THE STRANGERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/14/08

 

Remember that famous shot from the original HALLOWEEN in which Jamie Lee Curtis is standing in a dark doorway, and Michael's masked face slowly materializes behind her?  

THE STRANGERS (2008) wants to extend that same creepy chill for its entire running time, and in large part it succeeds.

After leaving a friend's wedding reception, James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) return to his family's secluded lakefront vacation house late at night, obviously in the midst of a wrenchingly emotional relatonship crisis.

It seems James just popped the question and Kristen responded with the old "I'm just not ready" routine, and now things between them are, to say the least, strained.

 But just as they begin to engage in what promises to be some hot, impulsive makeup sex in the livingroom...there's a knock at the door. Answering it, they find a strange young girl standing in the dark, her face obscured as she says simply: "Is Tamara home?"

This is the point where nothing in the lives of James and Kristen will ever be the same again, and THE STRANGERS begins its grueling descent into sheer terror. It's one of those horror films with a simple storyline riddled with various cliches of the genre, and the main interest comes from seeing how imaginatively the filmmakers tweak these cliches and feed them back to us.

 

A silent intruder, wearing one of those eerily bland masks, keeps entering the frame behind our main characters. Avenues of escape or contact with the outside world are cut off one by one, and cell phones suddenly become unreliable. James says "Wait here" and disappears, leaving Kristen alone. Kristen, of course, eventually falls while running and sprains her ankle.

And there's the old nailbiter that has her cowering in a closet, watching through the slats while the killer slowly searches the room and casts ominous looks in her direction. Even the old hand-grabbing-the-shoulder routine, a staple of 50s B-movies, is shamelessly revived. None of this is a problem for me, though--I like seeing new life breathed into old cliches if it's done well.

With a big-name cast and fine production values at his disposal, first-time writer-director Bryan Bertino has crafted an unusually stylish slasher flick that looks way better than most films of its kind (the cinematography is especially sumptuous during the early scenes) and he knows how to handle the scary stuff.

 Scott Speedman is a strong, sympathetic presence as James, while Liv Tyler not only handles the drama well but also proves to be an excellent screamer. The killers (there are three) are an interesting mix of the familiar and the inexplicably strange--I don't want to describe them in much detail, but the senseless, arbitrary nature of their attack is unsettling. And in addition to an ominous musical score, the sound design is highly effective from that very first hollow knock at the door.

The DVD is 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound; both are very good. In addition to two minor deleted scenes, a featurette entitled "The Elements of Terror" gives us an interesting look at the making of the film. Both the theatrical and unrated versions are included, although there's little discernible difference between the two except for an extra scene near the end which is interesting but contains no added violence. Subtitles are in English, Spanish, and French.

What THE STRANGERS does very well is to isolate its main characters in a nightmarish, hopeless situation and then make us experience every minute of fear and panic with them. There's a high level of suspense throughout, with some scenes almost unbearably tense. And it all leads to a final sequence that is both sad and depressingly inevitable. By no means the feelgood movie of the year, THE STRANGERS gleefully tapdances on whatever fears of home invasion you may have ever entertained.

THE STRANGERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

AVATAR -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/25/10

I missed AVATAR (2009) at the theater, which is hardly surprising since I rarely go to the theater anymore unless I'm having my house sprayed or something. In a way that's good since, with the release of James Cameron's blockbuster sci-fi epic on DVD, I can now judge it without being bowled over by the whoopty-doo big-screen 3D experience. And as far as I'm concerned, it pretty much lives up to all the hype. Unless you simply have an aversion to James Cameron films, which I don't.

Everyone probably knows the story by now: in the future, a paraplegic Marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) travels to the distant planet of Pandora and takes his deceased twin brother's place in a research project aimed at studying an indigenous alien race called the Na'vi. To do so, team members such as Jake, Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore), and crotchety project leader Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) mind-jump into cloned Na'vi bodies ("avatars") which also contain their own DNA (which is why Jake was chosen to take over for his deceased twin).

Jake gets more than he bargained for when circumstances bring him into direct contact with a Na'vi tribe which is initially hostile toward the intruder. He falls in love with the tribal chief's daughter Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who has been charged with teaching him their ways, and learns to appreciate their amazing physical and spiritual connection with nature,eventually becoming accepted as one of them. But a greedy corporate executive, Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), wants the Na'vi off their mineral-rich holy ground and tasks his ex-military security force, led by the extremely hostile Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) to get the job done even if it means using deadly force.


