Camp Redemption - (Not) Every Friday the 13th Victim Deserves a Second Chance (Part 1 of 2)

If we've all learned one thing through our existence, it is that life can truly, simply, and cruelly be unfair.   You lose out on that big promotion you wanted.   You proclaim your love to another to find out that that love is not returned.    You get your chance to make the big play to win the championship, and you slip and fall.

Or, you get skewered by a fire poker at a summer camp.

When you start looking at people who have been dealt a shitty, unfair hand, no one has a better claim to being upset than the camp counselors and locals who have populated Camp Crystal Lake (yes, the residents of Haddonfield, Elm Street, and a certain portion of Texas may disagree, but the numbers speak for themselves.   Crystal Lake delivers the bad luck in MUCH higher numbers).   And yes, over the course of twelve films (including pairing films and reboots) there have been MANY people who deserved to be on the wrong end of a spear gun or weed whacker, there have a been a small distinct group of people who were either seriously "in the wrong place at the wrong time," or were just plain done wrong by lazy plotting and misunderstood characterization.

Until today.

We've been inundated over the past two decades with reality show after reality show.   There's no end in sight; people just eat them up.   Some are dating shows; some are cooking programs.  And no reality trope has shown to be as time-tested and steadily popular as the put a group of people together and let them survive the elements to win a big cash prize.   You've got your "SURVIVOR,"  your "AMAZING RACE," and your "BIG BROTHER."   Now, I am proud to bring you the newest, and most revolutionary of all of these reality "survival" shows.

Survival from the business end of a fish-scaling knife.  Eating bugs and tribal councils ain't got jack shit on: 

Yup.  We're gonna take a bunch of people and dump them at Camp Crystal Lake.  Last one surviving wins.... well, hell.... survival.   So straightforward and simple.   Make alliances or go lone wolf.   Try to run or hunker down in a cabin with handmade weapons.  We don't care; it's up to the contestant to figure it out.   The stuff practically writes itself.

But how do we find contestants?   It can't possibly be easy to get people to VOLUNTEER to head to a camp where over a hundred people have been killed over the course of a dozen movies (and yes, damnit, I know there is Camp Forest Green and the trip to Alice's house to put a knife in her ear and the trip to the hospital when Jason was dead but wasn't really dead and the graveyard and Elm Street and outer space and I guess what I'm saying is shut the fuck up and let me finish.)   So, after much hand-wringing, we decided on our favorite method of casting.

Give previous victims a second chance.  

We decided to scroll through every minute of every FRIDAY THE 13TH movie (a lot of carnage, to say the least) and find the ten characters who most deserved a second lease on life.   We determined the winners based on a very specific set of criteria (haha, no... we definitely just thought of some people who we liked and would like to see again if we had the chance.  You seriously fell for the criteria line?  What a maroon.)

OKAY, SOME BASIC CRITERIA.  FOR REAL.

We did have a couple of things we used to determine our final list.  These are not only subjective choices, but they led us to a series of picks that were even more subjective.

1.  LIKABILITY -- Was the character fun to have around?   Did you enjoy their company, and if they were near you, would you be happy, or would you want to ram a ball-peen hammer through their nasal cavity?   

2. FAIR/UNFAIR -- Did the character honestly deserve to die?   Were they an honorable person that got screwed?  Were they killed too soon?   Did a screenwriter botch their shit up in a terrible fashion?

3. PLOT ADVANCEMENT -- If this character was allowed to go on living, would it change the plot line of the films in any way?   Would the FRIDAY THE 13TH series possibly end up different because of THIS person's survival?

4. MISCELLANEOUS -- We gave ourselves the option to add points to any character's final score based on any reason we wanted.   NOTE:  One original criteria that we did nix was looks.   We were going to have special compensation for those who showed their boobs, but we decided against it at the last second.  Stay tuned for our inside look at CHAINED HEAT in a future post to see how long our purity lasts.

After drawing up our list, we ended up with eighteen names for ten spots.   Of course, we just could have made eighteen spots, but we aren't that bright.   So we had to whittle the list down to reach our original goal.  This would also mean that some of the films (at least two) would have no representation whatsoever.   And that's fine, because some of these casts suuuuuuuuuuuucked.

HONORABLE MENTION

(Not her.  She sucks.)

JULIUS - FRIDAY THE 13TH 8 - JASON TAKES MANHATTAN

The man does nothing of note until this, which is the high point of the entire film.   Goes mano a mano, toe to toe, with the champ and does a serviceable job... until his head ends up in a dumpster.  Nice try, Julius.  Maybe next time.

DIANA - JASON GOES TO HELL

Noble character that dies too early, even though she does it heroically.  Points for being played by Erin Gray, who was one of my childhood crushes on BUCK ROGERS.

