Movie Review Gacy

Gacy (2003) 

Directed by Clive Saunders

Written by David Birke, Clive Saunders

Starring Mark Holton, Charlie Webber Glenn Morshower, John Laughlin 

Release Date May 13th, 2003 

Published May 13th, 2003 

You have seen them all over your video stores New Release shelves over the last year, serial killer movies. Movies about real life killers that take the killer’s name as the film’s title. Films such as Dahmer, Bundy and Ed Gein amongst others. The latest addition to this growing genre is Gacy, about the legendary Chicago serial killer who stashed the bodies of 27 teenage boys in the crawl space beneath his home.

The film begins with Gacy as a young man on a fishing trip with his father played by Adam Baldwin. As this opening sequence goes on, the tension between father and son grows, with Gacy's Dad challenging his son’s manhood to provoke a physical attack. Finally young Gacy does fight back but can't bring himself to actually hit his father. This encounter haunts him the rest of his life.

Cut to 1976 in the suburbs of Chicago where the neighbors of John Wayne Gacy are complaining about the awful smell coming from underneath the Gacy home. John Wayne Gacy (Mark Holton) seems to be a gregarious, apologetic family man. On the surface he's a loving father of twin daughters who let's his doting mother live with his family. So just what is that awful stench coming from underneath his house?

Late at night after his wife and children are asleep, Gacy sneaks away from his home and into the city of Chicago. Once there he pretends to be a police officer and busts teenage runaways who turn tricks to survive. Part of his gimmick is to offer the kids a chance to not be arrested, if they do favors for him. Then he knocks them cold and either strangles or stabs them to death. Although occasionally, for some reason unexplained by the film, Gacy let's some of his potential victims go. One potential victim he merely has sex with then drops him off in the park, an act he would come to regret when the kid goes to the cops.

The film doesn't get much into the police investigation of Gacy's activities, only that detectives were following Gacy and at one point, even camped out on Gacy's lawn as they waited for cause to search the house. The film focuses mostly on Gacy's real or imagined relationship with a kid he hires to work in his house painting business. When the kid confesses to Gacy that he is having problems with his father, Gacy offers him a room in his home, taking the room of his daughters who by this time have left with Gacy's suspicious wife.

Mark Holton, best known as the fat guy from Teen Wolf, or Pee Wee Herman's nemesis Francis in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, plays Gacy as a troubled, closeted homosexual. The film posits the theory that Gacy killed teenage boys as some kind of psychic revenge on his father. The psychology of the film is somewhat muddled to the point where armchair psychiatrists will have a hard time coming to any conclusions about Gacy's mental health except for the obvious, he's a nutball.

Clive Saunders wrote and directed Gacy and doesn't bring much to it other than a couple stylish camera setups and narrative inertia. As a movie, Gacy fails to interest audiences because it plays as a mystery with no mystery. We know going in that Gacy murdered 31 people, we know going in that most of the victims were buried beneath his home, the only mystery is why Gacy did it and the film brings no new insight to that mystery. 

Movie Review Mischief

Mischief (1985) 

Directed by Mel Damski 

Written by Noel Black 

Starring Kelly Preston, Doug McKeon, Catherine Mary Stewart 

Release Date February 8th, 1985

Published February 8th, 2015 

There is a reason that the pleasant and quite entertaining movie “Mischief” is mostly lost to time. The film simply lacks any ambition. While it has entertaining performances, a terrific soundtrack, and an easy to relate to coming of age story, the film is stubbornly small in its ambition. There is no wont in the film to be anything more than a very slight teenage romance.

Doug McKeon is the ostensible lead of “Mischief” as Jonathan, a teenage horndog with a longstanding crush on Marilyn (Kelly Preston) that is seemingly doomed to be nothing more than a crush. Then, Jonathan meets Gene (Chris Nash) a classic other side of the tracks, James Dean loving, fellow outcast who becomes his guru with the ladies. It is Gene’s mission to help Jonathan get laid, a classically 80’s notion of teen comedy.

Together, Jonathan and Gene endure the pitfalls of smalltown life with rich kid bullies and indifferent adult figureheads aiming to keep them on the straight and narrow path to squaresville. Their friendship, while unlikely, is nevertheless well rendered and we can’t help but feel for both guys, even as we’ve witnessed this story more than a few times. McKeon and Nash work well together and with the aid of Preston’s smoking hot Marilyn and Catherine Mary Stewart’s more thoughtful Bunny, we find a group of characters that are easy to like and root for.