AVATAR is James Cameron's love letter to tree-huggers everywhere, and his message does resonate within the context of the film (although after awhile you just get a little tired of how perfect the Na'vi are compared to us horrible humans--even their deity is realer than ours). The familiar story contains elements of, among other things, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kipling's "The Jungle Book", Disney's POCOHANTAS, DANCES WITH WOLVES, LITTLE BIG MAN, and, of course, a certain story about some starcrossed lovers named Rose and Jack.

But while Cameron once again gets to indulge the romantic side which bubbled to the surface of his roiling id in TITANIC (all that's missing, unfortunately, is a "cry moment" at the end), what really gets his moviemaking mojo in gear is the massive battle between the humans and the Na'vi which takes up the latter third of the film. Huge warships and helicopters maneuver around the floating mountains, firing incendiary bombs and other nasty things into the heart of the Na'vi habitat, while ground forces in mechanical power-suits (which are like a combination of similar creations in both ALIENS and MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS) do furious battle with thousands of bow-wielding Na'vi warriors. These battle scenes are spectacular and are my favorite part of the movie. I suspect they're Cameron's favorite part, too.


The SPFX are consistently amazing, providing the viewer with some of the best eye-candy to ever grace the screen. We've already come a long way from, for example, those beautiful vistas of Naboo in THE PHANTOM MENACE--Cameron's alien planet is filled with bizarre flora and fauna amidst a kaleidescope of vibrant colors (especially at night when everything turns luminescent), and looks like a conglomeration of Yes album-cover artist Roger Dean's wildest fantasies brought to life. The flying reptiles ridden by the Na'vi are especially impressive, although some of the other forest creatures look somewhat less convincing than one might expect.

The Na'vi themselves are the last word in CGI motion-capture technology, their performances every bit as expressive as those of the live actors. Worthington, Weaver, and Moore are, by necessity, recognizable in their alien form (it's really fun seeing Weaver's face on one of these things), while the faces of the native characters played by Zoe Saldana, Wes Studi, and CCH Pounder are creations of the FX artists which allow us to get to know them as individuals without any preconceptions.


Sam Worthington is good as the "stranger in a strange land" hero, making a convincing transition from dedicated Marine to Na'vi convert (some would say traitor), and Zoe Saldana is very appealing as Neytiri. Sigourney Weaver is her usual awesome self as Dr. Augustine, although for someone who's supposed to be a nicotine addict she smokes a cigarette like she had a fishing worm dangling out of her mouth. The versatile Giovanni Ribisi is hilarious as the cartoonishly greedy, self-obsessed "unobtanium" (THE CORE, anyone?) tycoon Parker Selfridge, a kindred soul to ALIENS' Carter Burke. My favorite, though, is equally versatile Stephen Lang (MANHUNTER, TOMBSTONE) as the quintessential hard-ass military ogre, Quaritch, who's itching for a bloody showdown with the Na'vi "hoss-tiles" regardless of provocation or lack thereof. And lest I forget, Michelle Rodriguez makes the most of her role as a spunky military pilot who sympathizes with the scientists.

The DVD from 20th-Century Fox is a barebones affair unless you consider chapter selections and subtitles to be "special features." Not surprisingly, a super-duper edition is in the works for later this year. If you can't wait to own it, though, and simply want the movie itself, this will do. Image and sound quality are very good as you might expect.


So, AVATAR is a colorful, fanciful comment on the displacement of indigenous populations by encroaching interlopers, the destruction of the rain forests, U.S. military intervention into other countries, etc., etc. I don't care about any of that stuff. Cameron can exorcise his white liberal guilt and make big statements reminding us that racism=bad and the environment=good, and have the greenest mansion, land yachts, and private jet in Hollywood for all I care. I just happen to get a big kick out of the massive, powerhouse feats of action-adventure cinema this often underestimated and derided filmmaker manages to successfully pull off at great risk and expense (in addition to his earlier, lower-budgeted stuff, of course). While I don't love the guy with a fanboy's zeal (and am, quite frankly, glad I don't ever have to be around him in real life, ever), I find his movies visually sumptuous and incredibly entertaining, which fits quite nicely into one of the most vital niches of my movie lover's soul.