MADDY - FRIDAY THE 13TH 7 - THE NEW BLOOD

Maddy makes the HM list because 1) peer pressure isn't a good reason for Jason to attack (she gets killed for trying makeup?) and 2) I had to put SOMEONE from this crappy sequel on the list.   I came THISCLOSE to putting Terry Kiser's doctor here instead.   

LINDERMAN - FREDDY VS JASON

He plays the noble nerd very.... um, nobly.  Gets points for doing the noble sacrifice death.  Only misses the list because he gets a lot of screen time in FREDDY and might not have much more to offer our show.

JENNA - FRIDAY THE 13TH REMAKE 

Great switcheroo in this one.  Jenna looks like the Final Girl, acts like the Final Girl, appears to be everything that the Final Girl should be and then OOPSIE!   Well done character only misses out due to also having a ton of screen time in the film.  A close call here, though.

CORT - JASON LIVES

Of all of the immature wise-asses that the series has brought to us, Cort seems to be the one that you might most be able to tolerate hanging around.   His nature walk with the young boy campers is a hoot, and he rocks an RV like no other.  JASON LIVES also has the most likable cast overall and is well-represented here to be sure.

VICKI - JASON GOES TO HELL

I can't believe we are putting up TWO from the ninth film in this series, which ranks wayyy down the list in terms of overall quality.  However, when you employ professional competent actors and actresses in the parts, good things CAN happen, and having ex-sitcom child star Allison Smith in a key "noble hero" role doesn't hurt one bit.

SHELLY - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3

Oh, this one was tough.  Really it was.   He's annoying as hell at times, but let's be honest... Shelly is nothing more than the kind, mild-mannered movie nerd trying to fit in with the "cool crowd."  If you are reading this article, you have probably acted or felt like Shelly at some point.   Also, actor Larry Zerner (who is now a lawyer) has been a great ambassador for both the FRIDAY series and horror movies in general on Twitter and other social media.   So close, but Shelly's annoying-ness makes him miss the list by the absolute closest of margins.

Okay, that's who ALMOST made the cut.   We'll be back on Wednesday with the Magic Gang, the Top of the Class, The Final Ten.   We shall not be persuaded on our choices (and we have some doozies and wild surprises!) but between now and Wednesday night, feel free to disagree with our Honorable Mention or to give us your own FRIDAY series characters who are deserving of a second chance.   We won't substitute yours in to our list, but if you guess any of ours right, we will give you credit on Wednesday.

Until then--

Runnin' to Redbox.... and Playin' with Netflix, too!

I know that most of my posts so far have focused on films from the 70's and 80's (mostly 80's); however, I do try to keep myself as current as possible.   Also, as noted in my last blog post about themes, my viewing theme for September is "Runnin' to Redbox," where I try to watch as many 2017 films as I have time for in a month.

I'm never going to do full-length reviews around here, as there are bloggers and critics who do a WAY better job at it than I would, in terms of describing the plot and giving you the specific details you want.   I will give you some mini-critiques now of some of the movies I've watched in the first seven days of September.

FATE OF THE FURIOUS

I was never a big fan of the "Fast and the Furious" series during what we'll call Act One (the first three films, also known as the "Look how fast my car is!" group).   My affection for the films came during Act Two, the "Holy Shit, we're James Bond movies now!" phase.   Starting slowly with "episode" four and working consistently since, the Universal series has become steadily more bizarre, more preposterous, and somehow....more fun.  FAST AND FURIOUS 6 may be the peak of the series.  

Sadly, I'm here to report that installment eight, FATE OF THE FURIOUS, might be the first one in the second phase to bring us diminished returns.   This is the first of the series where new cast additions just feel to be too much (nowhere near enough for everyone to do), and no matter how psyched I was that she had been cast, Charlize Theron just ends up being a mid-level villain.   I expected too much.   No matter who they end up casting, the performances have never been more than caricatures and they never will be.

The final act sequence on the ice in Russia is appropriately bat-shit enough, and it did make me laugh several times at the utter implausibility (and in this series, that is undeniably a GOOD thing for me... the crazier the stunt, the better).   I'm still trying to figure out how I've become so fond of Tyrese Gibson as Roman in this series.   Usually the "Hell, no!" character in an action or comedy film is the most grating and worthless to me, but over the run of this series, Roman has become my MVP and, when they inevitably start shedding characters in the sequels to come, Roman damn well better make the cut.

As a matter of fact, for those of you who HAVE seen it, I pitch FURIOUS 9 as a scaled down actioner, with only Tyrese, Jason Statham, Helen Mirren (who has so little to do in this one and is still so wonderful in it) and the scene-stealing baby.   Everyone else can go.  I can get you script pages by Monday.

