Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut (2019): written by Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr; loosely based on the novella Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad; directed by Francis Ford Coppola; starring Martin Sheen (Willard), Marlon Brando (Kurtz), Laurence Fishburne (Mr. Clean), Harrison Ford (Lucas), Scott Glenn (Kurtz Convert Lt. Colby)), Robert Duvall (Kilgore), Sam Bottoms (Surfer Lance), Frederic Forrest (Chef), Albert Hall (Chief), Dennis Hopper (Photojournalist), G.D. Spradlin (General Corman), and [Uncredited] Joe Estevez (Stand-in/Partial Voice-over 'Stand-in' for brother Martin Sheen):
Hey, it's Apocalypse Now, so a chance to see it in any cut on a big screen was a treat. And it improves on Apocalypse Now Redux by omitting the dire, momentum-killing 'Crashed Playboy Bunnies' sequence!
However, it keeps the other major addition, the French Plantation sequence, to mixed effect: it's the one part of the film that plays as potentially supernatural, which is not really in keeping with the rest of the movie. However, there are also cues throughout the sequence that it might not really be happening at all -- not least of which is the sudden transition from Willard's opium scene to the boat back on the fog-saturated river.
Brando is great, and on a big screen, almost life-sized! One of no more than a hundred of the greatest movies ever made, all done without CGI! Highly recommended, though you could replicate it by simply omitting a couple of scenes from Redux on a rewatch. The surfboard-stealing scene is also a hoot, though also in Redux. Highly recommended.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976): written by Nicholas Meyer and based on the novel by Nicholas Meyer and characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle; directed by Herbert Ross; starring Alan Arkin (Sigmund Freud), Vanessa Redgrave (Lola Deveraux), Robert Duvall (Dr. Watson), Nicol Williamson (Sherlock Holmes), Laurence Olivier (Professor James Moriarty), Joel Grey (Lowenstein), and Jeremy Kemp (Baron von Leinsdorf): Adapted by Nicholas 'Wrath of Khan' Meyer from his own revisionist Sherlock Holmes novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is a barrel of fun with one minor problem: Robert Duvall's horrible English accent.
How Duvall got cast as Dr. Watson is a good question. My best guess would be that the producers wanted another American in the major cast. This was an expensive production after all.
One can't say much about The Seven-Per-Cent Solution without giving away major plot points. Suffice to say that the movie looks great, is wittily written, and has a concluding action sequence that riffs on Buster Keaton's The General (and all without the benefit of CGI). Nicol Williamson pretty much plays Nicol Williamson, which is fine for Meyer's manic version of the great detective. Alan Arkin also delights as Sigmund Freud. Easily one of the ten best Sherlock Holmes movies ever made. Highly recommended.
The Neon Demon (2016): written by Nicolas Winding Refn, Mary Laws, and Polly Stenham; directed by Nicolas Winding Refn; starring Elle Fanning (Jesse), Karl Glusman (Dean), Jena Malone (Ruby), Bella Heathcote (Gigi), Abbey Lee (Sarah), and Keanu Reeves (Hank): Writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn works in the lurid pulp mode of Only God Forgives here, and not in the cooler style of his break-out film, Drive.
The carefully composed, static shots and cool synth score suggest late-career Stanley Kubrick directing a very special episode of Melrose Place. The plot manages to surprise. The characters are barely characters, but as this is a horror movie centered on the cosmic terror of the modelling industry, one expects a keen devotion to surface. And a horror movie it is, not so much slowly building as suddenly exploding in the last half hour.
The men are peripheral to the action, while the women take center stage. Elle Fanning performs beautifully as the enigmatic new model at the heart of the story, while Jena Malone and Abbey Lee embody different, dark aspects of the modelling industry. Not for the squeamish. Recommended.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996): written by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino; directed by Robert Rodriguez; starring George Clooney (Seth Gecko), Quentin Tarantino (Richard Gecko), Harvey Keitel (Jacob Fuller), Juliette Lewis (Kate Fuller), Ernest Liu (Scott Fuller), and Cheech Marin (Three characters): From Dusk Till Dawn still seems like two movies bolted together in the middle. The first movie is a gritty, amoral Tarantino crime drama about the bank-robbing Gecko brothers (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino as Superego and Id, respectively). The second movie is a gore-soaked horror-comedy in the vein of Evil Dead 2.
They're both good movies, but I'll be damned if I know how they got stuck together like this. Robert Rodriguez directs with a lot of gusto, and Tarantino's script is solid, pulpy fun in the second half. There's some poorly modulated sexual violence towards women in the first half, a problem magnified by the jokey, one-note performance by Tarantino as the sexually predatious Gecko brother whom Clooney's more upright criminal is stuck with. Jesus, Tarantino was (and is) a terrible actor.
The second half goes on about ten minutes too long and bafflingly loses its antagonist about five minutes in. I enjoyed the movie, but I also felt a bit dirty afterwards. Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, and Juliette Lewis seem to be acting in (and reacting to) a completely different movie than anyone else. Their naturalistic performances accentuate the artificial grue and spew of the second half. Recommended.
Maximum Overdrive (1986): adapted by Stephen King from his short story "Trucks"; directed by Stephen King; starring Emilio Estevez (Bill), Pat Hingle (Hendershot), Laura Harrington (Brett), and Yeardley Smith (Connie): Revisiting the infamous Maximum Overdrive after 30 years, I was struck by how generally not-awful it was. This may just be a product of 30 more years of bad horror movies. I don't know.
