rmc129 Reviews

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

The Schizo Plot

[7/10 · 10 September 2001]

From Dusk Til Dawn is definitely a movie of two halfs

It starts off well enough, with the hellish Gecko brothers (Cooney and Tarantino) shooting and hijacking their way across Texas, picking up the hapless Harvey Keitel and family en route. The dialogue is sharp and the Geckos are a humourous, if unsympathetic, pair. Tarantino, as a rapist and psychotic given to hearing voices which tell him, basically, whatever he wants to hear, is both scary and funny.

So far so good. Until the mobile home carrying the desperados and their hostages goes over into Mexico and stops at a garish biker/trucker bar which must be one of the sleaziest joints ever portrayed in the history of Hollywood. Unfortunately, for the viewer as well as the characters, it proves to be a lair of vampires!

Selma Hayek performs one of the most sexily outrageous dance routines of all time but proves to be a vampire rather than a vamp. (Too bad - Juliette Lewis is one of the films liabilities, seeming to have a movie career based on being a piece of baggage for psychotic and violent men to tote around, without any deeper discernable skills on offer than the ability to pout when the bullets are flying)

Once Tarantino is dead (or undead, however you care to look at it) the movie is committed to being an out and out actioner with bursts of spoof putdowns of vampire movie cliches. Cooney, Keitel (who gives a first rate, understated performance as the disillusioned preacher / hi jack victim) and the two junior vampire hunters backing them up don't look as if they could bruise a bag of apples, let alone hold out all night against the legions of the undead. Fortunately, more convincing help is on hand in the shape of grim faced veteran Fred Williamson and ace horror make up artist Tom Savini, who steals scene after scene as whip cracking biker, 'Sex Machine'

Having said this, the movie rips along at a good pace whilst never quite being able to live up to the movies from which it borrows (Carpenter's 'Assault On Precinct 13' and G. A. Romero's 'Living Dead' films).

I'm in two minds about whether to rate it higher or lower than average, but I'll ignore the worst parts and rate 'From Dusk Til Dawn' a blood sucking 7 out of 10 (The vampires might get me if I don't, though if one is Selma Hayek, this might not be as bad as bus ride with Juliette Lewis)

Peeping Tom (1960)

Watch And Learn

[9/10 · 8 September 2001]

Despite a long and distinguished career the production team of Powell and Pressberger were effectively ruined by the furore of criticism and demands for censorship generated by this film.

'Peeping Tom' is a great film and one that modern film makers could learn from. Even good films like 'Seven' and 'Silence of the Lambs' have a regretable tendency toward melodrama and gross overacting in the portrayal of serial killers. 'John Doe' (Kevin Spacey) and 'Buffalo Bill' (Ted Levine) are laughable travesties of their real life counterparts, who seem harmless when approaching or luring a potential victim.

One of the things that critics of his time could not forgive Powell is that he makes his killer 'Mark Lewis' (Karl Boehm) human and likeable. a sensitive and intelligent young man, he is the product of bestial cruelty inflicted upon him in childhood (the scenes showing film of him being tortured as a boy by his scientist father are horrifying in the true sense of the word)

This is a sophisticated film demanding of the viewer that he or she not only takes part in watching a compelling thriller but are also provoked into contemplating the forces that work on a man who commits such crimes.

After watching 'Peeping Tom' one does not have the customary closure common in such thrillers of seeing a 'monster' the viewer could not emphasise with destroyed and the world made safe again, (much the theory behind the justification of capital punishment). Rather we have the experience of seeing the tragic self destruction of a man arguably as much a victim as those he killed.

To critics this was reprehensible - 'siding with the murderer'. The man who wrote the script, however, knew at first hand what makes a killer - since he was responsible for selecting secret agents to fight behind enemy lines in World War 2. He had to choose men - and women - who would not hesitate to kill. How many writers can claim this level of insight?

'Peeping Tom' is a classic and I rate it an eye catching 9 out of 10

M (1931)

M For Masterpiece

[10/10 · 8 September 2001]

One of the greatest movies ever made.

Based on the murders committed in the late 1920's by Peter Kurten in the area around Dusseldorf (Kurten was guillotined in 1931, the year that 'M' was made and released)

The black and white cinematography is wonderful to see - modern colour photography is lost when trying to evoke gas lit or fog laden streets and the sense of atmosphere that pervades this film is remarkable.

The murder of children is a topic difficult to portray on screen - usually (for reasons of taste) we are merely shown the grief of the bereaved parents and the steely determination of detectives to catch the killer. Nothing in 'M' fits this stereotype.

Peter Lorre is superb as the killer who sits in greasy cafes whilst whistling Grieg's 'In The Hall of the Mountain King'from the 'Peer Gynt' Suite in an effort to drive the evil compulsions that he is unable to resist from his mind. As the music grows faster and more insistent, he succumbs, unwillingly to his terrible urges. He is seen picking up a small girl and buying her a balloon; the pair descend a flight of stairs into a murky alley and seconds later the balloon drifts up the stairway - a throat clutching image that speaks more to the fears of the viewer than the goriest of special effects.

We have a stout and jolly policeman (who greatly resembles Ernst Gennert, the detective who investigated the Kurten case) in hot pursuit of the killer.

Also in pursuit are the criminal fraternity - who are annoyed at the intense police activity generated by the killings, which is stifling their predations. Indeed, it is eventually the criminals who catch the killer and subject him to a trial in their lair. Lorre argues that they cannot understand the compulsions that drive his actions and is mocked by his captors.

Suspenseful, artistic and intellectually satisfying, 'M' is a great cinema classic which I unhesitatingly award a munificent 10 out of 10

Deep Impact (1998)

Sleep Intact - SFX Versus Reality

[4/10 · 6 September 2001]

Oh No ! Planet Earth is in momentous peril from - not one comet but two. A big old boy who threatens to put period to the whole shebang and his bitty bad boy sibling, who only means to end life as we know it. Add first rate special effects and a strong cast and a good movie is the result - (right?)

No, wrong, actually.

Scientific credibility was thrown out of the window in order to support a molasses of icky sentimentality more awesome in its engulfing power than the tsunami so breathtakingly portrayed in the script.

Morgan Freeman is the idealist's identikit president, cobbled together out of a wish list of values long on pious, high minded verbiage and very short indeed on the ruthless pragmatism that one suspects would really be shown in such circumstances.

Dependable Robert Duvall heads a crew of selfless but sanctimonious astronauts, who speak every sentence as if some future extra terrestrial species is going to rerun this after mankind has collectively bit the dust and say 'What noble beings! Too bad they got deep sixed by a damn comet'

The trouble with gushy sentiment of the sort let loose here is that it is like some terrible contagion that strikes down every one who comes into contact with it. So it is with the cast of this movie by the end of which there is not one realistic character left - merely a mankind able only of speaking in humble, self effacing little homilies.

By this time, I was cheering for the comet - by the way, if it really had come so close the odds are that, rather than being saved to endlessly humbug and piously prattle, mankind's ass would have been ashes anyway !

The sad thing is that there was potentially a memorable movie here but a bad script, awful characterisation and the triumph of the 'ooh' and 'ahh' of the eye candy of admittedly spectacular special effects over scientific reality scuppered the show.

Unpleasant to see such a talented cast wasted also.

Rating:

Comet sense to give this a less than earth shattering 4 out of 10

Deep Impact (1998)

Sleep Intact - SFX Versus Reality

[4/10 · 6 September 2001]

Oh No ! Planet Earth is in momentous peril from - not one comet but two. A big old boy who threatens to put period to the whole shebang and his bitty bad boy sibling, who only means to end life as we know it. Add first rate special effects and a strong cast and a good movie is the result - (right?)

No, wrong, actually.

Scientific credibility was thrown out of the window in order to support a molasses of icky sentimentality more awesome in its engulfing power than the tsunami so breathtakingly portrayed in the script.

Morgan Freeman is the idealist's identikit president, cobbled together out of a wish list of values long on pious, high minded verbiage and very short indeed on the ruthless pragmatism that one suspects would really be shown in such circumstances.

Dependable Robert Duvall heads a crew of selfless but sanctimonious astronauts, who speak every sentence as if some future extra terrestrial species is going to rerun this after mankind has collectively bit the dust and say 'What noble beings! Too bad they got deep sixed by a damn comet'

The trouble with gushy sentiment of the out let loose here is that it is like some terrible contagion that strikes down every one who comes into contact with it. So it is with the cast of this movie by the end of which there is not one realistic character left - merely a mankind able only of speaking in humble, self effacing little homilies.

By this time, I was cheering for the comet - by the way, if it really had come so close the odds are that, rather than being saved to endlessly humbug and piously prattle, mankind's ass would have been ashes anyway !

The sad thing is that there was potentially a memorable movie here but a bad script, awful characterisation and the triumph of the 'ooh' and 'ahh' of the eye candy of admittedly spectacular special effects over scientific reality scuppered the show.

Unpleasant to see such a talentaed cast wasted also.

Rating:

Comet sense to give this a less than earth shattering 4 out of 10

The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976)

Dull Act and the Ditchwater Script

[3/10 · 30 August 2001]

The 'comedy' western is a bit like a situation comedy with horses and six shooters thrown in and a bit of action in case the laughs are thin on the ground. and in this movie the laughs (and the thrills) are as thin on the ground as grass in a desert.

George Segal tries hard in the 'lovable rogue' lead - a sort of bargain basement 'Maverick' but he is undercut by a poor script and the millstone of Goldie Hawn - who does little beyond flash her red undies at the camera at every opportunity as if this might distract the viewer from the meagre contribution she makes to the movie.

This is the West That Never Was beloved of peddlers of cliche and writers of cheap 1960's and 70's TV series, with the intendedly humourously amoral lead duo pursued about a pretty landscape by the gang that couldn't shoot straight and sundry other less than menacing foes.

Notable is the lack of 'name' supporting players any of whom might have upstaged Ms Hawn by showing comedic talent, rather than legs.

Rating: A sonorous 3 out of 10