Big Night (1996)

There's something about Italian accents, I think, especially when they're mingled with shoutings about food and good-spirited feuding. From The Godfather to Goodfellas, from The Sopranos to Cake Boss (an exciting and hysterical reality show about cakemakers in Jersey), I've never been able to resist the dulcet tones of the Italian culture.

There's no Mafia in Big Night, but we do have Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as brothers Secondo and Primo, who own and run the Paradise restaurant in 1950s New Jersey. They aren't doing great business and find themselves in some financial trouble, thanks in part to the uninspired yet heavily commercialized competition across the street. Their competitor Pascal (Ian Holm) is waiting out their business in the hopes that Primo and Secondo will eventually come work for him, but Pascal tosses the brothers a bone when he says that - as a personal favor - he's invited musical bigshot Louis Prima to dine at their restaurant tomorrow night. With one day to prepare for the big night, tensions flare as high as the flames in the kitchen.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again. Why isn't Stanley Tucci an A-lister? Between this, The Devil Wears Prada, and the trailer for Julie & Julia, it's high time that Mr. Tucci starts getting some of the respect that he deserves. Though he looks a lot like Andy Garcia in this one (perhaps they and Mark Strong should get together and play a trio of brothers), Tucci is in good form, emotionally gripping in one breath and comedically gifted in the next. Plus, Tucci co-wrote and co-directed Big Night. Can we please get this guy the recognition he deserves? (At least he's hitched his wagon to the Meryl Streep star, so at least more people will be seeing his films.) Shalhoub (TV's Monk) has the stronger temper and thus more of the comic opportunity, but he's got a real chemistry with Tucci, and it's not hard to believe the two are brothers.

But the scene stealer in the movie is neither Minnie Driver nor Isabella Rosselini nor even Allison Janney as love interests; for big stars, none of these three ladies (who have proven themselves elsewhere to be fairly gifted, professionally speaking) are given much to do, though Rosselini tries the best of the three. No, the real "best supporting actor" as it were is Ian Holm as Pascal. Though he's not terribly convincing as an Italian (his accent isn't as impeccable as Tucci & Shalhoub's), his turn as a top restaurateur and expert salesman (particularly of himself and his grandiose personality) is superb. If you ever wondered how Pixar & Co. chose Holm for the villainous Skinner in Ratatouille, look no further than his entertaining used car salesman of a cuisine king.

I came into this expecting a laugh-out-loud comedy, which the film delivers though only sporadically in top-notch moments (see: preceding paragraph) and not in a consistent cheek-wounding capacity like The Hangover did. It's more appropriately a drama film with a comedic streak. As a result, there was a bit in this film that felt unnecessary; a subplot involving infidelty felt like fat that needed to be trimmed from this steak of a film, making its characters too fallible and unnecessarily complex. Furthermore, there's a predictable ending, accompanied with a familiar message about how all we really have is each other (a theme I prefer delivered in the "Family first" capacity of Arrested Development). But the film scores points on execution here, because the film's final scene is a deaf play between Primo, Secondo, and Cristiano (a young Marc Anthony) - all done in one long take. Of course, I just melt like garlic in a frying pan when I see a well-done long take.

For a few well-done moments, well-timed dialogue, and a top performance from Ian Holm, Big Night is hot. The film, though, tends more to simmer than sizzle and so is best appreciated like a fine wine and not a quick shot of what-have-you.

Big Night is rated "R for language," most of which comes from moderate use of the F-word, primarily from Pascal. But that's part of what makes him so endearing, to me!

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

If you're not familiar with the oeuvre of Tony Scott, he's the guy whose movies always look like they were filmed from a moving train (Domino, Man on Fire, and Déjà Vu, though not so much True Romance). So it's only appropriate that his latest film, both a remake of a 1974 classic and the novel that inspired it, is centered in the New York subway system.


The Taking of Pelham 123 is a fast-paced, near-realtime thriller with a simple core: Walter Garber, a civil servant thrust into the shoes of being a hostage negotiator (Denzel Washington) matches wits with a troubled and somewhat unstable criminal named Ryder (John Travolta) on the other end of the microphone. The demands are simple: $10,000,000 within an hour or hostages start dying. And the supporting cast is fairly simple: an actual hostage negotiator (John Turturro) coaching Garber as the Mayor of New York (James Gandolfini) scrambles to get the ransom money in time amid his own personal scandal.


