AFI #94 Pulp Fiction Review

Oooh boy does this movie divide people. Some people love it, some people hate it, but most can agree that it put director Quentin Tarantino on the collective map. I'm still not sure what I think about this movie after multiple viewings!

Screening Date: 8/2/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 154 minutes (2 hours, 34 minutes)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Release Date: 1994
Attendance: Weird Dave, Harris Burkhalter, Patrick Griffin, Luke Price, Aaron Ostman, Eric Brooks, Alaina Thole, Alice Ruzin

I think, after 10 years of seeing this movie, I've finally come a conclusion. I don't care for this movie very much at all. I've spoken with multiple people about it from multiple backgrounds, and I've learned some things I didn't know before, some things that I didn't see or didn't realize. But that doesn't make it good in my eyes.

If you haven't seen it ... I'm not going to try to recap. It's essentially a character study, with many many characters having many many conversations about many many things. It has groups of main characters that tie together through varied circumstances, like two hit men (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson) making a hit on a target; one of the hit men and his boss' wife (John Travolta and Uma Thurman) enjoying a night on the town and a drug overdose; two robbers (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) robbing a diner; a boxer and the boss of the hit men (Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames) rigging an upcoming match; the boxer and his wife/girlfriend (Bruce Willis and Maria de Medeiros) avoiding the hit men boss after betraying him; the boss being raped by rednecks and rescued by the boxer after an uncannily unlucky set of circumstances; the two hit men cleaning up their car with the help The Wolf (Harvey Keitel); and the two hit men meeting the two robbers in the diner as it is being robbed.

As you can read, the movie is very disjointed, with characters thrown about like popcorn at an Ed Wood festival. Each character has their own idiosyncracies that play out in the scenes, and the over ridding theme seems to revolve around morality. The moral choices that face seemingly immoral people, or the immoral choices that moral people choose. After a "miracle" where a man shoots at the two hitmen and misses completely, Samuel L. Jackson has an epiphany and decides that God wanted him to live and decides to give up the glorious hit man life. John Travolta, meanwhile, saves the life of his boss' wife after she ODs on a white powder drug but dies in the home of Bruce Willis after the boxer returns to retrieve his watch. What message does this send?

There's a few parts that sum up to little more than overblown cameos for people Tarantino likes, admires, or sleeps with. Christopher Walken plays an released Vietnam POW who hid Bruce Willis' father's watch in his ass for two years. Harvey Keitel plays a cool, collected "specialist" called in when Travolta and Jackson have an accident involving a gun, a bullet, and a head. Tarantino himself plays a role in this scene, and boy is he not a good actor.

There's so much going on in this movie that it's impossible for me to say I hate it. Many of the coversations, especially between the hit men, are filled with interesting lines and good points, but are these gems worth the price of admission? Hard to say, but I think this is a movie everyone needs to see once, which I suppose is the reason it's on the AFI list. At least we're not treated to extended sequences featuring Tarantino's foot fetish, though an ongoing conversation revolves around foot massages.

AFI #95 The Last Picture Show Review

Like "Do the Right Thing," this movie falls squarely into the category of "never heard of before now." It's got quite a cast in their first starring roles, including Randy Quaid (emphasis on the randy), Jeff Bridges, and Sybill Shepard. Does a movie filmed in 1971 set in 1951 seen in 2009 hold up?

Screening Date: 7/31/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 126 minutes (2 hours, 6 minutes)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Release Date: 1971
Attendance: Weird Dave, Harris Burkhalter, Patrick Griffin, Luke Price, Aaron Ostman, Eric Brooks, Alaina Thole

I felt this was a very depressing movie. It stars Timothy Bottoms as Sonny, the main character of this film set in the drab, windy Texas town of Anarene. It's 1951, Sonny and his friend Duane (Jeff Bridges) are still in high school, trying to score with their respective girlfriends. They frequent the local movie house, where they keep to the back of the auditorium with their lady friends making out. Duane's got Jacy (Sybill Shepard), the prettiest girl in school, while Sonny's got ... someone else.