Stephen King's one-and-done directorial effort is intermittently clumsy, poorly shot, and uneven in tone. But there are moments of startling gore and grue. And Emilio Estevez sells the shit out of his character: this might actually be his best performance. The movie's premise suffers a bit from King's expansion of the, ahem, possession of things from Just Trucks in his short story to Pretty Much Whatever the Plot Demands in the movie. Watch for a young Giancarlo Esposito's brief turn. And yes, that's the voice of Bart Simpson as the world's most annoying newlywed. Lightly recommended.
The Natural: adapted from the Bernard Malamud novel by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry; directed by Barry Levinson; starring Robert Redford (Roy Hobbs), Robert Duvall (Max Mercy), Glenn Close (Iris Gaines), Kim Basinger (Memo Paris), Wilford Brimley (Pop Fisher), Barbara Hershey (Harriet Bird), Robert Prosky (The Judge), and Darren McGavin (Gus Sands) (1984):
Bernard Malamud's much more downbeat bit of American Arthuriana becomes instead a whimsical myth of a movie, filled with out-sized moments, signs, portents, lightning, and destiny. I like it a lot. If you're looking for a realistic baseball movie, look elsewhere. The cast is terrific throughout, including the curiously unbilled Darren McGavin as gambler Gus Sands, who probably fixed the World Series in the universe of The Natural.
Set in 1939, The Natural follows one miraculous season in the life of 36-year-old rookie Roy Hobbs, a phenom who vanished for 16 years after being shot by a woman who went around shooting great athletes, usually fatally. Hobbs gets signed by the New York Knights, whose crusty old manager/part-owner Wilford Brimley is reluctant to play him despite the fact that the Knights are super-terrible. But eventually Hobbs will play. Birds will sing. Lightning will strike.
Malamud loaded up the original novella with a mash-up of mythic elements. The movie also plays with the stories of King Arthur, the legend of the Fisher King, and the journeys of Odysseus. Or in other words, that dug-out water fountain that Pops Fisher complains about early on has mythic significance. His name is Fisher, he's the king of a baseball team named the Knights, and he's having trouble getting decent water. Oh, go look it up.
Is there a never-healed wound in someone's side? Is there a temptress whose name keeps getting pronounced so as to rhyme with 'Nimue'? Will someone at last set his lands in order? Oh, watch it. It's great, and Barry Levinson keeps things just light enough and goofy enough at times that the viewer doesn't choke on all the allusions and portents.
Robert Redford was perfectly cast as Roy Hobbs, who is in many ways the Light Side of Jay Gatsby, whom Redford also played. And it's bracing to see Robert Duvall play a complete jerk as reporter/cartoonist Max Mercy -- it makes you realize that he seems to have spent the 30 years since The Natural playing lovable curmudgeons. Highly recommended.
This Is Where I Leave You: adapted by Jonathan Tropper from his own novel; directed by Shawn Levy; starring Jason Bateman (Judd Altman), Tina Fey (Wendy Altman), Jane Fonda (Hillary Altman), Adam Driver (Phillip Altman), Rose Byrne (Penny Moore), Corey Stoll (Paul Altman), Kathryn Hahn (Annie Altman), Connie Britton (Tracy Sullivan), and Timothy Olyphant (Horry Callen) (2014): Affable, sitcomesque family dramedy with a likable cast and some sharp writing. It's a good time-filler, and the first time I've ever actually liked Adam Driver. Lightly recommended.
The Judge: written by David Dobkin, Nick Schenk, and Bill Dubuque; directed by David Dobkin; starring Robert Downey Jr. (Hank Palmer), Robert Duvall (Joseph Palmer), Vera Farmiga (Samantha Powell), Billy Bob Thornton (Dwight Dickham), Vincent D'Onofrio (Glen Palmer), and Jeremy Strong (Dale Palmer) (2014): Robert Downey Jr. plays Robert Downey Jr., the quick-witted heel with a heart of gold, in this family drama. Robert Duvall plays his stern, distant father, a county court judge accused of a murder that occurred on the same day as the funeral for Duvall's wife of 50 years. Family secrets and old resentments surface: Downey Jr. hasn't returned to his small Indiana hometown since college. Does he have an old girlfriend? Yes! The acting is pretty much uniformly superb while the writing comes and goes. But wow, does Indiana ever go to trial quickly! No backlog there! They're already in the courtroom before anyone's looked at security footage from a relevant gas station! Lightly recommended.
Space Station 76: written by Jack Plotnick, Sam Pancake, Jennifer Elise Cox, Kali Rocha, and Michael Stoyanov; directed by Jack Plotnick; starring Patrick Wilson (Captain Glenn), Liv Tyler (Lieutenant Jessica Marlowe), Marisa Coughlan (Misty), Matt Bomer (Ted), Jerry O'Connell (Steve), Kylie Rogers (Sunshine), Kali Rocha (Donna), and Keir Dullea (Mr. Marlowe) (2014): Extraordinarily odd mix of satire and relationship drama that takes place on a space station, and in a future, meant to resemble the worlds of Space: 1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and perhaps a touch of first-season Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Everyone's got a problem, from a Captain struggling with his own closeted homosexuality to a little girl struggling with a mother hamster that keeps eating her own babies. This is not the laugh-out loud parody its own ads seemed to be selling, though I did laugh out loud several times (Matt Bomer's klunky 70's robot hand keeps stealing the show). The stars are all quite charming. Oh, and I also laughed out loud when the standard 1970's tri-colour hologram showed up. That's attention to historical detail! Recommended.