I can't do much by way of comparison with the original (and a 1998 version starring Edward James Olmos), which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I can't provide the kind of commentary I'm sure some of you are seeking, but on the other hand, I'm free to concentrate on the film that Tony Scott has made without any distractions. As updates go, this one compensates well for technology not extant when the originals came out, but I'm just speculating there. Not knowing anything about the original versions, this one kept me guessing and held my attention during the whole thing, and the 106-minute runtime flew by... well, like a subway train.


Despite being a high-stakes plot with 19 lives in the balance and despite Scott's brutally flashy direction (which is entertaining if a little distracting), there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of urgency behind the film; it's as though at times there aren't lives on the line. But that's all right. The heart and soul of the film is the interaction between Washington's charismatic everyman and Travolta's unhinged hostage-taker. Like Sam Jackson, these two are just plain fun to watch, especially Washington, who disappears behind his klutzy character while bringing us in on every small tic and mini-grin Garber carries with him. Travolta isn't exactly menacing - that is, when he's not brandishing a gun in a hostage's face (there, he's downright spooky) - but he's a great foil for Denzel, and the two are clearly having a great time playing off of each other.


That these two are such magnets for the audience's attention compensates for the fact that no one else really does anything in the movie. Turturro stands over Denzel's shoulder, Mayor Gandolfini squawks his way past a Tony Soprano impression (having learned his lesson, it seems, from Lonely Hearts), and the rest of the terrorists in Ryder's crew pace the length of the car with their guns drawn but never actually have to fire. Even the hostages are fairly cookie-cutter.


But again, none of that really matters. When Garber is on the screen, I couldn't look at anyone else - even though I'm a huge fan of the other major hitters in the cast - because Denzel Washington is just that good. Perhaps I should stop before this turns into an overwrought love letter to one of the best actors of our time... oops, too late. Simply put, this movie is fun, refreshing for its simplicity in spite of its own crafty direction and seemingly involved plot (yes, I learned by the end of the film, it's really that straightforward).

The Taking of Pelham 123 is rated "R for violence and pervasive language." Violence is quick and sprinkled throughout the film, though bloody after-effects linger in the cramped subway car, and the language is standard F-bomb fare dropped casually and occasionally intensely about 50 times.

The Hangover (2009)

The Hangover isn't a terribly bright comedy, but it's laugh-out-loud in a "my cheeks hurt" kind of way, something I haven't really had since Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.


With their best bud Doug (Justin Bartha, Riley from the National Treasure flicks [also known as the last watchable Nic Cage movies]) getting married, Phil, Stu, and Alan (Bradley Cooper, Ed "Andy Bernard" Helms, and Zach Galifianakis) decide to host the bachelor party to end all celebrations of singlehood. It's the party they never want to forget, but the next morning it becomes clear that this was the party that they can't remember: furniture is smoldering, there's a tiger in the bathtub, a baby wails in a closet, and Doug is missing. What follows is a quest to find their friend - and their memories.


Part of the magic of the film is the almost impossibly complicated shenanigans the hungover experience, and so it'd be ruining the fun if I told you any of what they discover they got into over the course of the night/morning. So, let a few generalizations suffice:

I wasn't prepared to laugh as much as I did at this movie. Perhaps the phenomenon I'm ready to call "Nick and Norah syndrome" is at fault here - it is, of course, easier to laugh at a film when watching it with multiple people. (The same thing happened with Anchorman for me, as well, a film I thought was stupid until I watched it with other people -- and fell in love.) But I was constantly laughing, smiling, or slapping my forehead during the entire movie. Like I said, my cheeks hurt; I clearly enjoyed myself.


Smart comedy? Certainly not - though none of the official Frat Pack members show up in this movie, this one might as well belong in the canon. (In fact, between this and Wedding Crashers, Bradley Cooper might as well be an honorary Frat Packer.) The Hangover is riddled with the kind of humor I've come to expect: people under the influence losing their inhibitions, profuse amounts of randomized vomiting, people ramming their heads into car doors and other objects, as well as pretty prose peppered with profanities. That, a baby in sunglasses, and the funniest photos-over-credits montage I've seen in a long while (replete with Wayne Newton cameo).


