As I wrote exactly one month back, I quietly long for a return to traditional opening credits where you learn who made the movie before it actually starts.
Below is a classic example of just how much a credit sequence can do to take you to set up the mood for what is to come. In this case, Nelson Riddle’s tuneful but slightly corny title song of Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado” (which I recently reviewed for Bullz-Eye) is matched with some nicely evocative western paintings by Olaf Wieghorst that promise a rip-roaring, slightly poetic, tale of good guys fighting bad guys. If this doesn’t get you in the mood to “ride, boldly ride,” well, then you just haven’t got any cowboy in you.
This two-disc set is basically the agony and the ecstasy from the collected works of film critic/scholar turned boy wonder writer-director-actor Peter Bogdanovich. Placed in reverse chronological and quality order, Disc One is 1975’s agonizing “Nickelodeon,” one of a series of box office and/or critical failures that ended the young director’s early career hot streak. A forced slapstick comedy drawn very loosely from the silent era reminiscences of Hollywood greats Leo McCarey, Raoul Walsh and Allan Dwan, it’s a good-natured but entirely unfocused bore despite the strong efforts of an all-star cast led by Burt Reynolds and Ryan O’Neal, and featuring Tatum O’Neal (“Paper Moon”) and John Ritter (“Three’s Company”), among many others. The disc includes both a brand new black and white director’s cut alongside the original color theatrical version, but it will take more than the majesty of monochrome to save this one. Bogdanovich’s DVD commentary provides better movie history and better entertainment.
“The Last Picture Show” is, of course, something completely different. On his second feature, Bogdanovich blew the 1971’s cinema world’s collective mind and drew comparisons to his friend and mentor, Orson Welles, with this crisply wrought black and white adaptation of an early Larry McMurtry novel. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, it details the late teen years of two high school football players (Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges) and a manipulative beauty (Cybill Shepherd) following in the footsteps of her unfaithful mother (Ellen Burstyn) in a rapidly dying Texas town. A minor cause celebre at the time because of its nudity and blunt sexuality, its glory is its acute visual storytelling and Robert Surtees’ masterful photography, a biting and heartbreaking script, and a large number of genuinely tremendous supporting performances. In particular, Cloris Leachman as a deeply lonely housewife who falls for a high school boy and Western mainstay Ben Johnson (“The Wild Bunch,” “Wagon Master”) as the charismatic walking embodiment of the town, Sam the Lion, won entirely deserved supporting acting awards. A sardonic yet humanistic exploration of fractured relationships and poor choices, it remains a riveting and moving work of cutting edge movie-making from a true cinematic reactionary.
In lieu of my weekly Blu-ray column, I wanted to take the opportunity to take a closer look at one of this week’s higher profile releases. Fans of Ang Lee’s martial arts epic, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” have been waiting for an HD version of the film for quite some time now, but no one could have imagined it would happen like this. Instead of being given the update it deserves – complete with new bonus material and a silly subtitle like The Green Dynasty Edition – the film limps onto Blu-ray as part of a three-pack with two other movies it has nothing in common with other than falling under the wuxia subgenre. That’s not a slight against the included Zhang Yimou films (both “House of Flying Daggers” and “The Curse of the Golden Flower” are quite good in their own right), but rather the studio for thinking they could get away with such a heartless scam.
While most fans of “Crouching Tiger” will likely enjoy the other two movies (no doubt Sony’s big selling point), what the studio has failed to consider is that those same people probably bought them on Blu-ray the first time around. An unfortunate oversight or a crafty scheme to force consumers to pay for an added value they don’t want? I’m going to lean towards the latter, especially when the “Crouching Tiger” disc has been treated so poorly. True, the movie looks absolutely stunning in high definition, but there isn’t a single new thing about the release other than the upgraded video and audio. The same three special features have been imported from the DVD, while the addition of access to BD-Live means very little in terms of ever seeing new extras. If you don’t own any of the films, you could certainly spend your money on worse things, but just know that by doing so, you’re only encouraging Sony to do more of the same in the future.
Honestly, there was nobody more excited than me by the prospect of experiencing a “lost” Hal Ashby film. He directed some of the best – “Harold and Maude,” “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” “Coming Home,” and “Being There” and when it was announced that Jon Voight had discovered a longer cut of this nearly forgotten Ashby offering that he felt placed it among the greats, there was reason to get one’s hopes up. Unfortunately, it is not one of the greats. It’s not terrible by any means, but it’s also not comparable in quality and vision to any of the aforementioned films. Voight stars as a fast (but not smooth) talking gambler who’s in over his head. He and his buddy, played by Burt Young, head to Vegas (where else?) to fix their situation. Once they arrive, they meet an old friend of Voight’s (Ann-Margret), and he may be the father of her child. Is it just me, or does all of this sound old hat? With some tweaking, it didn’t have to be.
The biggest problem with “Lookin’ to Get Out!” is not the hackneyed premise but, rather, the execution of it. The entire affair is dialed far too much in the direction of comedy, and the laughs either aren’t funny or just don’t work. For instance, there’s a wacky chase through a casino that kicks off the third act that’s painfully overlong and soaked with a dreadful ‘80s synth track (as is much of the film). If the whole thing had just been shifted into a slightly more dramatic direction, it likely would’ve played much better, as is evidenced by the few scenes where Voight gets to play some genuine pathos. His work is generally pretty good here, even if the material isn’t, and it’s certainly a much different Voight than we’re used to seeing. (Keep an eye out for the screen debut of a very young Angelina Jolie in the film’s final scenes.) It’s difficult to recommend to anyone who isn’t a student of Ashby, and yet, despite its problems, fans of the maverick director could do a lot worse than to at least check it out.
Renny Harlin used to be good for the occasional guilty pleasure in the 90s (“Die Hard 2,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight”), but lately, he’s become little more than a go-to guy for genre flicks better off being released straight to DVD. In his latest film, Harlin teams up with WWE Superstar John Cena in an action thriller so ridiculous that its shameless forgery of “Die Hard with a Vengeance” will be the least of your worries. Cena stars as Danny Fisher, a New Orleans detective whose girlfriend (Ashley Scott) is kidnapped by a dangerous terrorist (Aidan Gillen) he arrested a year before. Now, he must play a twisted game with the criminal (lasting 12 rounds, natch) if he ever wants to see his girlfriend again. The idea that someone as threatening to national security could even break out of prison is a bit of a joke, but the story is filled with so many of these silly coincidences that you eventually have to just let it go – especially when Cena’s character is allowed to practically destroy an entire city in the name of saving a single life. The dialogue is terrible as expected, but what will really surprise viewers is just how dull the action scenes are. Cena might not be a good actor, but his previous effort, “The Marine,” at least had a couple of cool set pieces to keep you entertained. Unfortunately, “12 Rounds” can’t even offer that.
