Cop Land (1997)

Good afternoon, my loyal readers. To celebrate my Monday of not working, I am watching Cop Land (1997) written and directed by James Mangold. This was his sophomore effort, and afterwards he would go on to direct Girl, Interrupted, the rather awful Identity, Walk the Line and the rather forgettable remake of 3:10 to Yuma. I can't fault a director for trying different genres, but to date I feel like this film is his strongest.

I have a confession to make: I didn't like Cop Land when I first saw it on video. C'mon, back in 1997 it was all about the Summer Blockbusters. I was 14 back then, and I wouldn't know what a good movie was if it bit me in the pimply ass. This is only the second time I have watched it, but only half an hour in I realized the error of my past self's ways. This is a damn good movie.

The title refers to the nickname for the town of Garrison, New Jersey, where New York City police have set up residence, far from the watchful eye of Internal Affairs. Rumors swirl about how the NYPD were able to get such cheap loans, but when most the town is inhabitated by police, who are you going to call? When one of the young, dumb superstar cops screws up and guns down some teenagers, events are set in motion that reveal just how seedy the town of Garrison and its inhabitants are.

One of main reason the film works is the stellar cast. Nearly every heavy-hitter save Al Pacino is in this. Robert DeNiro, Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta as well as lesser known but still talented fellows like Michael Rappaport, Peter Berg (who's amazing film The Kingdom may be my next review) and the T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick. Hell, this film features half the cast of The Sopranos two years before the first episode aired, as well as a bit-part for Malik Yoba (I know there are a few New York Undercover fans out there...)

First and foremost is Stallone. A lot of hubub was made that he gained 60 pounds to portray Sheriff Freddy Heflin. Yeah, he's fat, but his character is so real. The weight gain isn't a gimmick like some Eddie Murphy shitfest. I can't believe this is the same actor who destroyed most of Burma as John Rambo. His character is so pathetic you can't help but feel sorry for him. His dream of becoming NYPD shot down because of a physical ailment, Freddy is happy just being a lowly Sherrif. The NY cops don't really respect him and there is this sad running gag where every time Freddie begins to expound on an idea, someone interrupts him and takes the conversation somewhere else entirely. Some of you may know people like Freddy, hell, some of you may be Freddy. There is a deep-seeded vulnerability that Stallone taps into that makes this character come alive . If for nothing else, see this movie for his performance.

Of special note is the film's score by James Horner (Titanic, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.) While some may consider the score to be a bit heavy-handed, I find that adds to the dramatic scenes and doesn't give too much away before it happens. The score somewhat reminds me of L.A. Confidential, which also came out in '97.

The last decade or so the audience has been bombarded with police procedurals such as Law & Order and CSI, so many may think they have seen this sort of thing before. However, I implore you the viewer to look beyond all of that and give this film a chance. There is a serious lack of glitz and glamour that I find appealing, while this isn't nearly as grim and gritty as Joe Carnahan's Narc. Give it a chance.

Dragon Wars aka D-War (2007)

Welcome to another fine installment of Reviews from my Couch. I’ve been busy as of late, so I have neglected my duties of bringing hard-hitting movie reviews to all of my loyal viewers *ahem.* This installment is about the hilariously awful D-WAR, or as all us crackers know it, DRAGON WARS.

Many moons ago (2002, to be exact) Korean director Shim Hyung-rae decided that he wanted to follow up his first masterpiece YONGARY: MONSTER OF THE DEEP with another topic that is so prevalent in today’s culture: dragons fucking each other up. He cut together a tech reel that featured badly-rendered CG dragons and released it at conventions and Laundromats across the globe.This thing was an internet inside joke for many years, as every few months or so, a trailer would be released that promised it would hit theaters summer of 2005. It was almost like a fever dream: did I really just see this trailer? As the summers came and went without D-WAR gracing us with it’s presence, many began to give up on it, relegating it to Developmental Hell. Somehow it found a way out of Hell and (briefly) into theaters during the Shit-Fest Dumping Ground known as "September" of 2007.

Let’s just get this out of the way: this is a piece of shit from start to finish. When it comes to dragons, I consider myself an apologist on how awful they transition from my imagination to the big screen. DRAGONHEART wasn’t bad, but other than a cameo in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, dragons have been given the shaft with horrible dreck like ERAGON. This is bullshit, I say, because besides lawn gnomes and ninja, I can’t think of another cool concept that is more entertaining.

So I guess this shit is based on a 500 year old legend that involves good and bad dragon spirits trying to level up to a higher form. Instead of doing what any other dork would do and grind away in a troll cave until you gather enough XP, these assholes decide to sacrifice some maiden unfortunate enough to be born with a detailed henna tattoo of a dragon when she turns 20. Some asshole old man is charged with making sure the good OogieBoogie (the dragon spirits are seriously called something that sounds like that) is able to level up. He recruits a young lad who grows up to be all emo and shit and falls in love with the victim/girl. When she finally turns twenty, some awful Sauron/ Power Ranger villain arrives with a legion of rocket-launching dinosaurs and tears up feudal Korea. Yes, you just read ’rocket-launching dinosaurs.’ The two love-birds run away and then commit suicide, thus negating either dragon the ability to level up.