The cast is magical in their roles, especially frontmen Cooper, Helms, and Galafianakis. Heather Graham is charming but relatively one-dimensional as the Vegas wife of the gents, and there's a delightful near-cameo from Jeffrey Tambor (George Sr. of Arrested Development fame) as Doug's future father-in-law. Even Mike Tyson does a decent job of eliciting a few chuckles in his self-parodic supporting role, singing and slugging with the best of them - though the star song in this one belongs to Helms, who delivers an impromptu "What Do Tigers Dream Of?" reminiscent of his crooning moments on The Office.


A guy comedy that ought to appeal to chicks as well (the packed house I was in was made up of about half and half, all of whom seemed to be having a good time), The Hangover is more than enough fun for moviegoers looking for loads of laughs.

Deservedly so, The Hangover is rated "R for pervasive language, sexual content including nudity, and some drug material." No dearth of profane and sexualized dialogue, though nudity is fairly fleeting and played for laughs. Like all black-out nights, drugs were involved, and there's some confusion over what drugs exactly were (ab)used.

Lonely Hearts (2006)

Lonely Hearts tries hard, but it's no LA Confidential. Instead of being a gritty period piece (this time modeled on a true story rather than a James Ellroy novel), Lonely Hearts is ultimately little more than a limp cop thriller with a cast that's seen better days.

This was a true story that was unfamiliar to me, but someone out there must know of the Lonely Hearts Killers - Raymond Fernandez (Jared Leto) and Martha Beck (Salma Hayek) - who answered personals ads and swindled WWII widows of their "hero's pay." The film also follows the cops (from right in the image: John Travolta, James Gandolfini, and Scott Caan) on the killers' heels.

I like cop films - the fact that I've reviewed four Dirty Harry movies in less than a month should be testament to that. And I like period films - I'm often nostalgic for a 1930/40s that probably never was, and Glenn Miller's on my Top 100 Most Played in iTunes. And I'm a huge fan of most of the headliners in this movie. Why then doesn't director/screenwriter Todd Robinson's film about his own grandfather (Travolta) work?

Though this isn't Robinson's debut film, parts of Lonely Hearts feel amateurish. There's a lot in here that doesn't work, and the screenplay isn't among the strongest. Perhaps I've been jaded by Brian Cox's stellar cameo in Adaptation ("God help you if you use voiceover in your work, my friends! God help you!"), but I've been so badly brainwashed against the concept of a narrator that even Morgan Freeman is an unlikely-at-best antidote. Gandolfini's narrative is confusing, suffering both from stylized diction and an equally heavy accent that feels like a holdover from the days of The Sopranos. Consequently, most of the important exposition is lost in the squawking swamps of Gandolfini's voice, and so the film can be a touch inaccessible.

Gandolfini's certainly not at the top of his game, nor is Travolta, who I usually enjoy in almost anything. Here Travolta seems weary, as though he's not putting his heart and soul into this one. In fact, one might invoke the old cliche and say that Travolta seems to have phoned this one in. It's almost as though Robinson was afraid to ask too much of his actors. Lynch-muse Laura Dern floats in and out without much consequence to the plot, and Leto looks too much like Zac Efron with a mustache to be truly intimidating. Indeed, the only performance in Lonely Hearts that seems to succeed (other than Scott Caan, who is entertaining but neither is given much time nor seems to fit in at all) is Salma Hayek, who does a more than adequate job of bringing the simmering psychosis of her character to a brutal boil throughout the film.

The film, though, lacks a grounding stability that would have made it feel more coherent. The film isn't sure if it wants to be a cop film or a criminal film and can't manage to strike a happy balance between the two. Near the tail end of the film, things spiral out of control, and the audience's heads starts spinning when characters behave irrationally and the plot starts taking "How did that happen?" turns. Furthermore, Lonely Hearts isn't a terribly good period piece, either; the sets, cars, and wardrobes look the part, but none of the actors really fit into the mold of the late 1940s and so the film feels unsettlingly anachronistic. A few moments look good (Gandolfini in the barn at the end of the film is well-shot), but on the whole the film doesn't feel right.