THE WALL

Oooooh, I REALLY wanted to like this one.   I saw the preview during the winter and it looked like it was right up my alley.   Small-scale, big-stakes, filled with tension and with a lean running time of around 85 minutes.  Yet, this tale of two American soldiers pinned down by a playful and dangerous sniper in Iraq starts to sputter about halfway in and never builds up to the highs that I was hoping for when I started it.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena play the American soldiers who are tasked with making sure an area is clear of enemies.   However, they themselves get targeted by a sniper.  The sniper shoots and injures Cena and Taylor-Johnson is able to get behind a poorly put together (and quickly falling apart) wall of rocks.   At this point, we get a radio game of cat and mouse between Taylor-Johnson's soldier and the sniper.   It definitely is super tense at first, and the cat and mouse parts work very well.   

Sadly, though, director Doug Liman doesn't have much up his sleeve for the second half of the film.   I was really expecting the soldier(s) to try and figure out a smart, cunning way of escaping their plight.  I was hoping that the film would become a matter of each side trying to get one step ahead of the other until the credits roll.   Instead, we get a lot more... talk.   

The acting from Taylor-Johnson and Cena is fine, and the film does zip along quite swiftly at the start.   But to me, this felt like a film where they had an excellent concept for the starting point, and then tried to improvise their way through to the conclusion.

THE DEVIL'S CANDY

I don't know if there is a single scare in THE DEVIL'S CANDY, yet I remained riveted and disturbed straight through.   Finding it on Netflix last weekend (and having star Ethan Embry tell me in person at Monster Mania in August that I needed to see it!), I kicked back at 1:30 in the morning figuring it would take me a second viewing over the weekend to finish it, and I was thrown for a fast paced,  utterly gripping little film.

Embry and Shiri Appleby play a couple looking for a home to move into with their teenage daughter.   They find a nice sized home, with a large barn that will be perfect for artist Embry to set up a studio in.    However, it also comes with the requisite "we need to let you know that people have died here" speech from the realtors.   The couple decides to buy it, anyway, and at first, of course, everything seems perfect.  Embry is suddenly inspired to do great paintings, and the family seems happy.

Needless to say, the happiness doesn't last long.   I won't spoil any of the fun of THE DEVIL'S CANDY, but instead of a simple film about one of the family members being possessed or the house being like the one in Amityville, the movie plays as a fun concoction of Satanist tract, home invasion film, and a heavy metal nightmare.   

Embry is great in the film, as is Appleby.   Pruitt Taylor Vince plays another of his standard silent psycho types, but he does get to shred metal on a guitar, which is a definite highlight of the picture.   Writer/director Sean Byrne knows what he wants to do from frame one (I still need to see his previous film, 2009's THE LOVED ONES), and I was literally sitting up in bed through the last twenty minutes of this one.   Get your butts over to Netflix and watch this now, or better yet, go buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray and show support to fun independent horror efforts.

UNFORGETTABLE

Oh, why could you not have been more trashy, movie?

Denise DiNovi, longtime producer (HEATHERS, BATMAN RETURNS, ED WOOD, SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS) chose this script to make her long-overdue feature directing debut.   The plot, about a woman (Rosario Dawson) who's put a dark, secret life behind her only to be newly terrorized by the ex-wife (KATHERINE HEIGL) of the man she is now engaged to, screams out to be made as an overwrought Lifetime Network thriller.  All of the elements are in place, but DiNovi plays it... straight.  And quite competently; the film is well-acted and shot throughout.   DiNovi has put together a very sharp crew that makes this film play way better than it has a right to... and that's the trouble.

This should be fun.   Yes, it would be need to be more ramshackle, have more plot contrivances and weird coincidences, and it would be need to be more than a little batshit crazy.   Yet, those things would make this film all the more enjoyable to sit through.    Heigl's character is mentally deranged, but the film introduces the character of her mother (Cheryl Ladd), who is just as tightly wound and ready to snap.  We get the reason that Heigl has turned out the way she has, and this makes her character come off as... almost sympathetic.   Wrong choice in a film like this, silly or not.  My villain must be a good villain in a thriller like UNFORGETTABLE.   She can't be looked upon as a potential symbol of pity.

So many missed opportunities.   Damn you, Denise DiNovi, for trying to do a good job.  Be sloppier next time, and you might have an A-grade loony classic.

(And yes, I know I'm not the target audience for UNFORGETTABLE.  But, I AM the target audience for the wild and zany version of UNFORGETTABLE that resides inside my brain.  So there.)