AVATAR -- DVD Review by Porfle

GENTLEMEN BRONCOS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/8/10

 

I imagine that comedies about total nerds appeal to two seperate groups--the cool people who look down on the characters and laugh derisively at them, and the total nerds who can identify with them. Personally, I've always aspired to be part of a third category--the "cool nerd"--and thus able to enjoy GENTLEMEN BRONCOS (2009) from both perspectives. (Yeah, I know--all nerds think they're cool.) Either way, it's an exceedingly funny and inventive film that anyone can appreciate in one way or another.

Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano) is a high school nerd who lives with his widowed mother Judith (Jennifer Coolidge), a really bad clothing designer. Benjamin loves cheesy sci-fi/fantasy novels and has just finished his own epic entitled "Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years." During his stay at a writers' camp known as Cletus Fest, he submits his story in an amateur writers' contest which will be judged by legendary author Dr. Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement) of the famed "Cyborg Harpies" trilogy. The stuffy and conceited Chevalier, who has run out of ideas and is about to get the boot from his publisher, goes ga-ga over Benjamin's manuscript and submits it as his own work, whereupon it becomes a huge bestseller.

Angarano wisely underplays the role of the introspective, world-weary but guardedly optimistic Benjamin, serving as the outwardly calm center for the storm of goofball characters swirling around him. Clement's bad-sci-fi author Ronald Chevalier is the quintessential full-of-himself minor celebrity who is as pretentious and self-important as he is achingly banal. Two fellow nerds whom Benjy meets on the bus to writers' camp are Halley Feiffer as the friendly but manipulative Tabatha and Héctor Jiménez as overtly eccentric amateur filmmaker Lonnie Donaho (Jiménez pulls the most awesomely extreme fish-face in every shot) who end up making a hideously awful videotape version of "Yeast Lords" with Lonnie playing the female lead.


Fans of Sam Rockwell (GALAXY QUEST, THE GREEN MILE) should have a ball watching him play two wildly different characters here: first, he's Benjy's mental image of the "Yeast Lords" hero Bronco, a bearded, long-haired wild man (based on Benjy's late, lamented father whom he barely knew) whose potent gonads are sought after by bad-guy Daysius as cloning stock; and second, as Chevalier's altered version of the character (renamed "Brutus") as a mincing, platinum-blonde transsexual who looks like a cross between Captain Kangaroo and one of the Nelson twins. Scenes from both versions of Benjy's sprawling saga supply some of the most outrageously funny moments in the film.

Best of all is the great Jennifer Coolidge (AMERICAN PIE, BEST IN SHOW) as Benjy's equally nerdy mom, Judith. Her dream is to be a clothing designer specializing in nightgowns--when she proudly displays her sketches, they're deliciously awful. She also makes horrible matching outfits for Benjy and herself, which, to his credit, Benjy wears without protest because his eternally supportive mom is also his best friend. Coolidge plays the role with utter sincerity which makes her that much funnier, and she's a joy to watch. (The outtakes reel features some of her hilarious ad-libs breaking up the cast and crew.)


The blissfully spaced-out Dusty (Mike White), a member of the "Guardian Angel" program at Judith's church whom she has enlisted to be a friend to Benjy, teaches him how to use a homemade blowgun, and when Benjy accidentally fires a dart into Judith's left boob, her screaming reaction is priceless. Later, Judith is molested by a rich buyer who has expressed interest in her designs, and when Benjy leaps to her defense, the guy starts shooting at them from the balcony of his mansion as they cower behind their car.

Another highlight occurs as we see Lonnie's dreadful screen adaptation of "Yeast Lords" get its grand premiere at a local movie theater, with Dusty starring as Bronco. This prompts Chevalier to threaten Lonnie with a lawsuit for plagiarising his new novel (which he stole from Benjy), setting up the final confrontation between Chevalier and an increasingly-indignant Benjy.