Perhaps in the hands of a more able director (Michael Mann, perhaps?) with a more coherent screenplay (no one writes crime like William Monahan), Lonely Hearts might have been a better film. As it stands, though, the film disappointingly falls flat despite tremendous potential from its otherwise-golden cast (and the tremendous hope this reviewer had going into the picture).

The MPAA rated Lonely Hearts "R for strong violence and sexual content, nudity and language." The violence is brutal, gory, and sprinkled throughout the film in liberal doses. Nudity is less frequent but still present, frequently surrounded with sexualized situations (as well as unsettling concepts of incest), and the language is standard F-bomb fare for a cop film, albeit one set before I like to believe people talked like that.

Defiance (2008)

It's somewhat surprising to encounter a Holocaust film that breaks new ground and tells a story that hasn't really been told before. In telling the true story of the Bielski partisans, Edward Zwick's Defiance does just that, and decently so at that.

Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber star as Tuvia and Zus Bielski, brothers who lead a group of Polish Jews into the forests to evade Nazi persecution after a series of grisly hunts and raids. As they begin to make camp, more survivors trickle in (the highest number quoted in the film is 1200) and tensions begin to grow between the Bielski brothers, who hold different beliefs about how best to react to their plight.

Aside from the originality of a surprisingly heretofore untold true story, there are two things that really stand out in this fim and are thus meritorious of comment here on this blog: the casting and the pacing. First, the casting. Craig and Schreiber are excellent casting choices, valuable assets to any film for which they're selected. Though they're not quite on the level of Liam Neeson in Schindler's List (still the pinnacle of Holocaust performances for me), they perfectly draw the distinction between their characters - Craig as the level-headed do-gooder Tuvia and Schreiber as the more vengeance-seeking guerilla fighter Zus. The rest of the supporting cast is solid, though nothing stands out like the two powerhouse performances fronting the film.

The pacing, however, is less creditable. The cinematography on the film is beautiful, especially with a good quality television, but at about two-and-a-quarter hours, Defiance starts to feel a little long, dragging its feet in a few places and ultimately sacrificing content for character. For the actors, this is a good thing - they get to hone their craft and turn in a more than decent performance - but for the audience it feels like Defiance is waiting to get started. A few well-done action sequences and several tense moments with Nazi patrols do a fair amount to break this deliberate and unhurried pace, though it felt like a few moments in the film could have been shortened without hurting the overall integrity of the piece.

For good performances and a new facet of the Holocaust, Defiance is a creditable two-some hours on film. For exciting shoot-em-ups, fans of Craig and Schreiber might want to stick with the Bond flicks (Casino Royale more than Quantum of Solace) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Defiance is rated "R for violence and language." Though not as gory as most post-Saving Private Ryan WWII fare, this film does have a few violent shoot-out scenes, as well as occasional objectionable language and brief discussion of rape.

Wonder Woman (2009)

Of the big three at DC - Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman - the Amazon princess has always been my least favorite (Batman of course holding a special place in my geek's heart). 2009's latest installment in the DC Universe Animated Original Movie line, an origin film for Wonder Woman, won't be dethroning Batman and Superman from their Top Two positions, but it might help build Wonder Woman's street cred for me.

As an origin film, Wonder Woman explores the backstory behind Diana (voice of Keri Russell), daughter of Amazon Queen Hippolyta (Virginia Madsen). Diana meets crash-landed Air Force pilot Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion), but their budding romance is put on hold when evil god of war Ares (Alfred Molina) escapes from captivity.

As origin stories go, this one is pretty concise, dealing quickly with the birth of Diana and moving quickly into "first adventure" territory. At 74 minutes, the run time is a little brief, and I would have liked to see more content, perhaps a subplot with another of Wonder Woman's adversaries (Cheetah makes an appearance at the end, though there's plenty in the Amazon's stable of villains) or even just more of the "adjusting to America" scenes. What there is, I enjoyed, but I was left wanting more - whether Green Lantern: First Flight will deliver or whether I'll simply have to wait for Wonder Woman 2: Cheetahs Never Prosper (come on, that'd be an amazingly corny title, right in step with the tongue-in-cheek attitude of this animated adventure) remains to be seen.