SMALL CRIMES

After 2013's CHEAP THRILLS, I was excited to see what director E.L. Katz would do next.  I had to wait four years for a follow-up, but SMALL CRIMES was absolutely worth the time.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, a million miles away from Jaime Lannister in GAME OF THRONES (and doing a very nice job as a seedy lowlife character; I can't wait to watch SHOT CALLER, which also places him in a tough con role and is supposed to be excellent), plays a man getting out of prison after serving a sentence for attempted murder.    His Joe character simply wants to get on with his life and reunite with his children.   The criminal world he left behind has other ideas.

There are absolutely many things in SMALL CRIMES that you've seen in similar films, so don't come looking for originality.  The film, and its characters, have a true, lived-in feeling to them, that makes this film resonate quite a bit more than other crime thrillers that delve more into the action side of things.   Joe wants to start anew and repair all of the damage, but everyone he returns to either wants the old Joe, or no Joe at all.   Most of them have simply moved on without him.  The rest need him to settle old scores.

The key to SMALL CRIMES, besides all of the great small touches that it provides, is the killer cast.   Along with Coster-Waldau, you get Robert Forster, Jacki Weaver, Gary Cole, Molly Parker, and in a smaller role, CHEAP THRILLS alum Pat Healy.   The cast shoots sparks from the get-go, and is more than enough reason to find this on Netflix.

And I can't let this capsule review end without mentioning the ending.  Although it makes total sense afterward, it comes out of nowhere and floors you.   I'm not sure if I'll see an ending more powerful and devastating in 2017.

ALIEN: COVENANT


Since just about everyone took their shots at reviewing this and making sense of it when it came out in May, I won't go long on this one.   After watching it, I absolutely understand why everyone was so split on it.  The movie is split on itself.   Very rarely have I seen a film so schizophrenic in such an equal, 50/50 manner.

There are two distinct stories at work here, and they make only the mininum effort to try to intertwine.   I can appreciate everything that Ridley Scott and the screenwriters are trying to say with the David character and creation.   This could have been a fascinating "thinking man's" sci-fi film delving deep into that topic.  Add on top of that the character that Billy Crudup plays, which is supposed to be devoutly religious, and you have the components for a very smart, very original film.

But you need the alien attacks.  We must have the alien attacks in an ALIEN film.  And they do happen, staged almost in the same timing patterns as the kill shots in a FRIDAY THE 13TH film.  If you're getting bored, don't worry... Ridley's gonna have a chest burster in the next 3 minutes!

So there we are.  Everytime the religion/creation angle heats up, we have to get gory.  And every time the action gets super tense and we are enjoying the roller coaster ride of a standard ALIEN sequel, slowwwww down!  Time for some sermonizin'!

I've been a fan of the series since the outset, and my feelings/rankings usually sit where the majority of viewers do.  I love the first two and can rank them 1-2 or 2-1 depending on my mood.  I can now appreciate ALIEN 3 as the flawed masterpiece that it is, rather than the botched follow-up by a novice music video director.  And I rightly put the ALIEN vs PREDATOR films wayyyyyy down at the bottom.

Who knows where I'll finally come down on this one.... maybe I'll see this in the same kind of light I look at ALIEN 3 now.   It's possible, but for now, I just see COVENANT as an ambitious mess.


I HAD IT ON MY WALL

(Ok, I didn't actually have it on my wall, but someday I might)

Lionsgate is ripping themselves off this year.   Can you sue yourself for stealing licensed property?



WHILE I'M THINKIN' ABOUT IT...

My last blog post was about themes for movie viewing.   The concept was that if you choose a theme for each month, you never hit that "wall" where you can't decide what to watch.   Draw a blank, go back to the theme.

After writing the post, I saw a great theme that my Twitter film buddy Cinemonster is doing and has done before.   It is HOOPTOBER!

I will provide you the beginning of what Cinemonster puts on his Hooptober page, and then I'll leave it for you to follow the links and see the rest for yourself.  This is exactly what I was talking about with themes, and he has done an AMAZING job with this over the past few years.  I strongly recommend participating!

Here's how he starts off:

"Greetings from the home of George Romero, Tom Savini, Chilly Billy and the perpetually awesome Jeff GoldBlum. This is Hooptober 4.O. Sadly since last year we have lost both Billy and George, but we have become a popular place for Richard Linklater to hang out. (which makes this Austin boy happy)


Last years version destroyed our first 2 years, and gave us a several hundred great lists and well over 1500 reviews, thoughts and impressions to read. The most enjoyable part for me, as always, was to see what everyone chose to watch, and the reactions to some of the stranger shit out there that people found."

To read more, go to Cinemonster's Hooptober page, which is located here.   You can also follow Cinemonster on Twitter here.  Check it out today!


I HEARD IT

While I'm on the subject of Film Twitter buddies, the awesome Albert Muller brought up the film, DIGGSTOWN, tonight.  I love this 1992 STING-like film about boxing and con men, and Albert loves it fifty times more than I.  While talking about it with him, I got the fine score by James Newton Howard in my head.