It’s just a shame that “Mischief” doesn’t have a little more ambition. Unlike the characters of another 1985 teens coming of age comedy, “The Breakfast Club,” the characters of “Mischief” are simply too narrow and singular. They have no ambition to be characters who define a generation. That comes in part from the film’s 1950’s setting which removes it from the modern experiences of teens of the time, but also from the narrow notions the film has about love and small town life. There is no grand statement to “Mischief” only minor, humorous incident.

If “Mischief” has a legacy now it’s only due to Kelly Preston. Her young, nubile, nudity was long a staple of the porn site “Mr. Skin,” home of celebrity nude stills from movies. Does “Mischief” deserve a better legacy than that? It might if the film had more ambition. As it is, I guess, it’s rather fitting.

Movie Review Fulltime Killer

Fulltime Killer (2001) 

Directed by Johnny To, Wai Ka-Fai 

Written by Wai Ka-Fai, Joey O'Brien 

Starring Andy Lau, Takashi Sorimachi, Simon Yam, Kelly Lin 

Release Date August 3rd, 2001 

Published June 9th, 2003 

In this country, we make a big deal about violence in films and television. In other countries, however, the reaction to violence in films is quite different. Especially a place like Hong Kong where violence has become it's own artform.

With the films of Chow Yun Fat and especially those of John Woo, violence in Hong Kong films was accorded the respect and artistry that we in America attribute to a Meryl Streep performance. The tradition of highly stylized violence in Hong Kong movies continues today even as many of it's most well known stars and directors have moved onto American films.

Fulltime Killer is one of the latest in a long line of artfully violent Hong Kong movies. While it may not be the equal of a Hard Boiled, it's as slickly blood-soaked and entertaining as the number of films it references. There is a long in the tooth cliche in Hong Kong action films about top assassins killing other assassins to become the best killer in the world. Fulltime Killer plays this same theme, shamelessly aping the number of films that have played this same plot.

O (Takashi Sorimachi) is the top assassin in all of Asia, a cold blooded killer who murders a former high school friend, after completing a contract, simply because that friend could identify him to the police. O lives in almost complete isolation as to avoid unsatisfied clients or fellow killers who hope to unseat him. Maintaining two apartments, O's only connection to the outside world is a woman he hires to clean his apartment. As he watches from his real apartment across the street, the beautiful young Chin (Kelly Lin) cleans his apartment. Chin suspects he is watching and even toys with him by undressing in front of open windows before cleaning. She also suspects that her boss is an assassin.

Chin's suspicions are confirmed by the emergence of another assassin, the movie-obsessed Tok (Andy Lau). The two meet when the ultra charismatic Tok seeks out his rival’s new cleaning lady at her other job as a video store clerk. Wearing, of all things, a Bill Clinton mask, Tok seduces Chin into a date, which he leaves halfway through to do a job. He then returns all the while still wearing the mask. Once the mask comes off, the truth comes out. Rather than be put off by the killer, Chin is even more intrigued and takes to being the girlfriend of an assassin.

There is far more to Tok's motivation to kill O, not only the pride of becoming the top killer but also vengeance for the death of his girlfriend, O's former cleaning lady. She was the victim of one of O's rivals.

None of this story is new, but the stylish self-referential Fulltime Killers never feels stale. Directors Johnny To and Kai Fai Wai revel in their homage to various films. Occasionally referring to the films by name such as Leon The Professional and El Mariachi. The stylishness of the floating camera's and over the top use crane's and dollies keeps the film moving at a breakneck pace. Slowing down for only moments for minor exposition, it's the exhibition of stylized violence that fascinates the directors. It has certainly been done before and it's been done better but the enjoyment that permeates the edge of every scene gives it all a freshness.

The film’s stars are two very charismatic young stars in Andy Lau and Tokashi Sorimachi. The confident attention grabbing performances provide the spark the film needs to separate itself from its various influences. It is the performances of the two leads as well as Kelly Lin and Hong Kong veteran Simon Yam as a cop on the trio's tail that makes Fulltime Killer an exciting, energetic thriller.

Movie Review Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th (1980) 

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham

Written by Victor Miller 

Starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Kevin Bacon, Laurie Bartram

Release Date May 9th, 1980

Published August 17th, 2003 

It seems many horror fans have been operating under great delusion for a number of years. That delusion is that Jason Voorhees was the star of each of the Friday the 13th films. That is not the case. Nine sequels with Jason as the focal point have colored the minds of many fans of Jason's high body count. In fact the first Friday the 13th film could be considered a stand-alone picture. It operates as a revenge movie/psycho horror film. Jason is merely a plot point, a motivation.