Some of the humor in this movie is so painfully deadpan that it almost dares us not to laugh. At other times, the unbridled absurdity abounds in waves of pure delight as we're treated to sights that might make you wonder what filmmakers Jared and Jerusha Hess (of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE and NACHO LIBRE fame) have been smoking. Much of the funny stuff is the kind that can be appreciated in an intellectually-stimulated silence, but now and then there are instances (usually involving Jennifer Coolidge) that provoke the kind of cathartic belly-laughs that make good comedy such a joy to experience.

The DVD from 20-Century Fox is in 1.85:1 widescreen with English Dolby 5.1 and Spanish and French Dolby Surround. Subtitles are in English and Spanish. Extras include outtakes, deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and a fun commentary track with Jared and Jerusha Hess and DP Munn Howell. (The Blu-Ray edition contains additional featurettes not found on the DVD--well, isn't that special?)

The opening titles feature a collection of wonderfully cheesy sci-fi paperback covers, one of which I actually remember seeing on the rack back in the late 60s or early 70s--something called "Gender Genocide", I think. My consumption of such literature at the time was mainly confined to "Star Trek" and the occasional Andre Norton novel, but it's still fun to see all of this old paperback cover art. The accompanying main title song is the soul-deadeningly horrible "In the Year 2525" by Zager and Evans, one of the most horrendously godawful songs ever written and thus exquisitely appropriate in this context.

I had a great time watching GENTLEMEN BRONCOS and, admittedly, identifying with a lot of it. Heck, it's fun to be a nerd sometimes, which Jared and Jerusha Hess seem to know quite well, and when Benjy finally, really smiles for the first time during the triumphant last scene, their obvious love for this oft-maligned class of people is infectious.

GENTLEMEN BRONCOS -- DVD Review by Porfle

DEAD OF WINTER -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

(This review originally appeared online at Bumscorner.com in 2007.)

After having LSD secretly slipped into their drinks at a New Year's Eve party, Kevin (Al Santos, JEEPERS CREEPERS II) and his girlfriend Tiffany (Sandra McCoy, CRY WOLF) spend a terrifying night lost in the icy-cold woods, fleeing from a killer who may or may not be a figment of their drug-addled imaginations in 2007's DEAD OF WINTER (aka LOST SIGNAL). 

Prolific television actor Brian McNamara makes his directing debut while also playing the small-town police chief trying to locate the missing pair.  He does a pretty good job in both capacities, managing to squeeze a fair amount of suspense out of a script that consists mainly of Kevin and Tiffany running through the woods screaming and hallucinating a lot.  He also handles some of the character scenes nicely, especially the comeraderie between the easygoing chief (McNamara) and his staff, sassy 911 operator Nancy (Ella Joyce, BUBBA HO-TEP) and cute deputy Dani (Lindsay Thompson), with whom he's sweetly smitten.

The question of whether or not there's really someone after Kevin and Tiffany remains intriguing throughout most of the story, with the main characters' severely altered mental states causing them to experience some pretty weird things.  When they happen upon a group of workmen standing in the middle of a dark field and are unable to communicate with the silent, unmoving figures, it's "Twilight Zone" territory.  

When a snowcat suddenly comes to life and tries to mow them down, we get a vibe similar to DUEL or KILLDOZER.  And when Kevin finally goes off the deep end and suspects Tiffany of being the one trying to kill him, there's a reprise of the final sequence from THE SHINING in which Kevin even quotes Nicholson's Jack Torrence:  "I'm not gonna hurt ya, Tiffany...I'm just gonna bash your f**kin' brains in!" 

The icy, moonlit forest scenes have an eerie look to them and the production values are generally good.  I found myself wishing Ryan Demaree's musical score had eased off the "eleven" button a bit more often, though.  The cast, especially McNamara, Joyce, and Thompson, do the best they can with their roles, and while the two leads aren't all that impressive, they manage to convey prolonged terror and disorientation pretty well. 

Ultimately, DEAD OF WINTER is nothing special, but it's just well-done enough to make it fairly entertaining.  The closing scenes have a surprising emotional depth, and there's a final revelation before the credits which, while hardly mind-boggling, still wraps things up with a mildly satisfying twist.  I didn't regret sitting through it, but it's strictly a take-it-or-leave-it sort of flick. 