Like every entry in the DCUA line (excepting, of course, the beautiful adaptation of Cooke's The New Frontier), Wonder Woman sports the same Dini/Timm look that fans either love or hate. I'm in the former category, having been a fan since Batman: The Animated Series way back in the early '90s. The animation is fun and streamlined, slick and stylized without being overly showy. My only complaint here is that some of the Amazons look very similar to each other, with background Amazons looking distractingly like main characters (how many Artemises can you spot?).

The voice cast is strong here, though Keri Russell wouldn't have been my first choice for Wonder Woman. As Ares, Alfred Molina is excellent, bringing the necessary gravitas for a mythological villain, though the animated figure doesn't exactly measure up to Molina's thick voice. Rosario Dawson and Virginia Madsen, as Artemis and Queen Hippolyta (respectively), are adequate choices with believably strong personalities bleeding through their dulcet tones, but the standout in the voice cast is Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor. It helps that he gets all the best lines in the film - "You smell good" being one of the best examples of comedic timing - but Fillion's inflection and tongue-in-cheek sense of wit are what make his performance the best in the film.

The dialogue is a little corny, but it's surprisingly racy for an animated feature - and thus abundantly entertaining. Example: upon regaining consciousness, Steve Trevor finds himself bound with the Lasso of Truth as scores of angry Amazons loom over him. "I haven't had this dream since I was thirteen," he quips, adding to Hippolyta, "Your daughter's got a nice rack." The wit here borders on sexism, but its gaudy flamboyance (and expert delivery, mostly from Fillion) ends up sailing past any claims to misogyny. Instead, it's so over the top at times that it's something you can laugh both at and with.

The lackluster Superman: Doomsday aside, I've enjoyed the DCUA line of animated films thus far, and I'm looking forward to their interpretation of Green Lantern as well as the sterling Jeph Loeb-penned Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Wonder Woman is a admirable addition to this line, even if it's sort of like that otherwise-lovable cousin that tells dirty jokes at family reunions.

Wonder Woman tousled with the MPAA and came out rated "PG-13 for violence throughout and some suggestive material." It's all cartoony, with little blood, but there are some pretty epic and extensive battle sequences and a surprising amount of decapitations (all in silhouette). The dialogue is more suggestive than I was expecting, and it's not subtle subtext that kids won't pick up on. It's mild compared to an Apatow script, but this ain't your momma's cartoon comic lingo.

Now with 100% more accessibility!

Greetings, loyal readers!

Those of you eagle-eyed surfers of the net may have noticed a slight overhaul going on last night here on The Cinema King. It all started with the 2009 season including MPAA ratings and explications; that's when I knew things might be changing around here.

But what we've added here ought to revolutionize the way you read The Cinema King. For a long time, Blogger has offered a feature called "Labels" (also known as "tags") that allows me to say briefly what each post includes. This feature had been heretofore ignored; most of my reviews are one-shot deals, with only a few select features getting the multiple post treatment (The Dark Knight... and that's about it).

Yet watching the Dirty Harry films, I realized a new potential for this feature. Labels/tags could easily enable readers to jump to similar reviews, be they similar with respect to genre, actor, franchise, rating, or decade.

Now you can do just that, loyal reader. In the sidebar on the right-hand side of the site, if you scroll down you'll encounter (in this order) "Welcome!", "About Me," "Blog Archive," and now "Labels." Hopefully this new feature will allow for greater interactivity, accessibility, and overall ease and enjoyment. You can now quickly jump to films within the decade, within the genre, with similar MPAA ratings, with similar actors or crew members, or just simply find movie titles alphabetically rather than in the order in which they were reviewed. You can also sort by "movie reviews" only or look at all the "announcements," "links," and "videos" posted here.

If there's a label you'd like to see on this site, let me know! I relish the comments you loyal readers feed me. Happy viewing!

Sudden Impact (1983)

Four movies into the franchise and Dirty Harry is starting to run out of steam. Despite being directed by star Clint Eastwood, Sudden Impact isn't as entertaining or as watchable as its three predecessors.

Sudden Impact feels more like a movie with Dirty Harry Callahan in it than an actual Dirty Harry movie. Callahan (Eastwood), after apparently intentionally giving a mob figure (a fun cameo from Michael V. "Frank Pentangeli from The Godfather, Part II" Gazzo) a heart attack, is given an assignment out of town to investigate a murdered man's past in San Paulo. He meets artist Jennifer Spenser (Eastwood's then-lover Sondra Locke) and starts romancing her, not knowing that Spenser is killing the men who raped her and her sister years ago.

