Tag Archives: movie review

Berkeley – movie review (circa 2005)

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Writer Bobby Roth

The action opens with The Fixing To Die Rag, Country Joe and the Fish. That’s the only music in the movie that sounds like it came fro 1968 to 1972. 

Every actor playing a student is too old They should all appear as teenagers. Sticking a beard on a guy does not make that a Berkeley student in 1968; each appears older than thirty and remember: Don’t trust anyone older than thirty!

The film is not shot in Berkeley. There’s the door of William Shakespeare & Company (closed); there’s part of Sather Gate and Wheeler Hall, and the cross-campus road ending at Sather Tower (the Campanile). Internal scenes were shot on other campuses or rooms at other institutions. Eternal scenes were shot on other campuses, like U.S.C.

Newly admitted protagonist did not live in the dorms or in a coop. He lives in a well-tended bungalow house in well-tended neighborhoods. No neighborhood in Berkeley like those exists. 

Dialogue is high school stuff. Moods, Vietnam, race, drugs, birth control, etc and be in the in-crowd, right? After the Fall of 1967 there were few anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in Berkley. Public relations had put them in San Francisco where marchers ended up in Golden Gate Park.

Social activism seems to be confined to learning to do drugs, drop acid, smoke wee, play in a rock-band and screw any 30 year woman who happened to be on the set that day. The protagonist should have gone to a Junior College. 

Blue Steel

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Part of a movie review

Jamie Lee Curtis is a cop; Ron Silver is the bad guy.

I saw the last 30 minutes of this movie. Jamie, fit and fulsome, is after Ron, bearded and mysterious. She has many shots at him. I believed the film was set in Los Angeles. There’s a park where Ron is looking for buried goods. Jamie comes across him, bullets fly and Ron is hit, somewhat. The marksmanship in this movie is atrocious! Buildings look like parts of business neighborhoods south of the LA Civic Center. They appear the sort that Superman can step over rather than leap at a single bound.

I can’t remember all the contorted coincidences which ended in shoot-outs. Ron is wounded a few times but they are scratches, no matter how much blood flows onto his clothes. Jamie, herself, is wounded but at last escapes a hospital to hunt Ron down for the final shoot-out.  I hate it when bad guys are predictable, and always show up when the police are present.

Toward the end is the big shootout. Having shot ten times Jamie is forced to reload her revolver holding six. Ron gets more shots without reloading his revolver. Nobody has a Nine. The producers did not want members of the audience getting shot.

Jamie wounds Ron who tried to hijack a car. He somehow leaves and runs. Nobody in the City of Angeles runs. Jamie get in the car and runs Ron over. He’s all right and is fighting fit, but remains too close. Point blank Jamie puts three in his center mass.

As the end credits rolled, I thought it might be good that the National Guard and Marines are now in Los Angeles. They can give lessons in marksmanship and sharpshooter awards to police going through tougher shooting programs. Farther into the credits I read that Blue Steel was set in New York City where no bad guy dies until the fat woman sings.

The Winter House

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inA female novelist rents a house in New Hampshire for the winter. On one of the first nights, she’s interrupted from sleep by a burglar, Jesse. She doesn’t take the gun downstairs to confront the younger man. He’s in the kitchen eating. Her motherly instincts kick in (although she knows he lying about everything). He says this house belongs to his parents. He’s just dropping by. She doesn’t ask all the questions. He doesn’t want to say why’s he’s come. She doesn’t want to explain why she’s there. She lets him sleep in the upstairs bedroom, next to hers. He leaves the next morning but returns at the some hour that night. Time to call the cops.

They hike and see the panoramic view of New Hampshire’s hills. She learns he once liked to write poetry but preferred drugs. He drinks a lot. He falls asleep on the couch. She puts a blanket over him.

DAY THREE: He’s chopping wood somewhere. She’s at home and is confronted by a goon, a large bald guy looking for Jesse. She appropriately fends of the goon, but doesn’t immediately tell Jesse the goon showed up, a huge coincidence: Remember Jesse had no connection with the house except he once attended a teenage party there. So goon is a character out of no where, but one wonders will Jesse ever confront goon?  As an unrelated plot point the viewers learn Jesse and goon were partners in a recent crime, unsuccessfully pulled off.

DAY FOUR: Jesse reads one of her novels and lands on a prosaic statement which he considers the most profound. She’s pleased, as though it’s the centerpiece of the story. He reads more. She sees the goon in town talking to three thugs. She returns home but doesn’t mention that. He gives a thoroughly bullshit analysis of her novel, which any novelist should be able to brush away. She’s too understanding. They get cozy. The goon and the three thugs show up in a pickup and leave the headlights shining. There’s no explanation but that quartet walks away, out of the movie forever. [Reality: This is a low budget flick and no one had the bucks to allow for broken windows and furniture, amid the bullet holes.] There’s sheet music (mostly sheets, no notes). In the morning the goon and thugs are gone; there’s no pillow talk. 

