Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Abel Ferrara
Harvey Keitel gets the title role in what is probably the greatest performance in his career, which is saying quite a lot when you look at everything he's done. He plays a morally corrupt and soul less detective who starts to think about his life while investigating the rape of a nun. Ferrara and controversy go hand and hand together and this film certainly hit theaters with a storm of it. I remember the release of this film very clear and how there were some protests and while critics disagreed on the actual film there was no question about the power of Keitel. Over the years I've come to see this film to be quite campy due to an incredibly bad story and some really silly dialogue. It's really amazing at how over the top this story goes yet not too many people ever bring it up. I understand we're dealing with a "bad" guy but Ferrara takes that badness to a whole new level. Within the first twenty-minutes we see him doing three types of drugs, stealing money, gambling, going off on a profane rant towards his kids and that's just the beginning because more follows and all of this is at the start of the movie. We then get the infamous scene where he pulls over two teen girls and sexually assaults them and at some point you have to ask yourself where the director is going with all this badness. If this guy had been this bad then he would have been dead a lot sooner than the events in this movie. What was the point of all this stuff? Why go on such an over kill? I have no idea the reasons behind it but I just can't take the film as serious as the director wants me to because of it. The main and only reason to see this film is because of the hard hitting and incredibly brave performance by Keitel. He certainly goes places most actors wouldn't dare and one must applaud him for that. The way he slowly but surely cracks and breaks down is hard to watch but Keitel hits all the right notes. His confrontation with Jesus is a very haunting scene and you really feel as if this character is at his last wits and destruction.
Police Academy 5 (1988)
Alan Myerson
Cmndt. Lassard (George Gaynes) is forced into retirement but he does get a trip to Miami Beach and of course his gang goes along. Lassard picks up the wrong luggage at the airport and soon jewel thieves are after him. The series was going downhill pretty fast here and with the absence of Steve Guttenberg there's really not too much anyone can do. Not to mention that the look and feel of this has TV movie written all over it. The biggest problem is that the jokes just aren't here. The screenplay is full of childish moments but none of them gets laughs and I might go even further and say the film is lazy by recycling more jokes from previous films. The best sequence is when Harris (G.W. Bailey) falls into the water and gives a loud scream when an alligator starts to come after him. Smith, Graf, Winslow and Easterbrook are all back but there's no lead here strong enough to carry the picture and none of these actors can do it on their own. I'm sure fans of the film, including myself, will get a few grins out of the movie and the cast members do have a certain amount of charm but this should have been it for the series.
How to Vote (1936)
Felix E. Feist
A political candidate comes down with laryngitis so he can't talk about the city's water dam so he sends Robert Benchley to do it instead and of course things don't go as planned. I've seen quite a few of these Benchley shorts over the years thanks to Turner Classic Movies and I think this one here has to be the very worst of the group. There wasn't a single scene here that made me laugh and in fact the entire film made me appear stoneface just like Buster Keaton. The attempts at humor deal with Benchley not knowing what he's talking about and not knowing how to do anything else.
Indie Sex: Taboos (2007)
Lisa Ades, Lesli Klainberg
Documentary taking a look at Hollywood and various sexual taboos. The director would go onto make three more of these documentaries and she certainly handled and researched the material a lot better then. This film here has a lot of good information but at the same time there's a lot of films overlooked. The other documentaries in this series did a great job at covering Hollywood, foreign films and underground films but this one here pretty much just looks at Hollywood. There's mention of Luis Bunuel in terms of sexuality influences America but that's about it. There are countless foreign movies that tried real sex in films yet this documentary basically covers later day films that did it and called them ground breaking. Naturally
Last Tango in Paris gets some discussion as well as the recent
Shortbus. If you're new to this type of thing then I'm sure you'll learn a lot here but there's a lot more out there to learn and not all the information here is too accurate.
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Robert Wise
Paul Newman crashed through the doors of Hollywood in this biopic of boxer Rocky Graziano. In the film, Rocky starts out a common criminal and finds himself going through the court systems and jail when he finally catches a break and ends up in the boxing ring. It's rather amazing at how similar all these boxing pictures are going back to the silent days to
Body and Soul and up to future pictures like
Raging Bull. This film really doesn't offer up anything new or original but it remains highly entertaining due to the wonderful performance by Newman. It's rather shocking at how this was only Newman's second film because he perfectly nails this character and really delivers a memorable performance. What really stood out for me was his accent, which I found to be quite flawless. These thick New York/Italian accents are often overdone but I thought Newman's was very realistic and hit the spot. Pier Angeli is equally good as Newman's wife in the film as is Eileen Heckart as his mother. Sal Mineo and Steve McQueen have small roles and are fun to watch even though their characters aren't anything special. It's well known that James Dean was to do this film before his tragic death but in all honesty I really don't see him in this role but you do have to wonder what would have happened to Newman had the other legend not been killed. This film is far from perfect but it does have a certain flair that makes it quite memorable compared to other boxing/rebel films of the era.