(If you can't click on that video on your mobile device, try here.)

You can follow Albert to talk about DIGGSTOWN or lots of other movies on Twitter by clicking here.

Piles and Piles and Piles and Piles and..... Picking Your Movie, Once and For All.

Before we dig into the meat of this post, let's address a subject that every one of you faces every single damned day, whether it is you personally, someone you know in "real life," or someone you hear complaining on Twitter.

We are talking about the dreaded, the horrible, the absolute Hell-spawn of movie topics.  We are talking about:

"I've got x (x = how many movies the person owns or has access to on streaming, cable, etc) movies, and I have nooooooo idea what to watch!"

We've all been there.  I used to work in a Blockbuster, and I would try to find a movie to put on while we opened the store first thing in the morning.  There were no customers in the building for another hour to two hours, so the sky was the limit in terms of what I could watch.  NOTHING was taboo (well, it WAS Blockbuster, so plenty was taboo...) so I could watch anything.   But time would swiftly tick off of the clock as I just couldn't make up my mind.  For every five times I went to pick something out, I either couldn't pick anything at all, or I went to a small group of standbys (more on that list at the bottom-- don't cheat and skip to it!) that I played when I couldn't come up with something new or better.  

So, I get you, I do... I have about 400-450 blu-rays (maybe more, stopped counting), I have Netflix, I have Amazon Prime, I have Shudder, and I have friends, family members and co-workers who have plenty of movies that I don't have.   So I get you.

But, everyone.... stop it.  S to the T to the OP it.  You don't need to go through this headache.  You don't need to drive yourself crazy.  And you certainly do not have to drive everyone around you crazy with your craziness.

Do Themes.

It's soooo simple.  Pick a topic.  Pick a decade.  Pick an actor.   Go nuts... pick whatever you please.  But get yourself a theme for every week or month.  If you hit "thinker's block" and you can't decide what to put on, activate said theme and voila!  You instantly have a MUCH smaller catalog to choose from.   (And you don't have to limit yourself to JUST the theme for that month-- use it as a fallback whenever you can't decide.  Or be like me and go whole hog-- just how many films can I watch from that theme every month.)

Themes are easy.   Here are mine for the past few months:

*  MAY - 1980 and 1981 films

*  JUNE - PICK MY VIEWS (I had Twitter followers choose movies for me that I hadn't ever seen)

*  JULY - RUNNIN' TO REDBOX - take a month to catch up on all of the recent movies I may have missed (included several extra trips to the theatre as well)

*  AUGUST - UNWRAP MY BLUS AUGUST - I had been buying more blu-rays than I had been watching.   I unwrapped 32 that I had previously bought and watched them throughout the month.

*  SEPTEMBER - RUNNIN' TO REDBOX again!

*  OCTOBER - for the first time in years, I think I'm skipping a month of horror movies for Halloween, and instead I'll be focusing on the years 2000 to 2005.  There are MANY films there I've only seen once, or, even worse, not at all.   A weird blind spot for me.

That's just me.   But you can see that I've come up with areas and time periods that I've been weak on, and I've used those to complement my usual viewing patterns.   I usually post my totals at the end of the month on Twitter to see how I did.

And it's not just me... some websites/blogs/podcasts set up theme months of their own.

Patrick Bromley at fthismovie.net does a fantastic service to the movie viewing community with his annual JUNESPLOITATION offering.   He sets up a June calendar with daily subjects (slasher movies, sci-fi actioners, Italian gorefests) and then leaves it up to his followers and listeners to choose something within that particular topic.   He sets up a #Junesploitation hashtag and it is simply marvelous to watch everyone chime in each day with their selections.   Not only does it cure the "thinker's block" for a lot of people, but it is truly a blast.   Check out Patrick's site when you are done here, and follow him on Twitter at @fthismovie and @patrickbromley.

So... themes, people!   It's still early in September.  Develop a theme to do a test run.  If you're using your collection, pull out a small stack of films that would fit under that particular theme.  And whenever you can't decide on something specific, HIT THAT DAMN STACK!   Your family will be proud of you, your friends will be proud of you, and for cryin' out loud, I'll be shit-on-a-stick proud of you myself!  Go team!

Also, so you can keep the theme of Themes fresh in your mind, I've even designed a banner that you can keep for home use.  Feel free to hang it on the refrigerator, tape to your front door, or glue to the bumper of your car.   Be a proud member of Team Theme.

(This copy is free.  If you lose it, replacement copies are $6.99 through my PR team.)

TOP 5 LIST!!!!

