Retro Rants
Rants about Feature Films in That Have Been Released Sometime In The Past
I know, you hear Costner and epic in the same sentence, you probably reach for the barf bag, perhaps plagued by flashbacks to THE POSTMAN. Well, get over it, because OPEN RANGE is different.
Find out more about this overlooked Western inside.
Christopher Walken may have gotten his Oscar in the 1970s, but the 1990s were definitely his decade as far as establishing the Walken persona. Through movies like PULP FICTION, TRUE ROMANCE and KING OF NEW YORK, this song-and-dance man became one of the most dynamic performers to light up the screen. It’s almost shtick now, but the edges hadn’t worn off it yet when Greg Widen cast Fatboy Slim’s favorite dancer for the lead role in THE PROPHECY, Widen’s loopy yet involving religious thriller. Good thing, too, because Walken makes the flick.
This movie should be called SEXY UGLY: Things people do not want to admit about human sexuality because Leon (Jean Reno) is not really that good looking of a guy, but by the end of the film you love him, want to bear his children and find him incredibly and unwaveringly desirable. This is the story of Mathilda (Natalie Portman) and the man that lives down the hall from her, Leon. Leon is a hired hit man and a serious mo’fo’.
This movie is essentially about questioning reality and then positing a spiritual possibility based on quantum physics. Largely successful on the first part, less so on the spiritual aspects, nonetheless this small movie asks large questions and makes some radical thinking extremely accessible. I found it entertaining, provocative and even inspiring. And I’m one cynical doofus.
A lot of people might argue that LETHAL WEAPON is not actually a Christmas movie, but we know what I think about these people and if you’re wasting time reading this and you’re one of these people, well stop reading, duh. This is a movie written by Shane Black. Here’s two facts about Shane Black: he basically invented and mastered the buddy cop genre and one time I ended up at his house in the wee hours of the night and partied until either I was asked to leave or I blacked out—too bad I cannot remember how things ended. Oh well, that’s the life of Los Angeles party monster.
There are lots of holiday films, good and bad, for the discerning viewer to enjoy beside a roaring fire with some eggnog this holiday season. A select few—DIE HARD, THE REF, SCROOGED, a passel of others—have been given the Critics Rant treatment, but I hadn’t seen any mention of one of my favorites, a perennial classic that I made sure to give my son this year for Christmas. I’m speaking, of course, of GREMLINS, the Steven Spielberg-produced classic of sick and twisted measure that remains the only proof that Chris Columbus was ever anything more than the Rick Astley of directors.
I haven’t seen this movie in a while, like what, since 1994 when I was 13-years-old. And if you’re wondering what a 13-year-old is doing watching a stupid movie like this, then you have never been 13 and stuck at the movie theater without a grownup in your entire life. So my little sister is like, “HEY, THIS MOVIE IS SILLY, REMEMBER SANTA IS ON SCOTT CALVIN’S (Tim Allen) ROOF AND FALLS OFF AND DIES!” Oh, that’s right, Scott Calvin! How could I forget?
Since I’m pretty sure the entire English-speaking community--and some others as well--knows the story of Charles Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL, I can skip major plotlines for SCROOGED—a modern-day adaptation of the story. But for those who may have missed the movie (God forbid), I’ll give you a quick breakdown.
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is considerably one of the greatest western flicks of all time. They certainly don’t make them like this anymore. I’m talking about both the movie and the actors. Gosh, the case of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is an array of masculinity forgotten in Hollywood, traded in for the beaming femininity of current heartthrobs Jonathan Rhys Meyer, Orlando Bloom and Jude Law. Too bad all of those guys cry a lot and worry about their fashion sense and have absolutely no idea how to be manly—maybe it’s the fact that all of them are British, but that is an argument for another day.
Some sequels are inevitable, due to money or, very rarely, story requirements. In the case of THE GODFATHER, the original made such a splash that a sequel was approved before filming on the first installment wrapped. Fortunately, Mario Puzo’s novel was so rich that making a sequel made sense story-wise, and so Francis Ford Coppola and Puzo managed to do the unlikely: whip up a second installment in the Corleone saga that was just as good as the first.