Eastwood is excellent as always in the shoes of Inspector Callahan, menacing and grimacing his way through another picture. The film includes one of the most famous scenes in Dirty Harry's career, right next to the "Do I feel lucky?" speech - here, he provokes a hostage taker by brandishing his trademark Magnum at the man and growling, "Go ahead, make my day." This scene alone is worth the price of admission; indeed, the first half or so of the film is all Eastwood's and ends up being the better half. Dodging mafia assassins and bonehead superiors, piecing together evidence ballistic report by report, and even acquiring a dog named Meathead in this one, Callahan continues to do it all.

Yet the film suffers for its unwillingness to relinquish full control of itself to Dirty Harry. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Eastwood is behind the camera for this adventure as well as in front of it, but the fact remains that the film spends far too much time on Jennifer's character and her backstory. Locke, unfortunately, is not an actress cut out to hold 49% of a Dirty Harry picture, which Sudden Impact asks her to do. The film also seems uncertain as to how it should react to Jennifer's crimes of revenge - is she a villain, a victim, a combination of both? Until the film's final moments, when Dirty Harry re-enters the plot and has a chance to weigh in, the film waffles like a long-faced senator from Massachusetts.

The film (according, at least, to Wikipedia) is the darkest and "dirtiest" of the Dirty Harry pictures, and at this it succeeds, so kudos to Eastwood as director for accomplishing this look and feel for the fourth film in the franchise. The film, however, is slowly-paced whenever Jennifer is on-screen - the film seems confused as to who its main character - and ultimately its hero - ought to be. Callahan continues to captivate; Jennifer, unfortunately, muddles this adventure.

While still fun and not the worst movie one could find to watch on a weekday afternoon, Sudden Impact is relatively lackluster when compared to its sterling predecessors - particularly the original, Dirty Harry, which still remains the greatest of the films. Stay tuned to see how The Dead Pool, the final Dirty Harry movie (despite rumors that Gran Torino would be the sixth outing for Callahan), measures up.


The MPAA gave Sudden Impact an R rating, a rating which would stand today for its gritty depictions of violence and of sexual assault, its strong profane language, as well as a brief scene of nudity (what are these types of scenes doing in a Callahan adventure?).

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Has a Terry Gilliam movie ever made complete sense to anyone? Probably not, but I think we can all agree they're at least intriguing when it comes to visual spectacle.

Gilliam's 1998 adaptation of the famous novel by Hunter S. Thompson is an optical tour de force, as close to an actual acid trip as one could come without skirting legal boundaries. Johnny Depp is Raoul Duke, Thompson's fictitious alter ego, assigned to cover motorcycle races and "dangers of drugs" conventions in Las Vegas. Duke brings along his questionable lawyer Dr. Gonzo (an off-the-wall Benicio del Toro) and a suitcase full of every controlled (and potentially uncontrollable) substance known to man. The results are, shall we say, mind-blowing.

Both Depp and del Toro turn in career-capping performances, among the best in both their respective canons. Depp is spot on as Raoul Duke, mastering every one of the little quirks - the walk, the talk, the hair - that make Hunter S. Thompson such an identifiable figure in American culture. And del Toro is so far out there that you'll wonder how much of that is acting and how much of that is "method" acting; the fact that Dr. Gonzo is often brandishing a deadly weapon doesn't hurt. There are fun cameos from Cameron Diaz, Gary Busey, Christina Ricci, Penn Jillette, and Gregory Itzin along the way, but the show belongs to Depp and del Toro all the way.

