For some reason, I had gone my whole life and not seen this movie. Sadly, I didn't like it as much as I would have liked, though I don't feel I wasted my time. Brian De Palma sometimes sacrifices plot for style, and I feel it was done several times here. Since this was a story that took place over several years, I know there was a lot that had to be left out, but there were times when it was pretty obvious to the unstudied viewer. That being said, the cast was great. Sean Connery owned every scene he was in, and De Niro as Al Capone chewed scenery about as well as Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now. It was impossible to look away from him when he was on-screen.
The only things I really felt lacking were the details of Ness's investigation, and the details of Capone's business.
That being said, this is still a movie that is worth your time.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
Cinderella Man (2005):
Good movie, but not a classic. Or so I said when asked about it in the car afterwards. This is a Ron Howard film. Solid technical filmmaking all around, but not ambitious or innovative. Historically accurate with only small liberties taken, this is a fine afternoon at the movies. Not having seen Seabiscuit, I would deem this to be Seabiscuit where Tobey Maguire and the horse are the same character.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
Gangs of New York (2002):
Like most of Scorsese's films from the past decade, this is an interesting but flawed work. Essentially, it opens with the Irish immigrants vs. the "Natives" in 1846, in which most of the Irish (including Liam Neeson, Dicaprio's father) are killed. It picks up sixteen years later, with Dicaprio looking almost like an adult. Daniel Day Lewis is great in his role, and could not have been cast better. Spoilers to follow.
Unfortunately, the middle third of the film drags on and on. Dicaprio takes great care to be accepted into the man who killed his father's inner circle so he can kill him. For some reason, even though he has plenty of opportunity, he doesn't attempt it until he has an enormous audience of witnesses, and then he fails. The Butcher (Lewis) is shot in the shoulder, and Dicaprio kills the shooter. Dicaprio then has a quiet talk in private with his father's wounded murderer, and does not take advantage of the situation. Instead when he fails to kill the Butcher in public, he raises an army of Irish (right as the Union is drafting more regiments to send to fight in Dixie) to fight the same way his father did. Federal troops are sent in to stop the uprising, along with naval guns being fired on the crowds. Thousands die. This could have been prevented by a single dagger in the dark, meaning that Dicaprio's indecision makes him a class-A cocksucker.
As a southerner, I find new ways to dislike the Union here, even though this is a mostly fictional story. Much was made of the first-ever Federal conscription. None of the Irish really wanted to march hundreds of miles away to kill people they don't have a beef with, especially when most of them didn't give a damn one way or another about slavery or secession. Federal troops and the US navy firing on the crowds demonstrates the kind of behavior that people wanted to secede from in the first place.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
City of the Living Dead (1980):
Know that movie Zombie, with the big zombie head on the cover? Remember how it was absolutely god-awful in every way except for when zombies were on screen, and then it was fucking awesome? This is like that (same director), except way way worse. I can't recall the last time I stopped watching a movie and fast forwarded to the gore parts, but I did that today. After 40 minutes and only one death that was worth a shit (and that one was awesome), I gave up. As far as I can tell, it was about descendents of salem witch hunters on all soul's day or something. Also, there was a priest who hanged himself and then teleported around. All women who saw him bled from the eyes, and then proceed to vomit up all their internal organs (I cracked up when her liver came out) and then kill someone. The very few zombies that were actually in this movie seem to favor grabbing the back of someone's head and twisting their scalp off, causing brains to fall out. There was one guy who got his head drilled from left to right by a bigass drill while being held down by some guy. At the end, they went into a crypt, and a bunch of zombies were around. Then the priest appeared, and the guy stabbed him in the belly with a cross, and then all of the zombies caught fire.
This movie wasn't Manos-bad, mainly because there was some nice gore, but it was at least playing the same sport. Zombie is bad, but this is worse.
Worth seeing for the filmmaking process behind it, even if I wanted to kick the main character's ass on frequent occasion. An idiot savant who forms weird relationships with people, he is at least unique.
