Classic Movie Review Masters of the Universe

Masters of the Universe (1987) 

Directed by Gary Goddard

Written by David Odell 

Starring Dolph Lundgren, Courtney Cox, Frank Langella

Release Date August 7th, 1987 

The legendary John Waters once defined camp, on an episode of The Simpsons, as “The tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic.” The 1987 movie Masters of the Universe pre-dates that definition of camp by more than a decade but nevertheless defines it perfectly. Masters of the Universe is a tragically ludicrous idea undermined by greed, hubris and the outright silly notion that just because something catches on with child audiences it can be translated to film in anything other than a pathetic attempt at pandering.

There are several famous Hollywood stories from the behind the scenes creation of Masters of the Universe but few capture the essence of this horrible idea for a movie in the way that this one does. One day, Dolph Lundgren’s Rocky 4 co-star Sylvester Stallone visited the set of Masters of the Universe and seeing his former co-star exchanging dialogue with co-star Courtney Cox, Stallone expressed his apoplexy by asking an executive on set “You gave that guy dialogue?”

Indeed, Dolph Lundgren is given dialogue and through his remarkably thick accent even the simple catchphrase “I HAVE THE POWER” comes off like The Simpsons' hilarious Schwarzenegger parody, Rainier Wolfcastle, attempting a similar line from that shows' movie within a show about the fake comic book hero Radioactive Man. Undoubtedly, The Simpsons writers must have been huge ironic fans of Masters of the Universe.

Masters of the Universe was a compromised product from its very conception but that could not be clearer to fans of He-Man than in the film’s first scenes. The very first thing that happens in Masters of the Universe is that the villain Skeletor (Frank Langella, poor, misguided Frank Langella), has accomplished his long-time cartoon goal of taking over the fictional planet of Eternia. Fans can be forgiven for being floored by this as the cartoon series had been built around the battle to protect Castle Greyskull and its universe conquering powers from Skeletor and he’s just accomplished his greatest goal off-screen.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Legend of Ben Hall

The Legend of Ben Hall (2017)

Directed by Matthew Holmes

Written by Matthew Holmes

Starring Jack Martin, Jamie Coffa 

Release Date August 1st, 2017

We have a tendency in America to believe that our pop culture is the only culture to embrace our anti-heroes, those rugged criminals whose lives we romanticize into fantasy for reasons we can’t quite rationalize with what these men did. But rhapsodizing about the criminal as pseudo-hero is a truly worldwide phenomenon. The latest example of the worldwide nature of the celebration of anti-heroes comes from Australia with the story of criminal icon Ben Hall, the subject of the Bushranger epic The Legend of Ben Hall which is now available on DVD and On-Demand services in America.

Ben Hall (Jack Martin) was the quintessential Bushranger, a criminal but a criminal with a personal ethic. In the years since Ben Hall has been robbing stagecoaches with his band of criminal brothers, he never took a life. Ben may not exactly be noble, he is an unquestionably dangerous man committing real crimes, but his no murder stance, at the very least, render a criminal with scruples. Ben is haunted by the way in which his wife Biddy (Joanne Dobbin) left him for another man and took their child and he intends to take the boy back once he steals enough money for safe travel to America.

Joining Jack is the far more dangerous outlaw, John Gilbert (Jamie Coffa), whose best quality is his loyalty to Ben; it’s the only thing that keeps Gilbert from becoming an outright psychopath. Together, Ben and John recruit Jon Dunn (William Lee) and they begin a reign of terror on Australian banks that led the banks and the government to extreme measures to fight back. Those extreme measures eventually led to a moment of reckoning for a bloodthirsty army of thug law enforcers and the Australian military which compromised their ethics eventually to put an end to Ben Hall and his gang.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Classic Movie Review Fire in the Sky

Fire in the Sky (1993) 

Directed by Robert Lieberman 

Written by Tracy Torme 

Starring Robert Patrick, D.B Sweeney, Craig Sheffer 

Release Date March 12th, 2023 

Published June, 2023  

A group of friends worked together on a scam to convince the world that one of them was abducted by aliens. For me, this is a much more interesting story than treating the lie these men told as if it actually happened. Unfortunately, that's the approach director Robert Lieberman and writer Tracy Torme went with in making Fire in the Sky, pretending the lie was the truth. By pretending that this man was actually abducted by aliens, the filmmakers cosigned the lie and colluded to provide credence to the grift of these men that, for at least of them, continues to to this day. 