I mentioned earlier that, while working mornings at Blockbuster, my "thinker's block" got so bad that I either put on no movie at all.... or I fell back on the same handful of movies every time.   You might be asking, "What were those movies?"   (And a small group of you might not-- and to you folks..... I hate you.  I hate you all.  You are here for me, and only for me.  If I tell you to jump, you should not only ask "how high?" but you should take selfies of yourself while jumping so I can see just how exciting that shit was.  I demand your fealty.   Bow before me now.   I am the ONE.)

Oh, right.... Top 5 list.

THE TOP 5 MOVIES THAT BOB WATCHED OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN DURING HIS LENGTHY TIME AT BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO:

(No particular order, and you'll see that each of these is much more dialogue driven, so they are very easy to keep track of while you do actual work.  Yes, I did work, too.  Oh, quiet, you.)

1. AND JUSTICE FOR ALL (1979) - Love the movie.  It absolutely wears it's liberal heart on its sleeve, and although not the most solid script of all time, it has something to say, and damnit to hell if it's not going to take the time to say it.   Al Pacino gets several BIG moments in this one (we are starting to head into the "hoo-ahh" section of Pacino's career) and yes, the "You're out of order!!!" scene is here, too.   Episodic but charming and audience-friendly as hell.

2.  ARTHUR (1981) - Everyone talks about the job that the late Steve Gordon did here with his script and directorial effort.   Everyone talks about the job that Dudley Moore, John Gielgud, Liza Minnelli and the rest of the cast did.   Now, turn your head away from the screen, work on some morning paperwork and it is simply stunning how GOLDEN the dialogue is in this film.   The one-liners and tear-jerking moments shine through equally, and the conclusion that I get is Steve Gordon (who died after this and never made another film) ends up being one of the saddest "What if...?" questions in movie history.   His work is stunningly good.

3. GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1992) - I'm not the hugest Pacino guy, yet I have two of his films here.  Based on a play by David Mamet, this film features tons and tons of crisp profane dialogue, and it is VERY easy to keep up with just by listening.  GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS would work well as an audiotape while driving a long distance.   The cast pops, and the words crackle.   Shit, this film is Rice Krispies.

4. PCU (1994) -- So underrated, and now that EVERY SINGLE COMEDY has to end with warm and fuzzy feelings (romance, etc.)  it's almost shocking to go back and find films that just wanted to be funny from start to finish.   Not even close to ANIMAL HOUSE, but the 90's closest attempt to capture the slobs vs snobs battles on college campuses, this film gives me THE perfect Jeremy Piven performance (don't @ me with your ENTOURAGE rebuttals), great foils in Jessica Walter and David Spade, and a VERY early performance by Jon Favreau ("Don't be that guy.")  So much good comedy and at only 79 minutes, it was one of the few films that I could start AND finish before we opened for business.

5.  LET IT RIDE (1989) - I'm not going to go long on this one, because I have a TON to say about this film, and will be devoting a blog post at some point very soon to do just that.   But although I'll never list it in my Top 5 movies of all-time, or my Top 10, or my Top 50.... I've probably seen LET IT RIDE about nine hundred and seventy one times.   Of those times, I've actually been focused on the screen watching it for about five of them.  This was my ALL-TIME "before opening" video, and I can't explain why.   Actually, I will explain why in that upcoming post.  So stay tuned.  Seriously, you better.

I Confess... Shocking Details on the Hush-Hush!

Thanks for joining me on this escapade so far.  I enjoy the feedback I'm getting on Twitter, and the format is free and easy so I can add frequently without it feeling overbearing.  I hope that you enjoy what you've been reading, and if certain sections appeal to you more than others, let me know so I can bring more of what you enjoy.

I SAW IT

I have enjoyed my time interacting with everyone and writing about film in the past few months, but a huge tip of the hat to the podcast, 80's All Over.   I stumbled upon their show about halfway through their rundown of 1980, and I was hooked from the first second.   Having gotten into film specifically starting in 1981, this decade means the world to me when it comes to nostalgia and great movies.   I'm the guy who always brings up 1982 as the best film year ever.  I'm the guy who shoots you down if you try to offer a film from this current decade as better than NIGHTHAWKS or EVIL DEAD II.  I'm the guy.  Their podcast brings all of my geeky days checking newspaper movie ads and calling theatre recording numbers to see what was opening Friday back to life, and I'm forever thankful for it.

If you haven't checked them out yet, do Drew and Scott a favor and give 'em a listen.   Go to their Twitter account ( click here) and follow their links to find their show (and review them!)

Anyhoo-- back to TRUE CONFESSIONS.   I started my "film nerd" life with seeing DEER HUNTER uncut on broadcast television in early 1981.   I then went on to seek out RAGING BULL at the discount houses (second run theatres charging $2.00 or less for admission) when it reached them, and I saw GODFATHER and GODFATHER PART II in the summer of 1981.   1981 was the year of Robert DeNiro/Robert Duvall utter nirvana for me.   Please now... imagine what my face looked like when I found out that DeNiro AND Duvall would be in a new film together that fall... add some zits, wipe the pizza sauce off of my chin, and you have a good idea.   This film was going to be my ENTIRE second half of the year!   I couldn't be more excited for anything.  And feel free to go back and see how well 13 year old me was doing with girls in 1981 and you'll find this to be true.