I Heart Huckabees (2004):
If you enjoyed anything by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine, Adaptation), see this movie, it covers much of the same territory. I still haven't fully wrapped my brain around it, but the writing and direction are top notch, with a matching cast.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
The Last Boy Scout (1991):
This qualifies as an 80s action film even though it was made in 1991, since Bush was still president at the time. It has Bruce Willis, who adds something resembling credibility to it, since he actually can act (while other action stars of the 80s made this a secondary thing). It has its fair share of ridiculous, nonetheless. A pro football player pulls out a gun while at a game, shoots 4 guys, then shoots himself. Halle Berry is gunned down by some guys, Bruce Willis runs in and shoots them all with mixed akimbo pistols while Damon Wayans drives over the others and crushes them with his car. The cops don't seem too concerned and let them go. When escaping from the bad guys, Bruce, Damon, and Bruce's daughter drive off a cliff and then run into a tree, unharmed. The bad guy's car drives off the same cliff, lands in a pool upside down, explodes, and he doesn't die either. The guy who owns the pool does not seem particularly surprised at a car landing in his pool and exploding. Then he dies. At the end, at the football game, Bruce Willis beats a guy up with the butt of a sniper rifle, then pushes him off a ledge into spinning helicopter blades, turning him into chunky paint. Then, Bruce dances a jig on said ledge and the cops see it and become confused. There are also exploding shotgun shells, and like 4 people are set on fire with them. At the end, Bruce gives Damon advice on how to give proper 80s action one liners after kicking some guy's ass. It was appropriately violent and ridiculous, making it a fine addition to the 80s action canon. Strangely enough, there was not one black/white joke, making me think Damon's character was written as a white guy, since all black/white buddy action movies have at least 5 racial jokes.
Edited by: ActionBastard at: 7/15/05 4:18 pm
Another Charlie Kaufman film, from the man behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine. I would rank this one a notch or two below those three, but this is still worth watching for fans of his work. Essentially, a boy grows up in the woods believing he's an ape, until as an adult he is civilized by a 35 year old virgin (Tim Robbins) who wants to teach table manners to mice. Patricia Arquette plays an otherwise normal girl who has copious amounts of body hair, and winds up with Robbins. Rounding out the cast is Miranda Otto, as Tim Robbins research assistant. There's a lot of weirdness and comedy to be had, more in the BJM vein than anything, though exploring rather different territory. I can't say more without spoiling it, so go rent it after you've seen the above three.
I knew going in this wasn't going to be a good movie, and it pretty much delivered. It was entertaining, nonetheless. It had enough 80s action cliches in it to keep it from getting too serious.
Novelty deaths include:
1. An enormous 350 pound guy comes to beat up Punisher. He does so for like 5 minutes, in spite of a deep-ass knife wound in his chest. Punisher throws a grenade out the bathroom door at him, which he hits back with a stick, which explodes in the bathroom with Punisher in it. Then after more beating, he gets hot shit thrown in his face, and then is tackled while blind and lands on the ground and hits his head and dies.
2. The classic "claymore mine in a champagne cooler" kills like 8 guys.
3. After Travolta kills his friend because he thinks he's cheating with his wife, he throws his wife off a bridge and she gets run over by a magically-appearing train.
4. Travolta's son had one arm pinned by a desk after a lot of shit blew up. Punisher puts an anti-personnel mine in his hand, and wires the fuse to a hanging wire. If he drops his hand, it will blow up. When Travolta says "you killed my son", you hear it explode in the distance and Punisher says "I killed them both".
5. After being shot, Travolta is dragged by an unmanned Lincoln into his used car lot, which explodes for no apparent reason, but looks like a punisher skull from above. Then the mine on his car blows up, and he's on fire.
Mafia guys revert to the age-old tradition of not having Italian names for some reason. Travolta's extra-hot wife decides that proper vengeance for her son's death is to kill 30 people she doesn't know. A mafia guy with painted fingernails comes to threaten Punisher in a greasy spoon. He plays him a song on his guitar, and then threatens him.
This movie was pretty goddamn ridiculous, in other words.
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