The movie was filmed in black and white, which really helps to capture the bleak feel of the film. Early on Sonny dumps his girlfriend, and begins a secret tryst with the wife of the high school gym coach. The wife is played by Cloris Leachman, and is it sad that the only two things I know Cloris Leachman from are "Young Frankenstein" and "Beerfest"? Probably. We see the sexual frustrations and inexperience played out between the two main characters in their unique positions.

It's quickly revealed that Jacy wants nothing to do with Duane, and leaves him for a nude pool party with Randy Quaid. Randy Quaid ... brrr, the guy just oozes creep like a cheap cologne. We see far too much of Randy at the pool party, where he and the gaggle of onlookers convince Jacy to strip naked and join them in the pool. It's an interesting turning point for the young girl, perhaps a pivotal moment where she throws caution to the wind and just goes with it.

Sonny goes steady with Cloris Leachman, even after high school, while Duane gets more and more restless after Jacy leaves him. A few members of the town are revealed as the movie progresses, including the owner of more than a few buildings in Anarene - Sam the Lion. Sam runs the pool hall and owns the diner, and he employs a mentally handicapped boy named Billy to help clean up and keep things tidy. Sam, Billy, and Sonny enjoy many a time together, including a fishing trip out to a muddy creek with no fish. Sam describes how he once loved a woman who was a wild filly, but their love didn't work out.

Afterwards Sonny and Duane take a weekend trip to Mexico, and upon their return learn that Sam died of a heart attack. This was the last straw for Duane, who takes the incident as an excuse to head out of town on an oil rig job. Sonny, however, sticks around, since Sam left him the pool hall. After Duane's left Jacy cozies up to Sonny, upsetting his relationship with Cloris, and when Duane returns for a weekend things get heated between the two friends. Words are spoken, a scuffle breaks out, and Duane breaks a beer bottle over Sonny's face.

The wounded man spends some time in the hospital recuperating, and has a large bandage over the side of his face. Jacy, seeing in Sonny a successful young man who owns the town pool hall, decides to get married and the two run off in a surprising turn.

It doesn't work out, Jacy's parents catch them at the border, and Sonny returns to the doom and gloom of small town life in Texas. Duane ships off to the military while Sonny sticks around in Anarene. The mentally handicapped boy gets hit by a truck in the middle of town and Sonny tries to reconnect with Cloris Leachman. The end.

All in all this was a depressing tale of how a small town get dig its claws into your hollow husk and never let go. The film seems to be about the death of small town living when the movie house closes up for good, leaving nothing but wind and flatness and gray. Endless gray, like the color of Sonny's soul. Or something.

AFI #96 Do the Right Thing Review

I realized fairly recently that there were a lot of movies that I had not only not seen, but weren't even aware of. There are titles on the AFI list that I couldn't tell you one thing about them. "Do the Right Thing" falls into this category quite soundly, so already I feel like I've expanded my movie watching horizons.

Screening Date: 7/26/2009, 10:00 PM
Run Time: 120 minutes (2 hours)
Director: Spike Lee
Release Date: 1989
Attendance: Weird Dave, Patrick Griffin

I have not seen many Spike Lee movies; in fact, I think the only one I had seen previously was "Malcolm X." After seeing this racially charged, hate-fueled movie, I'm not sure I want to rush out and see more to be honest.

"Do the Right Thing" gives us a picture of the hottest day of summer in a small neighborhood in Brooklyn populated primarily by black people. We see Samuel L. Jackson as the DJ for the local radio, along with Ossie Davis as a drunk bum who calls himself "The Mayor." Spike Lee plays Mookie, the protagonist/antagonist on this hot Brooklyn day, who works at a local pizzeria shop run by an Italian man named Sal (played quite brilliantly by Danny Aiello) and his two sons, Vito (Richard Edson of "Super Mario Brothers" fame) and Pino (John Turturro, who was recently urinated on by a gobot).

Mookie works as a pizza delivery man for the neighborhood, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him. A nice enough neighborhood it seems, with interesting characters going about their business as interesting characters do. The trouble starts early in the day when a young "power to the black man" kind of upstart demands that Sal put up pictures of black celebrities on the wall of his Italian pizzeria. Sal throws him out, but this sparks a heated and continued debate between Sal and his son Pino over their future in the neighborhood. Pino feels like they should move out into the Italian section of Brooklyn and Sal says he's staying right there.

As the day progresses tempers flare all over the place and we get introduced to a pack of more interesting characters, including a deafeningly-loud boombox playing gent named Radio Raheem. The action that played Radio seemed so familiar, but all I coudl think of was Tracy Morgan. After a bit of digging afterward the reason he seemed familiar is because he was the same actor who played Robbie in the Spider-Man films. Man, that bugged me throughout the movie.

We're introduced to a budding romance between The Mayor and the local gossip queen known as Mother Sister. Nothing really goes anywhere with it, which pretty much sums up all of the myriad of plot threads in the movie - they don't really go anywhere. We see a lot of characters doing things that don't get resolved or don't go anywhere, and then WHAM! The gent who was thrown out of Sal's pizzeria comes back with Radio Raheem, sparks an intense racially fueled argument that escalates into a fistfight in the streets, and culminates in Radio's death at the hands of the police.

But the mob of angry residents blame Sal, and it is Mookie who throws the trash can through the glass window. Torches are lit and the place burns to the ground, a business that had been around for many many years as established in earlier scenes. I'm not sure the message here, since the riot was fueled by Radio Raheem's death, but perhaps the undercurrent was the overriding, mounting racial tensions built up over the many many years. Maybe.

Overall I think the movie had some great symbolism, but it just felt like it didn't go anywhere. We see a lot of characters doing things around the neighborhood, some racially charged some not, and then Sal's pizzeria is burnt down in an angry mob. Mookie threw the first stone, so to speak, but he kind of reconciles with Sal the next morning. Lesson? Umm ... I'm not sure. The lesson that stuck with me was that anger can override any other emotion and turn normal, decent folks into monsters. I'm going to stick with that.

AFI #97 Blade Runner Review

I've seen Blade Runner many, many times, and it ranks among my Top 10 Movies of All Time list (number 6 I believe?). But always I have seen the director's cut, or more recently the final cut in theaters. I hadn't seen the theatrical cut, so I went out, picked up the 5 disc ultimatron mega blu-ray edition and set the date for Blade Runner.

Screening Date: 7/25/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 117 minutes (1 hour, 57 minutes)
Director: Ridley Scott
Release Date: 1982
Attendance: Weird Dave, Patrick Griffin, Aaron Ostman, Eyo, Luke Price

Blade Runner is an awesome movie, with amazing visuals and powerful acting. Harrison Ford does an exceptional job as Deckard, a retired blade runner hired to hunt down and "retire" four replicants that escaped from an off-world colony. Replicants are man-made machine people, with emotions and desires, but with a built-in four year lifespan.

The four escaped replicants are led by Roy, played by Rutger Hauer, a Nexus 6 advanced model. The others include Priss, a pleasure model played by Daryl "Clan of the Cave Bear" Hannah; Zhora, a female replicant built for combat played by Joanna Cassidy; and Leon ... umm ... a basic replicant? I don't recall. But he did have one of my favorite movie lines of all time ("Wake up, it's time to die").

Anyway, Deckard tracks these replicants down through futuristic detective methods, which include and are limited to magic photo scanning/rotating/zooming devices. All the while he's interacting with Tyrell, a man-frog looking guy who runs the company that created the Nexus replicants. Tyrell's secretary is Rachael, played by Man-shoulders Magoo, also known as Sean Young. She's quite handsome.

Deckard figures out that Rachael is actually a replicant, though she doesn't know it, and they knock boots together. Deckard tracks down and kills Zhora in a crowded street, and then gets confronted by Leon, who is shot by Rachael. Two down, two to go.

Pris and Roy have shacked up with a genius man named Sebastian who has a hyperthalmic disorder, which means his body ages faster than normal, a parallel to the replicant's own condition. Eventually Deckard tracks the replicants to Sebastian's apartment and an awesome fight ensues, with Pris biting it early on and Roy essentially playing cat and mouse with the blade runner. There's a really cool, gross scene where Roy, his hand clenching in what we assume is a sign of the end of his four year life span, shoves a nail through his palm. Nothing symbolic there, no siree!

The theatrical cut of Blade Runner differs from the director's cut and final cut in two key areas. The first is the ending - the theatrical ending has Deckard and Rachael driving off on a sunny highway. Very uplifting, quite jarring.

The other difference is a voice over narration by Deckard. I like Harrison Ford, I think he's a good actor, but boy is he a bad narrator. I wonder if that's why he hasn't done any animated movies? The narration comes at odd times and doesn't add anything to the story, and in fact accentuates some confusing parts. Trust me on this one, you don't need to see the theatrical edition. Stick with the director's cut or future versions.

AFI #98 Yankee Doodle Dandy Review

The first musical on the AFI list is the 1942 "classic" Yankee Doodle Dandy. I was not even aware this movie existed until I decided to do the whole AFI list, but I asked around to friends and family and the best description I received was : "sickeningly patriotic." I would have to agree.

Screening Date: 7/24/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 126 minutes (2 hours, 6 minutes)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Release Date: 1942
Attendance: Weird Dave (alone!)

This movie wasn't all bad, and I can kind of see why it was included on a list of the greatest American movies of all time. It was "sickeningly patriotic," I'd have to agree, but it also possesses an innocent charm hearkening back to the days of World War II. The last romantic war, that's for sure, and its spirit is captured in this autobiographical story.

The movie follows the life of George M. Cohan, famous for writing "Over There," that thrilling diddy of kicking the snot out of Germans in World War I. He was born to an Irish singing, dancing family known eventually as the Four Cohans - him, his sister, his father, and his mother. They traveled the United States, playing in every state and county fair available throughout the early part of the century. Oh, and George M. Cohan was born on the 4th of July. Of course.

The music was actually pretty catchy, and the scenes were well rehearsed and quite engaging. The rest of the movie, however, suffered from a noticeable lack of conflict. Most stories follow similar patterns, with an introduction of the protagonist, introduction of conflict, protagonist deals with conflict and fails, protagonist learns some lesson, protagonist overcomes conflict with a rousing song and dance number.

"Yankee Doodle Dandy" followed that pattern minus the conflict. It had less of a movie feel and more of a music biography special about a man who became famous, earned lots of money, had his name in lights, and then was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The end. The whole story is told by George M. Cohan to FDR after the opening of Cohan's first new play in a decade.

Overall the "movie" was well done, and James Cagney has a screen presence that is just electrifying. However, the lack of any sort of confict beyond Cohan's own arrogance (which only manifests itself a few times, not enough to be really considered a problem) and the constant musical numbers (which are all presented as theater, so no spontaneous song and dance in a mess hall nonsense) bring the whole experience down for me. While not bad, I don't think I'm going to watch this again.

AFI #99 Toy Story Review

You didn't grow up in the 90's without seeing this movie. It was everywhere - if you didn't own it, you knew someone who did, or went somewhere that had access to it. I'm not sure but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was a breakfast cereal based on it.

Screening Date: 7/19/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 81 minutes
Director: John Lasseter
Release Date: 1995
Attendance: Weird Dave, Patrick Griffin, Aaron Ostman, Matthew Anderson, Kat (?), Kat's Friend (?)

This is a good movie. It's fun, engaging, and entertaining for the whole family, even a pack of 20-year olds sitting around a Garage Theater. The story, at least partially written by Joss Whedon, zips along at a quick pace but never feels rushed.

In case you didn't grow up in the 90's (or forgot), Toy Story gives a depiction of what happens with toys when people aren't around. Why, they come to life of course! Our protagonist is a cowboy doll named Woody, voiced perfectly by Tom Hanks (who I'm sure had a stupid haircut a la The Da Vinci Code while doing the voice). Woody is the favored toy of the child Andy, and serves as the de facto leader of Andy's toys. This was Pixar's first big release, and we see several voice actors who would go on to appear in all of their animated films, notably John Ratzenberger. Oddly enough his voice seems perfect for the part of Hamm, the piggy bank. Go figure.

Life is swell for the toys in Andy's room until Andy's birthday party, where he receives a new toy - a Buzz Lightyear action figure. The voice acting in this movie is superb all around, but special props go to Tim Allen for his depiction of the clueless space ranger Buzz. He's just so perfect for a toy who doesn't think he's a toy. He truly believes everything on his packaging, which provides no end of frustration to Woody.