My father and I would go to the movies every Tuesday night after dinner.  It was our ritual... our thing.   We both had very similar interests in movies so it was easy to pick films.   And there were always enough fun movies in the early 80's that we didn't have weeks that we were lacking for choices.    The thing was... my dad had ZERO interest in TRUE CONFESSIONS.   He saw what it was about and had no interest.  He saw the trailer in the theatre and had no interest.  He listened to me go on and on and on about it for about a month and a half, and he had even LESS interest.   Also, this was not a film I was going to be able to get my friends turned on to.   

Luckily, as a particularly slow stretch in the beginning of November hit the discount houses, I got a break.  The only chances for a Tuesday night movie were going to be TRUE CONFESSIONS... or A FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN.   I had beaten the odds.  My dad would not let a Tuesday night go by without a movie, so he grudgingly relented, and I was on my way to see the movie of the century!!!

And it was simply "meh."

TRUE CONFESSIONS, to describe the plot briefly, is the story of two brothers in Los Angeles in the 1940's.  One (DeNiro) is a young monsignor working his way up through the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.  The other (Duvall) is a hardnosed homicide detective.   Their work paths cross when a prostitute ends up dead and cut in half (shades of the Black Dahlia case) and a powerful land developer (played by Charles Durning) is implicated.  The land developer also turns out to have his hooks into the Church, and DeNiro's character specifically, so solving the murder for Duvall's detective isn't as easy as originally hoped.

I, and many people, originally took TRUE CONFESSIONS for a crime thriller with a both a family and a religious bent to it.   If you did go in that way, the film can do nothing but ultimately disappoint, as the crime ends up being not all that captivating and the resolution to the mystery almost feels like a throwaway at the end.   With that being the case, and my 13 year old self not being fully aware enough to understand what director Ulu Grosbard was going for, I walked out of the theatre completely deflated.   I waited all this time for THIS???

Repeat views when it came out on cable the next year or two didn't help matters anyway.  I tried hard looking for clues that I had missed in the solving of the crime.  Maybe I just hadn't been paying attention?   But still... nothing.  The performances were great.  I was still obsessed with DeNiro and Duvall.   Yet, I still could not get into TRUE CONFESSIONS one bit.

I had watched it once or twice as I had gotten older and appreciated it a tiny bit more, but after listening to "80's All Over" discuss it in detail during their September of 1980 show, became intrigued again.   Kino Lorber was holding a sale for their blu-ray titles and TRUE CONFESSIONS was listed.  So I went ahead and jumped in with both feet.

I still cannot profess undying love for the film, but I am now fully aware (I think!) of what the film is about and what it is trying to do.  After looking at it for over 30 years as a crime thriller, I can now see it much clearer as the character study of two brothers who get along but whose works in life complicate their relationship to no end.  TRUE CONFESSIONS is much more a film about corruption of one's morals than it is a film about a murder.   In fact, just as a red herring is described as a clue in a mystery that is meant to be distracting, the red herring in TRUE CONFESSIONS is solving the murder itself.  It does eventually have meaning in the film, but the crime is simply in the film to bring important characters together on-screen, not to find a smart, clear resolution to that crime.

Instead, I now can get caught up in watching the two brothers movie in different directions on the moral compass.   Duvall's detective wallows in the filth of the criminal element he deals with every day, but through trying to solve the murder, he becomes cleaner and more ethical as the film progresses.  At the same time, DeNiro's monsignor begins the film literally as holy as one can be, but finds himself falling further and further from grace as he becomes more intertwined with Durning's evil character.  TRUE CONFESSIONS best captures the brothers' storylines best in two scenes set in a confessional.  DeNiro and Duvall sit on the same sides of the screen in both scenes, but there is a different character in need of confession in each one.

I also was able to appreciate quite a bit more the inner machinations within DeNiro's church.   The Cardinal (Cyril Cusack) is more concerned with the money coming into the church than the quality of the service being provided to the parishioners.  This plays within his conversations with DeNiro about land deals, but is more significant in a subplot where he tries to put an older monsignor (Burgess Meredith) out to pasture.   The elder, despite gaining in years, still believes in spreading the gospel and helping his parish as his main work.   Sadly, this time has passed for him, and DeNiro is in charge of moving him along.   The most interesting parallel is between the Church's washing their hands of Meredith, and the eventual resolution for DeNiro's character.   Although both went about their careers in vastly different ways, they both end up at the same tiny desert chapel to waste away their final days.   The Catholic Church of Grosbard's film is going to chew you up and spit you out eventually, no matter how you went about your business.