Fire in the Sky asks you to believe that in 1975 a man named Travis Walton was abducted by aliens while his friends watched in shock and horror. The 'friends' ran away, leaving Travis seemingly for dead. Several days later, a naked and traumatized Travis was found a full town away shivering inside of a shed. In Fire in the Sky, D.B Sweeney provides a reasonably shaken and angst ridden performance as Travis Walton. And, because he's an actor whose been given direction on how to portray this trauma, he makes it look as if this is what really happened to Travis Walton, perhaps better than Walton himself ever could. 

The story of Travis's disappearance is told in a dimwitted flashback. Apparently the filmmakers half-watched Rashomon and took a minor inspiration that pretends to art but falls squarely into melodrama. Familiar faces Robert Patrick, Peter Berg, Craig Scheffer and Henry Thomas play Travis friends who, for a time, were suspected of having killed Travis, at least according to the movie. The real story of what happened to Travis Walton is that he and his friends perpetrated a hoax that Walton has exploited for financial gain for years. 

They sold the story to The Enquirer, a disreputable tabloid that claimed that Walton and his friends passed a lie detector test. The reality is, The Enquirer had just as much to gain from Travis Walton's made up abduction story as he did. Skeptical investigators who performed tests on Walton found that he was trying to beat the lie detector through various means that had been shared in books out around that time. One lie detector test that Walton ended with the administrator calling Walton's story a 'gross deception.' 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review: Roadrunner Film About Anthony Bourdain

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021) 

Directed by Morgan Neville 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Anthony Bourdain, Asia Argento 

Release Date July 16th, 2021 

Published June 17th, 2023 

Late in the new documentary Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, a friend recalls asking Bourdain how he managed to quit his heroin addiction cold turkey. This was a foreign concept to Bourdain’s friend, a fellow addict, who could not begin to imagine that level of willpower. Bourdain offered no real answer, just that he’d done it. It quickly dawned on Bourdain’s friend that Bourdain may have beaten heroin but he hadn’t beaten addiction. 

Instead of heroin, Anthony Bourdain’s addiction jumped to other sources of pleasure or pain or experience, unattainable highs that could never be sustained in the same fashion that addiction to any drug either ends in death or simply losing the ability to get high all together. To me, this is a fascinating and thoughtful insight. Director Morgan Nevillve had a similar fascination with what Bourdain’s friend mentioned, how his addiction jumped from heroin to other types of obsession. 

In the immediate aftermath of Bourdain’s friend relating this story we join Bourdain learning Jiu Jitsu. Bourdain was obsessed with Jiu Jitsu for a time, an all consuming obsession, addiction, that drove the people around him crazy. Another of Bourdain’s friends, a member of the crew of his television series, recalled being irritated by Bourdain droning on endlessly about the benefits of Jiu Jitsu, he was relentless in talking about things he was passionate about. 

Bourdain applied this passionate obsessive quality to people as well, his wives, and his girlfriends. In a disturbing example of Bourdain’s obsession with and his addiction to very specific things, the movie recalls a time when Bourdain was speaking of his then girlfriend, actress Asia Argento, and going on and on about what he’d determined to be, her remarkable ability to parallel park. There is a look on Bourdain’s face as he’s discussing Argento’s ability to park a car in Italy that approaches madness, his eyes are wide, his gestures are broad and Argento appears deeply uncomfortable. 

It could be argued that director Morgan Neville frames this scene to underline the effect but regardless, I couldn’t help but feel the implied discomfort and Bourdain’s mad obsessive zeal. The documentary frames Bourdain’s entire relationship with Argento, which came in the last years of his life, as an addiction. Bourdain was deeply lonely after the end of his second marriage and is seen to wonder if he is someone who can be loved. 

In 1999 Anthony Bourdain, then already into middle age and seeing his life as one of working as a chef until they dragged his corpse from the kitchen, began writing a series of emails to a friend. This friend happened to be married to a publisher and after urging his wife to read Anthony’s breathlessly intelligent, urgent, and provocative words in these emails, the wife was sold, she needed to publish Anthony Bourdain. 

That is the story that led to Bourdain’s national breakthrough, the bestselling book, Kitchen Confidential which turned Bourdain into the bad boy of celebrity chefs. The book was an immediate smash success story which almost spawned a movie adaptation starring Brad Pitt and did spawn a brief and uninspired television series starring Bradley Cooper. Fame didn’t come easy to Bourdain but once he embraced it, his life was changed forever. 

The success of Kitchen Confidential led to Bourdain’s own series on The Food Network called A Cook’s Tour. The team behind Bourdain’s television series tell a terrific story about that show and how Anthony Bourdain was not the bon vivant personality that he would come to be known as, not right away. In fact, on the first trip for the show, Bourdain was listless and withdrawn, he refused to play the part of host and it appeared that the show was doomed. 

It wasn’t until the crew arrived in Vietnam when things began to click. Bourdain loved Vietnam, it also helped that his friend and former restaurant boss joined him and perhaps brought out a friendlier and more excitable version of Bourdain. From there it was off to the races on a career that would touch the lives of millions of fans and inspire wandering souls to discover their own inner traveler. 

From the outside, Anthony Bourdain had everything. His job was to go to cool places, have adventures, and eat food. His travels were exotic and beautiful and also provocative. Through his travels, the bad boy chef transformed into a deeply empathetic soul eager to tell the stories of the people behind the culture and food he was experiencing. This proved to be exhilarating television and in many ways, an exhilarating life but the strain on Bourdain comes clear as Roadrunner unfolds. The heart wrenching stories Bourdain sometimes told weighed on him more than his cool exterior let on.  

In 2018 Anthony Bourdain shocked the world by taking his own life in the midst of a shoot for his travel series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. His death was a stark reminder that while you think you know a celebrity or you assume that someone on television has a life that is a dream come true, you really don’t know them. This aspect of not knowing Bourdain but wanting to, drive so much of Roadrunner. 

Some have claimed that the troubled end to Bourdain's relationship with Asia Argento led him to take his life. Many read Roadrunner: A Film Abouut Anthony Bourdain as making that case, that Argento holds a responsibility in Bourdain's death. I don't see the movie quite that way. I feel that director Morgan Neville lays out the case that Bourdain's various addictions are what drove him toward a tragic end. Having chased a particular kind of high for his entire life, he finally reached a place where that high was no longer attainable. 

I believe, based on what Neville shows us in Roadrunner, that Bourdain was 'addicted' to his relationship with Argento in a deeply unhealthy fashion. That parallel parking story may be cringe-inducing in many ways, but I believe it is the thesis statement on Bourdain's obsessive personality, his addiction to Argento being the latest thing that had driven his lust for life. When that 'supply,' if you will indulge that as a metaphor for a human being, is cutoff, Bourdain simply felt he could not go on. That's not Asia Argento's fault. This type of obsession with another person is not healthy and it was perhaps better for Argento herself, regardless of whoever she might be as a person, I don't know her, to get out of that relationship. 

If you've never been the subject of another person's obsession, you don't know how strange and suffocating that can be. If you are the subject of someone else's obsession, you need to get out of it. It's not something that can be sustained or repaired. We happen to have some visual evidence of Bourdain's obsession with Argento and it's strange and haunting. It starts out humorous and slowly morphs into something pitiable and deeply uncomfortable. Anthony Bourdain's obsessions are what led to his death. His desire to be obsessed with something to distract him from unspoken anguish he felt and did not process or seek help for, are why we no longer have his brilliant mind in the world. 

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is brilliant, beautiful and tragic. It's incredibly difficult to watch but it's also engrossing and enlightening. It's a story that aches to be told. That it exists is a warning to anyone that an unexamined emotional pain is as dangerous and deadly as an unexamined and untreated open wound. Anthony Bourdain was bleeding emotionally and was unfortunately unwilling or unable to seek treatment for it. Roadrunner then is a cautionary tale about such deep emotional wounds. 

Movie Review The Flash

The Flash (2023)

Directed by Andy Muschietti 

Written by Christina Hodson

Starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck, Michael Shannon, Maribel Verdu 

Release Date June 16th, 2023 

Published June 14th, 2023 

Let's address the elephant in the room. There are numerous stories regarding the life of Ezra Miller that demonstrate that they may not be a good person. There's been allegations of abuse, grooming, and other types of criminal behavior, including kidnapping and, for a time, he was even suspected of murder. It's incredibly hard to objectively look at Miller's work and separate that from the person. I'm going to try and do that in this review but I want to make it very clear that regardless of how I feel about Miller's work and the movie The Flash, Miller has a lot of things to answer for and this review is not intended in any way as a co-sign of Miller the person. 

The Flash stars Ezra Miller as Barry Allen, super-hero. Having been introduced in the Snyder-verse of the DCU, The Flash is now almost the last of a dying branch of a franchise. And yet, despite that negative energy running in the background of the movie, The Flash manages to be quite good. Against many odds indeed, director Andy Muschietti, famous for his deft and ingenious work on It Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, has delivered a rousing, emotional and wildly inventive super hero blockbuster. It's not without its flaws but those may be inherent to behind the scenes development where producers plotted this film with sequels in mind that are now unlikely to happen. 

We pick up the story of Barry Allen as he is helping Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), respond to a heist that turns into a dangerous and deadly building collapse. Baddies have stolen a deadly biological weapon from Gotham General Hospital and while Batman goes after the weapon, it's up to Barry to save the patients and staff of the now collapsing and on fire hospital. In a visually dynamic, if slightly tedious segment, Barry rescues a group of babies falling from near the top of the collapsing building. In time lapse we watch as Barry comedically but necessarily snacks while in the air, snatches baby after baby out of the air, saves a nurse and a therapy dog, all while a massive building is collapsing over them all. 

This is an objectively terrific display of the powers of The Flash and the humble, sweet, but unusual character of Ezra Miller's The Flash. Miller's Barry Allen is sweet, shy, and anxiety ridden. He's a reluctant hero whose journey is one in which he confronts his mistakes, his past, his pain and trauma, and grows up before our eyes. He becomes more and more of a hero as he discovers himself and sees the errors of his ways. He's always been headstrong, even as his nature is to wilt in front of people. Here that headstrong quality is met with a self-examination that causes Barry to become more responsible, more like the hero Batman/Bruce Wayne believes he can be. 

It's a terrific arc that takes on a tragic, sad, and lovely melancholy as Barry longs for his late mother and the family that was shattered by her murder. Following a conversation with his father (Ron Livingston, currently behind bars, accused of killing Barry's mother, Barry uses the speed force to travel back in time to see if he can save his mother. Barry's mother is played by Maribel Verdu and she is utterly incredible in this relatively limited role. In her brief screen time, Verdu elevates otherwise familiar material about how we mythologize and simplify the memories of our beloved parents with an ethereal kindness, an impossible level of charisma, and a radiant loving presence. Verdu floored me in her few scenes. 

In lesser hands than hers, and director Andy Muschietti, Barry's mother, Nora Allen, could be a plot device. But with the incredible work of actor and director, the role feels rich, alive and beautiful well beyond the plot and her function within it. The mother/son chemistry of Verdu and Miller is incredibly powerful and it builds to an emotional climax that I was not expecting, one that hit me right in the heart. I'm perhaps personalizing this too much, but having lost a really great mom, one very reminiscent of this conception of Nora Allen, I was deeply touched by their bond. That this is also the motivation for the plot and all of the action that Barry takes in this plot means that the whole movie gets a charge from this chemistry. It's so strong for me that I think the movie might be as good, or even better on a rewatch because you would go in knowing just how powerful that relationship is and how devastating and emotional it all will become. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Jurassic Park 3

Jurassic Park 3 (2001) 

Directed by Joe Johnston 

Written by Peter Buchman, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor 

Starring Sam Neill, Tea Leoni, William H. Macy, Alessandro Nivola 

Release Date July 18th, 2001 

Published June 14th, 2023 

After having compromised to make arguably the worst movie of his remarkable career, The Lost World Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg was finally ready to leave the dinosaurs behind. There was no amount of money that studio executives could promise Spielberg in order to get him back in the director's chair for Jurassic Park 3. That said, staying on as Executive Producer, and retaining his lucrative back end deal, Spielberg did have a hand in choosing his directorial successor. 

Joe Johnston is a long time friend and collaborator of Steven Spielberg and happened to be coming off a pair of well liked and successful films, the 1995 blockbuster, Jumanji, and the critically beloved 1999 drama, October Sky. That plus having worked behind the scenes on each of the previous Jurassic Park movies made Johnston the most natural choice to pick up the reigns on the popular franchise. With Johnston came a new writing team for Jurassic Park 3. Out was writer David Koepp and in was the unlikely duo of Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, fresh off the success of very non-Jurassic Park indie hits Citizen Ruth and Election. 

It's strange to think that Alexander Payne chose to follow up Election, a black comedy of razor sharp wit, with something as wit-free as Jurassic Park 3. Much like Spielberg did his career worst work on The Lost World Jurassic Park, it would be fair to say that Jurassic Park 3 marks a low point in the career of Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor. A paycheck is a paycheck and being hot off of a critical and commercial hit created the strange cosmic coincidences needed to put the future auteurs behind Sideways into the Jurassic Park universe. 

That said, while I do think this is the worst script of the career of Payne and Taylor, that doesn't mean the movie is that bad. Jurassic Park 3 is actually an improvement over The Lost World Jurassic Park. Director Joe Johnston smartly keeps his Jurassic Park movie under 100 minutes in length and maintains a frenetic pace throughout its 96 minute runtime. A script this thin could not sustain a movie much longer than that, especially with characters this obnoxious and simplistic. Making Jurassic Park 3 any longer than 96 minutes would be an agonizing watch. As it is, it's not great but it is fast and the action is genuinely well directed. 

Jurassic Park 3 returns Sam Neill to the role of Dr. Alan Grant. After being greatly missed in The Lost World Jurassic Park, having Neill back in Jurassic Park 3 is, at the very least, a welcome bit of nostalgia. Also briefly back is Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler. Her inclusion is perfunctory and convenient, a loving nod to the original Jurassic Park. She's there to be used as needed by the script to underline a plot point early on and provide a convenient ending for the film. 

Sorry, my cynicism keeps sneaking through. I was talking about being happy to see Dr. Grant again. Sam Neill is a steady, calming, soothing presence in Jurassic Park. He's an absolute necessity as he provides a grounded element amid the chaotic special effects frenzy that Joe Johnston is unleashing in Jurassic Park 3. It's easy to see where Johnston's work on Jumanji influenced his work here. Much like Jumanji, Jurassic Park 3 is at its best when it doesn't stop running, upping the stakes, and being an action movie. 

The plot kicks in when Dr. Grant receives an offer to play aerial tour guide for a rich married couple. Paul and Amanda Kirby have charted a plane to fly over Isla Sorna, the second of John Hammond's dinosaur islands and the location of the last movie, The Lost World Jurassic Park. Grant is promised that the plane will not land on the island and that he will just narrate a few facts about what few dinosaurs can be seen during the flyover. What he doesn't know is that he's actually on a dangerous rescue mission. In a convoluted opening sequence, Paul and Amanda's son, Eric has been stranded on the island.

The crew aboard the plane are actually mercenaries who've been hired to extract the boy from the island. Naturally, things don't go well and people end up getting eaten by dinosaurs. Since we don't know the names of the actors playing the mercenaries, and they lack what I like to call 'main character powers,' they're the first to go. The only name supporting actor, Michael Jeter, is also doomed for being a liar and a bit of a weasel, bad guys getting ugly comeuppance is a trope of the Jurassic Park films, aside from John Hammond, the greatest villain of the series, who gets to escape because he's played by kindly grandpa, Richard Attenborough. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Chevalier

Chevalier (2023) 

Directed by Stephen Williams 

Written by Stefani Robinson 

Starring Kelvin Harrison Jr., Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton, Martin Csokas 

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published June 13th, 2023 

To talk about why Chevalier doesn't work, I need to talk about the ending. Now, since this movie is based on the true story of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, his French title, I don't think this is a spoiler alert situation. Besides that, the fate of the main character is not part of the ending of the movie, that's handled with some clumsy text that ties up the life of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges in a tidy bow and explains why he went unrecognized and little known for so many years. Thus, I don't consider this a spoiler. But, if you disagree, you have now been warned. 

The ending of Chevalier, starring Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Joseph Bologne, famed composer and former friend and confidante of Queen Marie Antoinette, is set at a concert performance. Bologne is set to perform a piece that has a title intended to support the French Revolution, the bloody battle that will bring down Joseph's former friend, Marie Antoinette, played by Lucy Boynton. After being warned by the Queen that she will destroy him, take away his title, and ruin him professionally, Bologne wastes no time being conflicted, he immediately takes the stage and begins to perform this fiery piece of music. 

The Queen responds with unsurprising disdain, she sends her top General, a bullying Aristocrat named Montalamare (Martin Csokas) into to the concert to arrest and or execute the Chevalier. The crowd intervenes to save their favorite composer who briefly stops the show to confront the General. Then, Bologne waves his hand, indicating for his symphony to continue playing. But, after doing this, the Chevalier leaves. Walking out of the concert, the Chevalier passes by the fleeing Queen with a defiant glare and then, in slow motion, he walks off and text takes care of the rest of his life. 

That slow motion walk is a very silly moment. Contextually, Bologne has just started his concert. He has a large and excited crowd that came to see him perform. Yes, he is almost murdered by the General, I'm sure that was hard for him, and reason enough to leave and end the show. But, he appears to be unfazed by this near-death experience. He's perfectly calm and cool as he walks out of his just begun concert performance. The Chevalier then smirks his way past the fleeing Marie Antoinette, and segues into a slow motion walk to the camera. 

But, question, where the hell is he supposed to be going? The concert just started. Where is he going? I imagine that the filmmakers were thinking 'and then he walks into history' or some such nonsense. The self-congratulatory tone of this sequence comes off as very, very silly. The character just seems like an oddball who will have to sheepishly walk his way back to the theater to finish the concert, perhaps. Or, he's just going home to, I don't know, take a nap? He's going to a bar to get drunk while others finish his concert or spill into the street to yell obscenities at the Queen. 

Regardless of wherever this film version of Bologne's life is headed, the movie has rendered him as a joke. By trying so desperately to craft an 'iconic' ending, they've managed to make their star and his character seem very silly. It appears that they had no idea how to end the movie and just thought a Baywatch slow-mo to camera walk was the only way to get out of having to portray the actual French Revolution, which Bologne fought in against the crown and ended up leading the first all black battalion of the French Army. 

We only know that because star Kelvin Harrison Jr. is forced to stand in front of the camera in freeze frame as onscreen text informs us of why the Chevalier fell into obscurity. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the Cliff's Notes, I was glad the movie was over, but it doesn't make the silliness of the ending of this otherwise tepid and forgettable biopic any easier to take. I will also grant that a slow-mo walk to camera is an entertaining choice, if not a good one. It marked the first time in the nearly 2 hours of Chevalier that I had an emotional reaction to the film, if not the emotion the movie was seeking. Derisive snorting laughter was, I'm assuming, not the filmmakers intent.