What is far more interesting though is how much you miss the Jason of myth as you revisit the first Friday the 13th. Over time, that myth has become a charming little joke of over the top beheadings and implausible returns from the grave. The first Friday the 13th is quite tepid in comparison with it's quasi realistic violence and complete lack of the supernatural.

The story has been copied numerous times in numerous knock off's, and of course the film itself was in fact a knock off but I digress. A group of nubile camp counselors has assembled at Camp Crystal Lake at the behest of the new owner Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer). But not without having been warned by the nearby residents that the camp is cursed. It's seems that in 1957 a young boy drowned in the lake. The following year, two counselors were brutally murdered. Each time the camp was reopened a new tragedy befell the new counselors. Nevertheless, our intrepid counselors move ahead with renovations.

It's not long however before the bodies begin to pile up. First, it’s the camps new cook Annie (Robbie Morgan) who never actually makes it to the camp. Then a couple, Jack (Kevin Bacon) and Marcie (Jeanine Taylor), who make the classic horror film mistake of having sex. After a few more murders, including the offscreen slaying of the camp’s owner, it's down to young Alice (Adrienne King) to fight off our heretofore unseen assailant.

Director Sean S. Cunningham, a veteran horror producer, doesn't bring much style to the film, though his effects and makeup are quite good. Cunningham lacks mostly in his building of suspense. The decision to leave the killer offscreen seems similar to Steven Spielberg's trouble with the shark in Jaws. It's not that he wanted the shark off-screen, it just didn't work. The same could be said of Cunningham. That keeping the killer off-screen for most of the film was not a creative choice, but one of necessity, as if he wasn't sure until late in the game how he would play it. His choice of killers is a debate for the ages.

Some horror fans claim that the killer is a great shocker that plays off stereotypical archetypes in an ironic surprise twist. I say the producers couldn't think of anything better and what they came up with is lame and horribly contrived. I am of the school of horror fans who believe that the series didn't really begin until the second film when Jason arose from the grave, not wearing the hockey mask by the way. He began a legendary run that continues soon with the recently released Freddy Vs Jason. 

Movie Review Freak Out

Freak Out (2004) 

Directed by Christian James

Written by Christian James 

Starring James Heathcote, Dan Palmer 

Release Date October 15th, 2004

Published April 11th, 2004 

In the tradition of low budget horror trash from Troma films comes the British import Freak Out, a gory horror parody that spills as much blood as your average horror films with twice the laughs. Unlike most horror films, these laughs are intentional and delivered by a terrific cast of first time actors working on a budget that only Kevin Smith and the Blair Witch guys could appreciate.

The story, such as it is, is about Merv (James Heathcote), a bored Londoner with a passion for horror films. His bedroom is festooned with horror posters and he makes daily trips top the local video store to claim every new and old horror title he can get his hands on. Merv knows all of the old horror tropes and hopes to one day direct his own real horror film.

Fate smiles on him and Merv gets his chance when he captures a real life escaped mental patient hiding in his shower. With the help of his best friend Onkey (Dan Palmer), Merv trains the gentle mental patient, who only wishes to become a killer at Merv’s behest, to become a serial killer straight out of one of his favorite movies.

It’s slow going at first since the killer is a vegetarian who is terrified of the sight of blood. His idea of a scary killer outfit is a potato sack over his head, a tennis racket and a tutu. With the help of Merv and Onkey, the killer adopts the name ‘The Looney” because he escaped the looney bin and begins to take to killing Merv and Onkey’s friends and neighbors.

This movie is wildly all over the place with humor that flies between Scary Movie-esque quips and puns and Troma-style over the top gore. There is also scatology to spare, especially in a wacky subplot about the killer’s obsession with Dallas star Larry Hagman.

Writer-Director Christian James and his cast clearly enjoyed every minute of this low budget production and that joy flies off the screen in torrents of fake blood and over the top humor. James also shows a very professional flair considering the film’s low budget. Freak Out is surprisingly well shot and edited. Troma has been in this business for more than 20 years and their venerable director Lloyd Kaufman has yet to direct a film that looks as good as Freak Out.

It’s a tough film to find, independently produced out of Britain, but if you can get your hands on a copy, do it. Freak Out is the perfect “get your friends together, drink beer, and laugh your ass off movie.”

Movie Review: Cassandra's Dream

Cassandra's Dream (2007) 

Directed by Woody Allen

Written by Woody Allen 

Starring Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Hayley Atwell, Sally Hawkins, Tom Wilkinson 

Release Date January 18th, 2008 

Published May 22nd, 2008 

Someday this will be referred to as Woody Allen's London era. Whether this period of Allen's career will be remembered well is still in question. His Scoop was a cute, quick witted comedy that never caught on with audiences. His follow up, Match Point is a devastatingly smart thriller likely to be remembered by Allen fans as a masterpiece.