Nuance, in the end, turns out to be the way in which TRUE CONFESSIONS finally works (or doesn't work, depending on your final evaluation) for the viewer.    I truly feel the best way to handle the story (although not the most exciting) is to not get drawn in by the murder mystery at all.  It is the least important part of the plot, and it is the least deftly handled.  Instead, take the 105 minutes to watch DeNiro and Duvall put on a quiet yet dazzling display of understated acting,  appreciate the supporting cast of Durning, Meredith, Cusack, Ed Flanders, Kenneth McMillan and Rose Gregorio, and let Ulu Grosbard place you in a leisurely paced but 100 percent wonderfully detailed 1940's moral drama.   Watch TRUE CONFESSIONS the right way.... it has true staying power.



I HAD IT ON MY WALL

Continuing the 1981 theme,  I eventually had this one up on my wall for quite some time.  I picked it up at a baseball card show for two dollars from a baseball guy who had picked some movie posters up and didn't know what to do with them.

I played soccer for seven years.  Pele was my sports hero!   And Rocky was on the poster!    And some other guy!   

This one stayed on the wall for a while.  Eventually "the other guy" dressed up as a woman and tried to knife Nancy Allen.  I didn't like that guy.  He was a meanie.


I NEED THAT

More 1981 action.  I get it.  If you don't like the film, I really do understand.  Even to me, it's not exactly a great film.   But it's fun, it has Burt Young, and I simply need a blu-ray case that has THAT poster on the front.   Get on it, distributors!



TOP 5 LIST 

Enjoying the trip through 1981 here (and again, HUGE ups to 80's All Over, who have been covering the HELL out of this particular calendar year and have just done their 1981 recap-- you better be heading there after finishing here!) so why not keep it going?  

There are plenty of films that younger me liked that were critically panned and that I no longer enjoy as an adult.  There are also several films that I still put in the "Like" column, whether because I've never rewatched or I'm just stubborn.   I have no problem being a contrarian, so here are my:


TOP 5 FILMS FROM 1981 THAT CRITICS SNUBBED BUT I STILL LIKE (or haven't rewatched since the 80's so don't smack me, please!)

(In no particular order)

ALL THE MARBLES - The dialogue in this story of a wrestling promoter and his two female fighters creaks with the worst of them, and the broad soap-operish turns makes this film borderline painful at times, but the work from Vicki Frederick, Laurene Landon and especially Peter Falk is so good that I still like it.   And it does supply the requisite exciting sports finish.

CAVEMAN - Notable for being the first "family film" that our whole clan went to see AFTER I had been indoctrinated into the world of "grown up" movies.   It's sillier than the worst pun you can think of, and it's probably made (charitably) for an 8 year old, but the cast absolutely seems to be having a ball making it, and the dinosaur effects are cartoonishly fun to look it.  They're like a comic version of Harryhausen.   

TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT - There was a different "Southern fried" type movie in theatres every single week from 1971 to 1985.  You couldn't avoid them.  About forty percent of them were named after country music songs.   This one is made for the most absolute version of the common denominator, but again it's the cast that puts this one in the win column.   Check out that poster and tell me there's anyone you DON'T enjoy watching in a movie.   Oh, yeah... and there's LOTS and LOTS of beer in it.   Another fan favorite from the much-missed Avco Embassy Pictures.
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 BUDDY BUDDY - Yep, I agree with everything you have to say about this one.  Now...after having a long period of time to see all of the best films that put Lemmon, Matthau and Wilder together... this is wayyyyyyy down the list.   In 1981, however, this was my very FIRST time seeing any of them at work together (I knew Matthau from BAD NEWS BEARS but that was it).   Even at their sincere worst, Lemmon and (especially) Matthau will find ways to make you laugh.   Well, okay, they do for me.   I don't find it good, but as huge fans of all involved, I still do find it watchable any time it comes around.

LOOKER - Oh, my goodness.   The action scenes are goofy as hell.  Albert Finney seems to be amazingly miscast as the action hero (although he acquits himself rather nicely in the same year's WOLFEN).  But the technology, as it is in every Michael Crichton venture, is fun to both look at it and think about in real-world implications.   As a marketing major during college, the scenes with visual manipulation during commercials always fascinated me.   And to the 1981 me, this film had quite a bit of nudity for a PG film, so that was no small thing towards helping me enjoy it.


What 1981 films did you/do you still like that critics or those around you pan?


I HEARD IT

We'll finish off our 1981-themed post with the End Titles from TRUE CONFESSIONS.

If you can't play the video above, you can find it by clicking here.