Of course, the film has a third star - the eye-popping visuals. Since much of the film finds its two protagonists on one bender or another, the look of the film is extremely important to capturing this mood. Fortunately, trippy and surreal imagery has never been a particular weakness of Gilliam's; between the brutally slanted camera angles, the dramatically off-kilter lighting, and the oddball props and lizard costumes that appear at random, the film is as unsettling as it is riveting.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then, is a little like Barton Fink - it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense, but it's gripping in a way that it shouldn't be. A film this nonsensical, this non sequitur, this irrational, shouldn't be as interesting as Gilliam and his acting crew make it. It's incoherent, sure, but it's a lot of fun! Nothing happens for vast periods of time, and while this complete lack of plot, exposition, or even substance can be a little irritating, it's nonetheless something from which you can't tear yourself away.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas got the gift of an "R for pervasive extreme drug use and related bizarre behavior, strong language, and brief nudity" from the MPAA. Drugs and their side-effects are in every scene of the movie, as is pretty harsh language. I don't remember nudity at all.

Wind Chill (2007)

Let's go ahead and put Wind Chill on the list of reasons why I like George Clooney, who produced this thrilling horror picture directed by Gregory Jacobs. You won't, of course, feel any of Clooney's influence on the work, but I'm glad he was smart enough to bring this movie to life.

I've been a big fan of Emily Blunt since becoming a begrudging fan of The Devil Wears Prada (and, to an extent, Meryl Streep), and so her starring role in a horror film (after my recent encounter with the disappointing Blair Witch Project) was enough of an impetus for me to pick up a movie I'd never even heard of and give it a shot.

I'm glad I did. Blunt plays a college student traveling home to Delaware for Christmas break. Rather than take the bus home, she checks the ride board and finds a car headed to Delaware, though she's initially perturbed by the shy yet subtly unsettling driver, who's concealing a fairly large secret. A detour on Route 606 goes awry, and the two crash into a snowbank. Yet the budding conflict between these two co-eds is the least of their worries; the snowy woods, naturally, appear to be haunted.

First, I must offer the same caveat I gave when reviewing The Descent - perhaps this film only worked because I watched it after midnight with all the lights off. At any rate, that certainly helped make the movie a success. What helps more is the direction Jacobs gives here, building an ominous mood throughout the work, beginning with the mystery surrounding Holmes's character and reaching its discomfiting peak as the never-named protagonists try to wait out the snow storm until dawn. This movie has just the right amount of just the right kind of chills, the kind that made The Strangers a surprise success - those moments where we see an out-of-focus figure lurking just behind our oblivious hero (here, heroine more often than not). The ghosts in these woods are numerous, each more frightening than the last; though it's difficult to top the first ghost Blunt encounters, Martin Donovan's sketchy highway patrolman comes darned close.

There are a few moments in the movie that come close to not working, but they're quick and don't interfere with the thrills and chills the movie offers. The introduction of a philosophical tenet key to the meaning of the film seems a touch hackneyed, though it's quickly (and deftly) forgotten, only to be recalled when it matters. Furthermore, the movie falters a little when the history of Route 606 is revealed; the movie's put virtually on hold for a minute or so while one character narrates a ton of exposition that, honestly, attentive viewers would have been able to piece together.

And the ending. It's a good ending the way screenwriters Joseph Gangemi and Steven Katz crafted it, but it could have been a touch better if the writers had gone for a Twilight Zone-style twist ending rather than the easier and more digestible dénouement. (After the ratings analysis, I'll tell you what my ending would have been, for those interested.)

For those looking for a few good chills and a deep unsettling feeling in the pit of one's stomach, Wind Chill is perfectly serviceable in that regard. When done right, the formula of Pretty Protagonist + Creepy Male + Ghosts + Eerie Surroundings ought to equal success. The formula frequently falters, however, but Wind Chill adds up in all the right places.


The MPAA rated Wind Chill "R for some violence and disturbing images." It'd be brutally painful for me to reveal what these images are, since they're strong elements in the surprisingly dreadful mood Jacobs works so hard to craft. Suffice it to say that the ghosts are very unattractive, in varying stages of decay, and some of the ramifications of the car crash aren't pretty either.

Now for The Cinema King's ending. As it stands, the film ends - SPOILER ALERT - with Guy dying and becoming one of the ghosts, doomed as it were to repeat this life. Guy manages to save Girl from Patrolman and eventually leads her through the snowy woods to safety. What I would have liked to see would have looked very similar to this, only with Girl becoming one of the ghosts, as well. Something like that would have brought the theme of repetition fully to life, would have put that final kick to the audience's gut, and would have made Rod Serling blush with envy. In the words of the great and venerable Dennis Miller, "Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong."