It defines Brando. And Cavett. They nail everything. I miss those days. Not that I was there.
Author Archives: Ben Gould
Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) is the best way to end them.
A thrilling series comes to its end. The Lethal Weapon movies were just so good at balancing the action and the comedy, and the four of them represent the peak of the buddy-cop movie. This is the most fitting finale that they could have come up with; it winds the series down perfectly.
These are actual characters you know and have grown up with. They are strikingly real and the last chapter especially doesn’t downplay their ageing and the toils of time.
And to the epic fight scenes. It’s an overused saying that (‘EPIC’) but these really are. That fight to the death with Jet Li is shit-your-pants time.
There is no point making a fifth one; it would just waste the legacy.
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) is AWESOME.
An introduction to Wang Chung could not be scripted, but here we all are. It’s such a great movie to the extent that I am impressed with the soundtrack; the music choices are usually embarrassing with these pictures and I suppose the ’80s are mostly like that. Manhunter (1986) springs to mind as an example, a film that approaches implosion through the worst possible jukebox selections.
This oozes seductive style, Los Angeles a sun-blitzed glossy furnace of cops and criminals. Friedkin has, in spite of his occasional forays into turkeys, always understood the need to carve out a credible world for the narrative and impose a vision on the environment. So few directors appear to care for how their movies look; they are merely the point-and-shoot variety. This bloke, though, has a handle on the material. And the detail without being overbearing.
And the car chase in the film is another rarity; like Friedkin’s own The French Connection (1971), it’s backed up by actual character motivation. Apparently, one of the most recent Fast & Furious … things raked in a billion. The production cast and crew shut down half of Edinburgh a few years back with their silly antics. It will no doubt make a fortune, yet To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) recouped a pittance.
Audiences know nothing.
Further reading/viewing:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/to-live-and-die-in-la-1985
Get Shorty (1995). Not bad at all.
The official narrative is that Get Shorty (1995) fits into the vanguard of that John Travolta mid-’90s comeback which lasted all the way until Battlefield Earth (2000). I’ve never seen the latter but hear it’s atrocious; it’s on my list.
Get Shorty is wildly entertaining, if not especially revelatory about its subject matter, nor does it offer anything new. It’s an exercise in style and the merits of characterisation, amusing without being particularly laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the fun derives from watching Chili Palmer charm his way into the movie business and outwit everyone else. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing but appears to. There’s a lot to be said for that.
And Gene Hackman, once again, is superb. He really wasn’t (he’s apparently retired now) afraid to play the ‘loser type’ despite being your definition of the macho male. It’s almost uncomfortable witnessing his antics here, especially his attempts to play the hard man to Dennis Farina’s Miami mobster.
We miss you, Gene.
Robin Williams is so creepy in One Hour Photo (2002) it’s like he never came from comedy.
And this is disturbing – back in the olden days when you took photos to Boots to be developed there will have been someone like Seymour “Sy” Parrish (Williams’ protagonist) inspecting your every shot, vicariously living his (it’s usually a creepy bloke) life through yours. I read a story years ago about some wee creep phoning the cops because he spotted a cannabis plant in the backdrop of a photo. How dignified.
Robin Williams is the business. We all knew he was hilarious yet his ‘serious roles’ really do demonstrate that he was an actor of the highest calibre, though comedy is acting too. He was in Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia (2002) in the same year and he’s creepy as fuck in that as well. It was a creepy year.
The word of the day is ‘creepy’.
Eraser (1996) beguiled me by how not shite it was.
Another blast from the past. It’s not exactly Peak Arnie but I was most surprised by how entertaining Eraser (1996) was. It has all your rudimentary action and the one-liners, but it does have an edge to it – government corruption, the technocrats and big business once again going all out to be utter horror shows. It’s a recurring theme. The Governator is great in this, and a much better actor than folk give him credit for. You believe him in every role because of his sincerity and commitment; he’s not going to be the leading man in a Merchant-Ivory acting job but he’d probably excel as an Austrian butler on work experience.
He shoots an alligator (it might be a crocodile, I don’t know the difference) in a zoo and his catchphrase is exactly as I would have scripted it: “You’re luggage.”
And what happened to Vanessa Williams? She’s a legit babe in this and with acting chops thrown into the mix. Eraser: Part II?
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 