Now comes Cassandra's Dream another London set thriller that ups the ante on Match Point by going for big stars but comes up short on the smart thrills that made Match Point so brilliant.

Two brothers turn to crime to solve their financial problems only to find themselves not exactly adept. Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are Ian and Terry Blaine. Ian is a dreamer who aspires to high finance. For now he lives the life of a playboy without the actual means. Terry is more honest of his working class roots. He lives modestly with a longtime, loving girlfriend. His one indulgence is gambling and when we meet Terry he is on quite a hot streak. He eventually strikes it big at the card table to the tune of 30 grand.

Hot streaks however, never last. As Terry risks the 30 grand to get the money he needs to buy his girl a house he winds up 90 grand in the hole. Naturally, Terry turns to Ian for help. Ian for his part has fallen head over heels for a young actress named Angela (Hayley Atwell). What little money he has he hopes to use to keep Angela in the comfort she aspires to. Now however, he must help Terry. With their options limited the brothers turn to their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) a highly successful businessman. Howard has one condition for a lone, the boys must murder a man who threatens to tear down Howard's multi-million dollar empire.

To say Howard is asking alot is an understatement and that is at the heart of the issues with Woody Allen's latest tale of chance, chaos and morality. Allen has always been fascinated with cause and effect and the idea that while one action may lead directly to another there is no such thing as fate. In the end, Allen's world view is that we are the arbiters of our fate and our consequences. That view certainly plays out in Cassandra's Dream where Terry and Ian are not forced to do anything but decide to do something and then decide their own punishment until the random nature of the world intervenes in all it's unintentional irony and strange ordinariness.

The last shot of the film with the world in order but an emotional shitstorm in the offing is a strong, almost devastating conclusion. Unfortunately, the central crime is so outlandish that you are unable to truly invest in it emotionally. Yes, Terry and Ian are both desperate but are they really so desperate to do what they do? I didn't buy it. I especially didn't buy Ferrell's Terry who turns ashamedly from an average guy into the worst type of Ferrell character, the weepy, whiny mess well displayed in Phone Booth, far less interesting in Alexander, The Recruit and now in Cassandra's Dream.

Ewan McGregor on the other hand is right at home as Ian. With charm that intimates a certain moral flexibility, McGregor's Ian is more suited to the central story than is the caricature that is Ferrell's Terry. It is Ian and his relationship with Amanda that brings home the central themes of the film, the randomness of life, the luck, the chance and the lack of any real grand design. Also, in Hayley Atwell's Amanda we get Allen at his self deprocating best. In the film's best scene, Allen goes meta and breaks down the very existence of her character in the film.

The failure of Cassandra's Dream is unfortunately Allen's inabilty to craft a solid thriller plot to tentpole his favored themes. The Allen intellect, his philosophy on life, death and movies is on well display but fail for not having a structure on which to hang them. Thus Cassandra's Dream is a film of ideas with no driving narrative force that could have, with a little more care, been a devastating dramatic piece ala his previous London set masterpiece Match Point. That film delivers the same themes with a thriller plot that is involving, shocking and purely Allen-esque in how it underlines its ideals.

Rent Match Point and Cassandra's Dream off your Netflix cue.

Movie Review: Christopher Robin

Christopher Robin (2018)

Directed by Marc Forster

Written by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, Allison Schroeder

Starring Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett 

Release Date August 3rd, 2018 

Published August 2nd, 2018

Disney has had remarkable success taking their animated properties and repurposing them for live action films. And somehow, they’ve done this with no one accusing them of recycling or calling out the nakedly calculated marketing strategy that was the inception for each of these movies from Cinderella to Jungle Book to Beauty and the Beast and now to Christopher Robin, the live action take on Winnie the Pooh.

Much of the reason that we’ve given Disney a pass on such criticism is because the quality of this strip mining of our nostalgic memories of childhood have been so very good. Exceptional filmmakers such as Kenneth Branagh and Jon Favreau and now Marc Forster have turned this cynical nostalgic cash grab into something genuinely, lovingly artful. Marc Forster has even made, arguably, the most loving and artful of all of these cynical cash grabs.

Christopher Robin is the story of the young boy who found a door in a tree and bravely crossed it’s threshold into a world of wonder in the 100 Acre Woods. There he found magical creatures including a new best friend, Winnie the Pooh along with his pals, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore. Kanga and her son Roo, and the wonderful, bouncy backsided Tigger. Together they played and dreamed and had great adventures.