Jesse turns himself in and the rest of the gang. He’s in the pokey. From the cell he sends a poem. I didn’t hear her read it: Leave poetry to the prose. This movie is nothing to write home about. I hope they don’t make a sequel.   

THE SEA WOLVES, 19

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Gregory Peck, David Niven, Roger Moore, Trevor Howard and a group of middle aged British actors.

Being unaware of this movie set in India in 1943, I noticed it was done well. But the story and characters seemed like a mediocre script writer’s effort written and produced to do a World War Two story to compete the spy thrillers in 1980.
NOPE, the story is TRUE, and events happened as casually, awkwardly and as surprising as shown, likely with little input from the script writer’s craft.

One set of images, as an undercurrent, is also present. The British in India, and their elevated, privileged place in society held by Britons, the last vintages of colonialism. Within four years the British were removed and India and its people were free.
Since the events are true, it is a movie to see.

THE HADES FACTOR

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Avoid

This made for TV movie taken from a Robert Ludlum story unsuccessfully tries to replicate the thrills from the Bourne movies. The bad guys are everywhere – Afghanistan to the Middle East, in the government and among pharmaceutical companies. And not everyone else is squeaky clean or filthy dirty.

Characters do stupid things. Sophia Myles plays Stephen Dorff’s wife [girl, financee]: Let’s go to dinner. She steps from the hotel. I need a sweater. Another ten minutes of film later, she and Stephen have checked out of the hotel, yet she leaves her cell phone in the room. I would hope her work as a medical researcher of infectious diseases was handled with more care, but she seems soporific. She is clearly seems someone to be murdered, and later she killed.

Stepping into Sophia’s place is Mira Sorvino, once a bedmate of Dorff’s. For the first 90 minutes of film, the former lover waiting in the wings, is her role. She supposedly is outside all agencies, so she has no connections. She’s completely free lance, yet she is well-informed. She suddenly appears in Afghanistan, having previously been in Paris. It’s convenient to have extra friends show up to help kill bad guys.

Stephen Dorff’s, former secret agent, has a bad time in this movie. In every fight he is outweighed by 30-50 pounds, and every opponent is at least six feet tall. Right off, when Stephen Dorff returns to the hotel room to retrieve Sophia’s phone, he get into a fight with a bad guy. He turns his opponent around – face to the wall – and the audience can see what’s coming next: An elbow from the opponent sent Stephen sprawling. Next is a foot chase which Stephen loses.

At that point I realized there would be many scenes ahead in this overlong movie where fast forward on the DVD could be used – one-quarter, perhaps a third of the movie. Every time Stephen confronts a bad guy the audience knows he’s going to get pounded. This is not “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Yet, like the Champ, Stephen emerges with no bruises on body or face. Indeed, no ill-effects linger from the last fight: Stephen, wounded, fights bad guy, wounded, on a bridge. They fall off, into the sewage treatment plant known as the Potomac River.

By The End Stephen Dorff doesn’t seem much mutated, but I noted that Mira Sorvino had the grace to avoid the final scenes.

JUNGLE CRUISE – Review

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I’ve now seen enough trailers, snippets and scenes from this movie during its promotion to cobble together the story and players.

For decades producers have tried to put an attractive guy and a good-looking babe in the jungle, as happened with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen. [I’m not mentioning Tarzan and Jane.] I’m not sure which was more drunk – Bogart or the crocodiles.

Upon seeing ten minutes of The Jungle Cruise on TV, to support the story line and good- character development, I’ve concluded that Emily Blunt’s character should not be around when the boat returns to home port: Either she goes missing in the jungle (happens all the time) or she’s swallowed whole by a python. The audience can have a good cry, and the movie can garner loads of sympathy and big bucks for people who have gone missing in far-off places.

BOTTLE SHOCK

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Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor Every performance is excellent.

I had no idea whether this story is true – Chateau Montelena was about to go under at the time it won first prize for its Chardonnay at the Judgment of Paris, 1976. The truth may have made a better story, but for the film these facts fit well.

The scenery (miles of vineyards) is authentic. Having bought, drank, aged in storage, and sold wine, the movie is a delight to see as much activity, enthusiasm and dedication to growing, crushing, aging, bottling and selling wine. Wine perfection is a slow process. This movie does not show all that time. The tasting in Paris took wine near the end of the aging stage into bottles, and tested one wine against another.

One point should not be overlooked, which the movie shows. Many French wines fit the delicacy and exquisiteness of France’s culinary output. The movie shows Americans make wine that go with hamburgers, fried chicken and guacamole.

SMALL TOWN SATURDAY NIGHT

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Chris Pine, Bre Blair

This is a terrific film about showing the unhappy steps needed to choose the pursuit of happiness. In a small-town crooner and song writer (Pine) wants to go to Nashville for happiness and prosperity. He has lived in the small place, Prospect, his entire life and has ties there, including a thriving romance with Blair. Pine will take Blair and her child with him.