Track of the Cat (1954)
William A. Wellman
Strange but ultimately disappointing family drama hiding behind the Western/Adventure genres. The film tells the story of a dysfunctional family stranded on a ranch during the 1880s. The family is bullied around by the middle son (Robert Mitchum) and his mother (Beulah Bondi) but the others begin to rise up as Mitchum is out tracking a deadly mountain lion. Okay, this is a film I had been wanting to watch for many years but within twenty-minutes I knew I was in trouble and the film never picked up. I was really shocked at how boring this film was considering Wellman was directing it and apparently this was a pet project of his. I'm not sure where to start but I guess we can mention all the family drama stuff, which naturally gets blamed on a bully and a religious freak. All of the drama here lacks any real drama and in fact all the characters just come off so obnoxious that I didn't care what happened to them. Another problem is the entire "track of the cat" with Mitchum wondering around without much to do. It seems Wellman never tries to build any tension in these scenes and one has to wonder why it was even in the story. I'm going to guess the cat was used to throw out that "good vs. evil" theme but it never works. I was also pretty disappointed in Mitchum's performance, which was dry and rather dull but then again I didn't care for any of the other performances either. It was strange seeing Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer in the role of the elderly Indian and he certainly comes off the best. What does keep the film going is its beautiful cinematography captured in all its 2.55:1 glory. The scenery is another reason to watch the film with the snow covered mountains really coming off quite beautiful.
Payment Deferred (1932)
Lothar Mendes
A bank clerk (Charles Laughton) decides to kill his rich nephew (Ray Milland) so that he can steal his wallet and pay off his families debt, which is about to put them in the poor house. After the murder Laughton sends his wife (Dorothy Peterson) and daughter (Maureen O'Sullivan) on a trip and enters an affair. This is a rather interesting film, which has certainly been forgotten over the years but it's tale of a father murdering due to becoming poor might work just as good today as it did in 1932. The film is based on a famous play and for the most part the film plays out like you'd see it on stage but this is also a weakness as there's way too much talk going on. The screenplay seems to bounce back and forth from a serious drama to a crime film and even at times coming off like a black comedy. Laughton turns in a very good performance, although he does take it a bit over the top at times. You'll notice this whenever he begins to freak out that someone is going to find the body that he's buried in his back yard. This part of his performance might lend itself to the black comedy aspect. Milland doesn't have much of a role as he gets killed off rather early on but he's playing that jerk of a bad guy that we'd see him play throughout his career. O'Sullivan has a pretty thankless role but it's nice seeing her anyways.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
Ben Stiller
Hilarious spoof of Hollywood and war movies has a group of actors making a Vietnam film when one of them are kidnapped by real terrorists and the rest must try and save him. This here is without question one of the best comedies in recent decades as the screenplay hits all the right marks and the spoof of Hollywood is just downright hilarious and more truthful than any actor would probably have you believe. I guess you could also call this movie brave on the part of many of the actors and that includes Downey who is playing a black man and probably gets the most laughs of anyone. The constant jokes of him acting and trying to speak like a black man are priceless as are the countless jokes at Stiller's character who played a retard in an earlier movie that critics hated. The comedy goes even further to make fun of just about everything in Hollywood from actors taking drugs to getting caught in the tabloids. I really loved how Stiller kicked off the movie with three fake trailers making fun of the type of movies being made in Hollywood today. The movie
Grindhouse used this joke to great success but I'd say it's done even better here. What really sells this movie are the great performances from the entire cast with Downey stealing the film as the Australian actor who had his skin dyed so that he could try to win an Oscar playing a black character. The politically incorrect nature of this is always done in good taste so no one should worry about being offended. I'm not a fan of Jack Black but he too shines here as the heroin attic fat man who made a career out of farting. Then there's Stiller who really gets to have fun as the washed up action hero who tried to do something more dramatic with the role of a retard. Finally you also have to mention the supporting performances by Matthew McConaughey, Nick Nolte and Tom Cruise. All three give their best performances in many, many years but it's Cruise who really stands out as the evil, rap music dancing producer. His performance here is so incredibly crazy and out there you can't help but wish he'd get an Oscar for it. There are countless other cameos by famous people, which get some nice laughs as well. There have been countless spoofs of Hollywood but this one here certainly ranks as one of the greatest just because of the balls it shows in doing anything for a laugh.