Years passed however and time came when Christopher Robin was forced to leave behind the 100 Acre Woods in favor of soggy old London and life in a boarding school. From there, Christopher would begin to forget his fuzzy former friends and start a real life. Grown up, and played by Ewan McGregor, Christopher met and fell in love with Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), they had a baby named Madeline (Bronte Carmichael) and he went to war.

Now home with his family, Christopher has begun to forget not just about the 100 Acre Woods but about fun in general. Christopher’s job at a luggage company consumes all his time and thoughts and even when he plans to spend a weekend away with his family, at his parents’ former cottage, he can’t get away from his work and the strain on his marriage is evident if only to us and to Evelyn.

Here’s where things take a turn. The scene shifts to Pooh Bear’s cottage. He’s just awoken and found that he has no hunny. He goes out seeking help from his friends and cannot find them. He finds the door in the tree where Christopher Robin always came from and decides to go through it into Christopher’s world. On the other side, Pooh emerges in London and finds Christopher anxiously hiding from a neighbor he doesn’t want to talk to.

Marc Forster is a filmmaker who knows a little something about gentle and pleasant kids stories. Forster’s Finding Neverland was an Academy Award nominee telling the story of J.M Barrie’s creation of Peter Pan. Christopher Robin feels a lot like that film with a similar whimsical, magical essence. Both Christopher Robin and Finding Neverland have an elegiac and plaintive pacing, an air of sadness slowly giving way to the joy of letting go. Forster worked with his Finding Neverland editor Matt Chesse on Christopher Robin and that may have contributed to the similarity in tone and pace.

What sets Christopher Robin apart is the screenplay which features work from three smoking hot properties. Indie darling Alex Ross Perry of Listen Up Phillip and Queen of Earth fame has a credit alongside Hidden Figures writer Allison Schroeder and Academy Award-winning Spotlight writer-director Tom McCarthy. Each contributes to the unique style of Christopher Robin’s story and the wonderful, whimsical way the characters interact.

Don’t misunderstand, these are still fully A.A Milne, by way of Disney, characters. Pooh still feels like Pooh, thanks to the legendary voice work of Jim Cummings and we still get to hear Tigger sing the Tigger song. But, the interaction between Christopher Robin and the rest of the world has a wit and liveliness to it that doesn’t distract from the classic source material. You can sense the respect that this creative team has for the source material, there is a loving care to the way Pooh and friends are presented, never with anything less than dignity; it's fun with a British sort of propriety.

Ewan McGregor is a wonderful Christopher Robin. I adored his stiffness early in the movie and the way his shoulders slowly go from up around his ears to fully at ease. He’s a man under desperate stress to do the right thing and he continually does the wrong thing until Pooh comes along and puts him straight. There is a lovely similarity to the recent Where the Wild Things Are when Christopher is in the 100 Acre Woods as an adult and realizes that he may, in fact, be the problem with his life and not everyone else.

McGregor is well matched with Hayley Atwell whose sympathetic care for her husband is only matched by her witty, self-protective, innate feminism. This is not a woman who will put up for very long with a man who doesn’t properly appreciate her, and especially her daughter, and you get that sense solely from Atwell’s manner and grace. She has a steely quality that easily gives way to softness and concern in the way only a great actress can show.

I have not even begun to praise the true star of the show, Winnie the Pooh. Earlier this year people were tripping over themselves to praise the over-hyped Paddington with his childish pratfalling and simplistic story. For me, Winnie the Pooh in Christopher Robin is my thesis statement on why Paddington doesn’t work. Pooh is charming in ways Paddington only hints at. He’s lovable in the ways that Paddington pretends towards. Most importantly, Pooh’s pratfalling antics and general mayhem are more well-explained and lovable than the destruction that Paddington wreaks upon his friends and family.

Christopher Robin is a lovely film, a gentle yet funny, sweet and harmless trifle that will make all audiences smile. Marc Forster is a director of immense talent and he brings that to bear in Christopher Robin with the lightest and most deft touch. The film is artful in how it is never flashy, you don’t feel as if you see Forster directing. The touch is light but effective, you sense how beautiful and well told the story is but it doesn’t feel as if you’re being steered and you sort of melt into the beauty and warmth of this story.

I feel as if, on a moral level, I should be upset about Disney strip mining my childhood for a quick buck. I feel like I should be annoyed that they aren’t developing original material and are instead basking in the dollars that existing products in shiny new packages can bring in. In the back of my mind, in fact, I am rebelling against these Disney products and their weaponized nostalgia. That said, up front and personal, Christopher Robin made my heart happy. The movie is completely adorable and a wonderful film for the whole family, proof that commerce and art can work together to create something beautiful.