his best friend. Seldom has the waste, frustration, and personal anguish of war been as well-portrayed as it is in this film.

This film can be justly criticized for its length, for the wooden portrayals by Sheen and others, and for taking some dramatic license with people and events. But it is simply the best depiction ever filmed of a significant event in American history. For all its flaws, it is must-see material for anyone who wants to understand why Americans are what we are.

Under the right conditions, films can last for decades. In the case of a film like "Citizen Kane," that durability serves to preserve a masterpiece for succeeding generations. The passing years don't dim the brilliance of the work, and the film hardly seems dated at all.

Such is not the case with "McLintock!"

When made in the mid-60's, "McLintock" seemed a genuinely funny film. It still has great slapstick moments -- particularly the famous mud-slide fight scene. Both John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara were at the top of their game, and Wayne's BatJac Productions was a finely-tuned movie-making machine. This rare foray into comedy proves the Duke a competent comedic actor, with a real gift for timing.

While the film has not changed in the intervening years, the audience has. What once seemed like an amusing update of the classic "Taming of the Shrew" tale now seems perilously close to abuse -- particularly the spanking scenes where first Patrick Wayne, then John Wayne, pound on their womenfolk with an iron implement. Making matters worse, this wifely "discipline" is adminstered in public, to the approval of a roaring crowd.

Even if you have fond memories of this film, as I did, you may find parts of it terribly uncomfortable to watch now. I'd think carefully about introducing my children to the Duke with this film if I were you.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

It is true that the plot of this movie is based on a largely-discredited theory of the Ripper murders. It is also true that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote of this clash between his fictional detective and the all-too-real serial killer.

None of that matters, however.

"Murder By Decree" may be the best Holmes OR the best Ripper movie ever made. ***SPOILERS*** While Ripper scholars have rejected the Prince Eddy theory, writer John Hopkins makes it plausible enough to sustain this film.

In this task, Hopkins and Director Bob Clark are amply aided by the best cast ever to grace a Ripper or Holmes film. Christopher Plummer and James Mason are the most likeable Holmes and Watson in cinema. No one has ever equalled Jeremy Brett's cold and clinical portrayal of Holmes; for viewers of a certain age (myself included)all Holmes/Watson combos are evaluated against a perspective of Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce. But here, for the first time, are a Holmes and Watson who seem genuinely to like each other. These men, we realize, COULD, in fact, be lifelong friends. Plummer's Holmes is suitably erudite, but also has a core of humanity which Brett since,and Rathbone before, sometimes overlooked.

The supporting cast is equally excellent. Deserving of special mention are Anthony Quayle and John Gielgud as splendidly pragmatic politicians who would rather see murder go unpunished than upset the precarious Victorian social order. Frank Finlay is the definitive Inspector Lestrade. Donald Sutherland is eerily excellent as the psychic Robert Lees. Even Susan Clark does well in her turn as the real Ripper's real last victim, Mary Kelly.

I pause briefly here to state categorically that I am NOT a Genevieve Bujold fan. With the exception of "Anne of the Thousand Days," I consider Ms. Bujold's enormous talents to have been largely wasted. This movie, however, may be her finest performance. I defy anyone with a shred of human feeling to remain unmoved by her scene in a Victorian insane asylum, when Holmes and Watson finally track down an Annie Crook driven to madness by her secret. As she whimpers plaintively of "Eddie" and "my baby," one can see why it became necessary for Holmes to show real human feelings in this film.

Sadly, this film does not appear to be available on tape from the major distributors. If you can find it in a library or on pay-tv, I urge you to schedule the time to see this underappreciated classic.

The best movies have moments -- scenes so powerful, or simply so note-perfect, that they live on in your memory after the plot is forgotten.

"My Favorite Year" has more than its share of these.

Other reviewers on this page have singled out the dinner at Belle Mae Steinberg Carioca's (Lainie Kazan's) Brooklyn apartment. They might also have mentioned the scene in which a titanically intoxicated Alan Swann (O'Toole)essays to "shimmy down" the side of a building, using a fire hose as rapelling gear, or the farcically climactic fight scene on live 50's TV.

But two other moments resonate even more strongly; they explain completely why Peter O'Toole was cast in this otherwise comedic role.

In the first, O'Toole's character interrupts his own plans for an evening of debauchery to fulfill a fantasy by dancing with an aging, but still glorious Gloria Stuart. Both onscreen and off, the audience is spellbound in the midst of the slapstick as these two senior-citizen actors seize the screen for the duration of their waltz.

Even more compelling is an important scene later in the movie in which Swann makes a quick trip to visit a young daughter whom he hasn't seen in years. He watches her from the car, but can't bring himself to get out and speak to her. The scene is played completely without dialogue. With the camera focused tightly on the warring emotions which play across O'Toole's face, no dialogue is necessary. It's a powerful, lump-in-the-throat moment every divorced dad will recognize.

I join others on this page in urging you to rent this movie for the laughs. As you laugh, however, stay alert for two of the truest moments ever placed on film. Enjoy.

If you can watch this movie without laughing, please seek immediate medical attention -- you may not have a pulse!

Much is made of Danny Kaye's outstanding performance in this film; it is clearly his best. Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury, and Mildred Natwick also do some of their finest work.

A word about the writing: this is not an adlib fest, a la Robin Williams. It is not a cornucopia of bodily functions, as in "Something about Mary." What it is, is a finely crafted example of comic writing that meshes like a fine Swiss watch. But you'll hardly notice as the cast and script click, because you'll be laughing too hard.

Note: "Princess Bride" aside, this movie also contains the finest swordplay ever captured on film.

Attention, all those who found this movie unrealistic. The Clue Bus has left, and you weren't on it.

Hudson Hawk is one of the funniest caper movies ever made, precisely because neither its cast nor its director take ANYTHING seriously. Sure, some of the jokes don't work. As in a Robin Williams standup routine, however, the viewer is never required to wait for very long for the next joke.

The film has many memorable comic moments. Other reviewers on this page have singled out the over-the-top performances by Willis and Aiello... and both were wonderfully funny. But let's not forget the crotch-crazed pet ("Bunny...ball, ball!), the "Flint" references (check out the phone sound), Coburn's "bare-handed strangulation" speech, the face full of syringes in the gurney chase scene, Andie MacDowell's dolphin impression, and the death of Ig and Ook.

Let go of your disbelief and rent this movie. Prepare to laugh yourself moderately sick in the process. It ain't "The Court Jester"...but it's close!

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