DEAD OF WINTER -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 2/27/18

 

Comedy westerns are tricky to pull off, especially if you're trying to please both western fans and comedy fans.  BLAZING SADDLES did it by being a merciless no-holds-barred burlesque of sagebrush sagas that skewered all the familiar tropes in hilariously irreverent and farcical fashion.  BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID succeeded by being delightfully witty while still delivering a genuinely gritty, slam-bang western that fans of the genre could appreciate.

What director John Sturges and company try to achieve with their sprawling comedy horse opera THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL (Olive Films, 1965) is no less than a spectacular blockbuster of epic proportions (with a running time of 165 minutes, no less) intended to inundate the viewer in an avalanche of eye-filling thrills and gut-busting laughter. 

As a sort of cross-country road picture filled with familiar faces and as much raucous action as he could squeeze out of an army of stunt people, it's as though Sturges were trying to come up with a western equivalent of the 1963 comedy free-for-all IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD.

Unfortunately, the man who was so adept at serious all-star epics such as THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN comes up short when applying his considerable talents to the field of comedy.  THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL blusters, bellows, wheezes, and beats its chest in a desperate effort to make us laugh with a furious flurry of thundering action and mugging slapstick that barely has a single genuinely funny line of dialogue or bit of business in its entire running time. 

The pseudo-solemn narration by John Dehner sets a mock-serious tone that never really goes anywhere, as he describes the impending disaster faced by an 1800s Denver, Colorado that is about to spend a long, hard winter with no whiskey.  That is, until freight tycoon Brian Keith orders forty wagon loads of the stuff to be delivered from back East across the desert through Indian country. 

Naturally, that much firewater is hard to resist for Chief Five Barrels (Robert Wilke), his comic sidekick Chief Walks-Stooped-Over (Martin Landau), and the rest of his thirsty braves. If you think Wilke and Landau are either convincing or funny as hooch-happy Indians, I have some oceanfront property in Idaho that might interest you.

The whiskey train also attracts the attention of a pretty, charismatic crusader against alcohol, the twice-widowed Mrs. Cora Templeton Massingale (Lee Remick), who vows to lead her fervent female followers to head it off at the pass while Colonel Thaddeus Gearhart (Burt Lancaster) reluctantly leads a regiment of cavalry soldiers to ride guard on the whole thing. 

Lancaster is all bullish bluster as Gearhart, with nary a corpuscle of comic talent in his whole brawny body but with a boxer's determination to pummel laughs out of the mirthless screenplay. Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin have the thankless task of playing his callow captain and rebellious daughter, who are in love, while stone-faced character actor John Anderson is a startlingly unlikely choice as his comic foil Sgt. Buell.  

As hymn-humming Cora Templeton Massingale, Remick is utterly eye-pleasing but about as appealing as the whelp she and Gregory Peck churned out in THE OMEN with her sanctimonious teatotalism delivered with a suffragette's zeal (a deadly combination) that had me despising her pushy, self-righteous character from the git-go. 

With striking teamsters on one side and boozehound Indians on the other--not to mention Cora and the ladies' anti-fun brigade--Brian Keith stomps and screams his way through the role of whiskey tycoon Wallingham, abetted by none other than an almost unrecognizable Donald Pleasance as a skinny, bearded frontiersman named "Oracle" who supposedly foretells the future when primed by offerings of free whiskey. 

Other familiar faces include Denverites Dub Taylor and Whit Bissell, Noam Pitlick as an Army translator who only knows English, Hope Summers, Val Avery, and Bing Russell (Kurt's dad). Elmer Bernstein provides the bombastic score.

Once the various groups converge on the trail to Denver, director Sturges stages a succession of overblown action sequences--one of them during a full-scale dust storm in which none of the various combatants can see each other--and packs them with shooting, limb-flailing stunts, racing wagons, thundering hooves, and other doggedly unfunny action as characters commit acts of artless slapstick against each other with a rubber-faced fury. 

All of which adds up to one long, joyless, tediously unentertaining western romp that wants to be funny so bad you can almost see it sweating from the effort.  Even with an overture, intermission, and exit music and a running time of almost three hours, not to mention some prodigious talent on both sides of the camera, THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL fails to muster as many laughs as a humble episode of "F Troop."

Rated: NR (not rated)
Subtitles: English (optional)
Video: 2.35:1 aspect ratio; color
Bonus features: trailer

THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle