Category: reviews/opinions

Now Available on Laserdisc: State of Grace

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Sean Penn belongs to the same club of hellions as Rex Harrison. He may have flip-flopped a few times from lovable drunk to violent wife beater but this was the same actor who bit off his toenails in At Close Range. How can you predict the unpredictable? Did anyone think that Nicholas Cage would get himself into debt from buying dinosaur bones? And while we’re on the subject of controversial celebrities, why does Kevin Spacey lose his career while Sean Penn is still allowed to work? Is it because one abused minors while the other abused women? Shouldn’t everything evil be equally bad? Maybe Penn’s recent philanthropy has cleaned the slate for a good deal of people; but his charity has felt largely like penance for his mean streak, even though he just can’t seem to keep his trademark temper under control! Come on man, you were banging Charlize Theron! And she was not putting up with ANY of his shit. Can we say the same for Robin Wright? What about his State of Grace co-star Gary Oldman’s ex-wife? Can we say the same for all victims of abuse and trauma? What about Gary Oldman? When will I stop digging this hole for myself?

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Selected Scenes: Suits 904

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Happy 50th Cumulative Post!

Faye Richardson, a Stormtrooper for the New York State Bar, has been called in to housekeep a messy law firm that has been working against protocol: their Senior Partner Robert Zane, removed for contempt, still has his name up on the wall. Maybe you’ve heard of the Firm by its old name? Pearson Spector Litt? Yes, that Firm: the one that hired a college dropout with a photographic memory as Junior Partner without taking the Bar first; the one that promoted a glorified Secretary to act as their Chief Operating Officer; the one that’s been in all the papers lately on corruption charges and their low standards-of-practice. There can be up to five names on the wall at any given time but none are founding Partners. It makes no difference to Faye: the Firm is still a mess, and rightly so. Without a stable leader for months and discord within the Name Partners it doesn’t seem like anyone can make up their mind what direction the Firm should take. With the organizing body behind her, Faye uses her power to demote COO Donna and Acting Managing Partner Louis; not to mention emasculating Louis in front of his Associates, but nothing seems to be working. Their resolve cannot be broken. Frankly, the group of them are just too damned close: they would rather run the Firm their own way then have an outsider tell them what to do: stay the course and go down with the ship, so long as their values and their pride are intact. Louis’ secretary Gretchen being claimed by Faye, and Donna’s reprimand for being romantically-entangled with Harvey, are the last straws. The four remaining Partners corner Faye in her office and tell her that they have gone over her head and amended the Code Of Conduct to allow for inter-office relationships. Maybe Faye can’t take them all on together. Maybe she would get more flies with honey. She releases Gretchen back to Louis as a sign of her commitment to compromise, as opposed to integrity.

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Now Available on Laserdisc: Rapid Fire

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Rapid Fire is a celebration of the legacy of Bruce Lee, and an attempt at passing the cinematic torch to his son. Make no mistake, this movie’s primary excuse for existence is jerking off deprived Martial Arts movie fans stuck in a time before Bruceploitation. Both father and son died before their fame really took off but from the eerie slo-mo Kung Fu of the opening credits to the blown-out hair to his Liberal philosophies it doesn’t feel like a proverbial torch being passed so much as the smooth transition that can only be granted generationally. Nature-before-nurture. You won’t believe how many times it felt like I was watching an extension of Bruce himself as opposed to his son carving out his own niche: from the finesse to the wit, if only tweaked by their Lizard Oversee’r (cough… EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) to meet the demands of audiences in 1992. Think Enter the Dragon X Die Hard. But aside from the occasional motorcycle stunt or brandishing a gun, or fondling GRATUITOUS TIDDIES, Brandon sticks primarily to what made his father famous: kicking the shit out of dudes! And kick he can. Or could? What is a more appropriate tense?

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Selected Scenes: Doctor Dolittle

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Dr. John Dolittle, MD is sick and tired of the human race: an entitled and ignorant lot they are. It isn’t like he, too, hasn’t feasted on the wealth that being a small-town physician has offered him: he lives on an opulent compound in a clean mansion, and he never wears sweatpants. But enough is enough. Animals don’t talk back the same way humans do, nor do they demand so much from him. Animals don’t demand anything except the same compassion they offer people. If he could somehow learn to talk to the animals then maybe he could achieve the fulfilled and peaceful life that he seeks. He enlists the help of a talking parrot, whose gift for mimicry helps him translate (he still speaks English, but the animals don’t). Of course, being Planet Earth’s premier veterinarian-slash-pet therapist isn’t without its challenges. Among his adventures, he breaks a seal named Sophia out of a circus prison so she can be reunited with her husband in the wild. He dresses her up Weekend At Bernie’s-style and passes her off as his infant-sized grandmother to the unsuspecting passengers in his taxi-slash-horse-drawn carriage. FOOLISH HUMANS! By the way, did I mention this all takes place at the turn of the last century? And before he releases her, he looks into her eyes and sings her a hypothetical song about if the two of them could be together. Can he connect with animals where he cannot with women? Will he ever find love? IS THE UNION OF MAN AND SEAL POSSIBLE IN TODAY’S POLITICAL CLIMATE? THE PUBLIC DEMANDS AN ANSWER.

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Capsule Reviews Vol.2

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Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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[I have seen Holy Grail more times cumulatively then possibly any other movie ever. It’s not really that funny anymore and it’s dated HORRIBLY (just look at that camera focusing), but it holds a special place in my heart after seeing clips of its most famous scenes in various places over the years as well as sitting through the whole thing a few times (just a few?); AND beating the PC game, which is TOP-loaded with clips. I’ve seen it so many times that I was able to notice the narration was different in the Flashback screening I went to at Cineplex, which sounded like they used a different take of Michael Palin during the storybook sequences (but didn’t have him come back in and rerecord it at 80-years-old, for example). This could have been because a remaster of the original audio track was impossible (I have seen the movie in mono many times) but there was no mention of a remaster on the posters or in the film itself so it was jarring hearing inflections I wasn’t used to. I liken it to hearing a popular song and then finding out it wasn’t the first version they recorded: even a classic takes more then one try.]

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