She gets last-minute cold feet, wondering if leaving is the best move. Ex is a deputy sheriff, who is Pine’s subordinate in the Sheriff’s Department.

The writing and scenes describes many small town lives in a cadre of characters, glimpses of incidences, days all the same in a known environment, hours seem repeated and familiar, every day feels the same for each person. Residents know and appreciate that anyone with talent must leave e.g. the meeting between Pine and the Ex in the final scene: Take care of Bre and the kid. Put the town on the map.

A lot of is going on in the 36 hours that the film presents. There’s no big scene between Pine and Bre. Throughout that day something happens and Pine asks, What am I doing here? Every situation she experiences reinforces her decision to say.

Pine doesn’t sing much, except a song near the end. He doesn’t convincingly venture and guess and put together words and concepts when he is alone, at home, in the car, at work. He says he has a melody in his head, but viewers never hear it. This artistic input obviously was not in the script. A story point is missing: How does an artist in a familiar environment originate while being bombarded with impediments of the known and mundane.

THE LIQUIDATOR

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Spymaster, Trevor Howard, casually recruits Rod Taylor to become the state Assassin of the United Kingdom. This low-budget movie looks like a screen-test for Sean Connery’s replacement to play James Bond.

There are no gadgets. No special guns, no knives, no darts, no poisons, and no other weapons to kill human beings. Unlike the carphone in Goldfinger, there are no communication devices, like a shoe phone.There are no alternative identities – driver’s licenses, passports: all the victims are in Britain and pretty close to London. And there is no Dome of Silence. At the end of training Howard tells Taylor about his job in a crowded dining room – kill people whom Britain wants dead; Taylor also learns his code name L, for Liquidator – feels very Chicago in the 1920s.

What Taylor likes about his position is the lifestyle it supports: Meeting pretty babes and alluring each to his spacious flat, living room 1000 square feet supposedly with auxiliary rooms for essentials. While enjoying all that, Taylor hires professional hit persons to kill his targets. London is a very dangerous town.

Jill St. John is the love interest, so much so she is in most of the film. She always seems fully clothed. I too would have gone to France for a rendezvous with Jill in the 1960s before she became a Bond girl and got ruined. But on this unauthorized out-of-country trip for a honey-trap, I would not have gotten kidnapped, been roughed up by bad guys, turned, and sometime later hooked up with Jill after 20 minutes of emptiness (I didn’t watch; I was taking out the garbage.) In the next scenes Rod Taylor is true to his character: He is reluctant to kill his foremost adversary, Trevor Howard. The script somewhat plays toward comedy, but not the sly stuff at which the British excel.

If reading this writing about The Liquidator is dreadful, remember the film is worst. In my future and happening upon it, I will immediately turn to a station broadcasting Gilligan’s Island.

However, there are significant plot points to develop in The Liquidator. The story suggests The Bourne Identity et seq. and Airplane.

SICARIO

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Emily Blunt is an FBI Agent who volunteers to join a task force to take down drug kingpins along the Mexican/United States border. Emily is initially portrayed as a seasoned agent, but the movie makes her a fun-loving, innocent, naive, stupid twit who is also vulnerable. If the task force does not do things following FBI protocols and methods, she is glum, disillusioned and uncooperative. This characterization makes Emily a mannequin for American purity and goodness. Benecio Del Toro informs her at the movie’s end (something the audience already knows): This is a country of wolves. You need to leave and go to a small town somewhere, not along the border.

Other than Emily’s weak character (which is played as written), Sicario is an excellent, violent, gritty film of the border law enforcement arising from drugs, crime and smuggling. Bencio Del Toro and Josh Brolin (balls to the wind) play the leads in the task force. If the scenes filmed have happened or may happen one day, Sicario is a deeply disturbing movie. [It was written and filmed during the Obama Administration; nothing Trump did helped produce or promote this movie.] Most Americans are not ready to face the reality – there will be actions and occurrences that must be overlooked.

Emily Blunt’s character should have been written differently. Allow her to learn from the experiences that character has in the movie. She does not like what the task force is doing; she makes mistakes. At the end she must have some fight (dignity, integrity and honesty) in her. In the confrontation Bencio Del Toro begins. She says, “I didn’t do very well.” He tells her she is too innocent and naive and he uses a line (carelessly disclosed earlier in the script) “You are too much like my daughter.” Emily already knows his daughter was killed by drug overlords. Del Toro gives his country of wolves comments. She is defiant. He says, “If you want to tell your FBI superiors about everything and about all your mistakes, it is up to you.” He leaves. Emily stews; she has decisions to make about the reality she has experienced and the reality Americans believe is true. In essence Emily can represent all Americans going forward.