As the movie progresses Woody is left more and more along the wayside in favor of the shiny new Buzz. A series of accidents, however, winds both of the toys up in the house of Sid, the neighborhood kid who has a penchant for blowing up toys or feeding them to his dog, Scud. In Sid's room Buzz and Woody meet the gang of GROTESQUELY misfit toys, victims of Sid and Scud who have learned to patch themselves together. They don't speak, and are initially pegged as canibals, but it turns out they just want to help.

Buzz and Woody come up with a plan to escape before Andy and his family move away the next day. The plan is executed perfectly, and the poor Sid is probably scarred for life after witnessing the traumatizing sights of his past misdeeds returned to haunt him. The two toys manage to catch up to the moving truck and are reunited with Andy and the rest of the gang.

The dialogue is top notch and everyone deserves accolades for their work as voice actors, but I have to say the animation is a bit dated. Almost 15 years old at this point, the movie looked like it could have been an aspiring graphic designer's demo reel in terms of visuals. Not bad by any stretch of the word, just a bit outdated.

And Randy Newman needs to die.

AFI #100 Ben-Hur Review

To begin watching the AFI Top 100 Movies List, you have to start from somewhere. I decided to start at #100 and move down, so looking at the 2007 AFI list I see that #100 is the Charlton Heston epic, Ben-Hur.

Screening Date: 7/17/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 212 minutes (3 hours, 32 minutes)
Director: William Wyler
Release Date: 1959
Attendance: Weird Dave, Patrick Griffin, Harris Burkhalter, Trenton Rehberger, David "Schwami" Schillmoeller

It is quite a shame that I had not seen this movie, as it fits right in with my viewing tastes. Epic scale, grandiose style, and Charlton Heston as a Jew speaking in his clenched teeth mode. Ben-Hur has all of this and a surprisingly engaging storyline that follows Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish noble betrayed by his Roman friend. His mother and sister imprisoned by the Romans, sent to work on a slave galley for three years, this man keeps going with an inner strength that stems from his belief he'll one day be reunited with his family.

His slave ship engages in a mighty naval battle, which was done surprisingly well with models considering it was 50 years ago, where he saves the life of the ship's captain after their vessel is destroyed. Ben-Hur earns the man's friendship, and afterwards they both travel to Rome where the former Jewish noble becomes a vassal of the Roman lord. Ben-Hur shows quite an aptitude for horses and races the Roman's chariots in the games, and continues to do so for several years.

I think. One of my biggest complaints about the movie is how it handles the passage of time, which is to say not very well. For a movie that's more than 3 1/2 hours long you think they could've squeezed something in, a phrase flashing by that says "3 years later" or something like that.

Long story shorter, Ben-Hur races his Roman friend in the climactic chariot scene the movie is famous for. It was quite intense - or at least I think, since I fell asleep for most of it. I'm quite embarassed by this, though it is odd that I would stay glued to my seat for most of the movie and then drop when the action ramped up. Not sure what that says.

Ben-Hur beats his Roman friend and returns to Jerusalem to find his family, where he meets up with his former slave and his daughter. Here towards the end we see a romance story start to emerge, but it is quickly squashed when Ben-Hur learns his mother and sister have become lepers in the Roman governor's dungeons.

Here's where the movie starts to not be so good. Through good fortune and luck Ben-Hur learns of his family's plight, and also that there is a miracle worker named Jesus in the area who can cure leprosy. They arrive too late, unfortunately, seeing Jesus dragged through the streets attached to the cross and then crucified. But the sun shines through and the family's leprosy is cured. The end.

I have to say, I did really like the film overall. It was extremely well done, and overall well paced. Until the end. The first 3 hours felt like a half hour, and the last half hour felt like 3 hours. When the movie introduced the suffering of Jesus after Ben-Hur's ordeal it just felt jarring.

Overall, though, it was a good introduction and a movie everyone should see. "Let my people go!" Or something.

AFI List Thoughts

This is the blog where I'll post my thoughts and feelings on the films in the AFI list. I encourage all to do the same!