See how quickly I got through the backstory of this shit? One paragraph. That’s paring down about twenty minutes of film. This is all sandwiched between a random opening shot of some fucked up golf course that requires the attention of expert cub reporter Jason Behr. This guy is our hero, and he is a terrible actor. I used to think he was okay on Roswell, but that’s because I figured he was playing Max as a cardboard cutout on purpose. Nope, the guy has about as much charisma as Terry Schiavo (too soon?). Anyway, I guess Behr is the reincarnation of our emo protector from 500 years previous. He happens upon this information 12 years previous in a hilariously awful scene: his father drags him to a pawn shop to try to get a few bucks from an ancient dagger. The shopkeep, played by Robert Forster (?!) is giving the guy a hard time and only wants to give him 10 bucks for it. Behr wanders around until he finds a badly CG-rendered treasure chest that opens up and reveals…something to him. I’m not being purposefully vague, I don’t know what the hell it was showing on the screen. Forster realizes the kid opened the chest, then FAKES A HEART ATTACK to get the father to leave for a while. He then proceeds to tell the 12 year old boy that he will one day be complicit in the sacrifice of a young girl so a dragon can reach puberty. Awesome.

Cut to the present and…you know what? I think I’m done trying to make sense of this garbage. This plays like any other type of story about some ’protector.’ Think of the evil dragon as the Terminator. Behr is Kyle Reese. In fact, the girl in question is actually named Sara so that makes shit easier. Behr is trying to use his keen reporter skillz to locate Sara. Sara is conveniently brought to his attention when she is assaulted outside of a bar and Robert Forster randomly appears and dispatches the thugs (and I do mean random.) Some other reporter picks up on her case, and then Behr takes his story from him. What a douche! She ends up in the hospital after the assault, where her ethnic friends try to meet her but aren’t allowed in by the equally ethnic nurse. They go home only to find the Terminator/Evil Dragon kickin’ it by the pool. They get eaten, which somehow is blamed on Sara, and she’s being quarantined or some shit. Behr finally finds her, the Terminator follows them to the hospital, crashes through, they run away. Now repeat that about four more times and you have the rest of the movie. These two constantly put other people in danger by going to very public places to hide from a fucking dragon.

The rest of the movie is cat and mouse and the advertised military vs. dragon/rocket-launching dinosaurs only make up a few minutes of the running time. They re-use the same pilot death scene about three times, but other than that, not too exciting. It really makes me appreciate Michael Bay more after seeing how uninteresting the carnage is. The heroes finally get captured by Sauron and taken…somewhere. It looks like Mt. Doom, seriously, and it never says where the hell they end up. Sara’s about to be eaten by the Naughty Dragon when Behr yells out, somehow unlocking some ancient Deus Ex Machina within himself, wiping out everybody but the Evil Dragon. Then, out of nowhere, the Good Dragon finally makes an appearance. They fight for a while, but just like at the end of Ang Lee’s HULK, it’s so dark you can’t see shit. Sara sacrifices herself so the Good Dragon can reach lvl. 2 Dragon, and the Bad Dragon is vanquished. Her ghost says she’ll love Behr for eternity with about as much conviction as I use to order tater tots at Sonic, and Behr is left in Middle Earth or some shit. They seriously just end it with him watching the sun rise in some unknown desert location.

I can’t believe I have devoted this much type to this piece of shit. It’s not even enjoyable in a "shitty B-movie" way. It’s not put together well, and you’ll be bored about ten minutes in. I hope Robert Forster got a really big paycheck or at least some ball-cupping because he is severely wasted. Don’t give in to the awesomeness of dragons. You have been warned.

The Deer Hunter (1978)

It took about three tries to finally sit down and watch this movie. The first time, I was flying high on pain meds so everything seemed very Hunter S. Thompson-esque. The second time I started it and about ten minutes in just didn't feel it anymore. Finally, I just buckled down, opened a bag of Ghiradhelli chocolate chips (fat!) and commenced to watch.

Holy shit, was this movie a downer. I have seen some depressing movies before, but this one is so tragic because people actually lived through it. The story begins in a typical factory town in Pennsylvania. Everyone either works at the steel mill or at the local pub, and that's just the way of life out there. People get married because they don't want a child out of wedlock, abuse towards women is commonplace, and the pub is where the action is at. Nearly the first hour of the movie takes place in the town of Clairton. It's a bit like the beginning of The Godfather, where you are like "When the hell am I going to see some action?!" But, just like The Godfather, it is all a build-up so you get to really know the characters. Without this build-up, the audience wouldn't be able to comprehend how much a character changes in the course of the film.

The first hour concerns some buddies that are going to be shipping out to Vietnam. One of them, Steven (John Savage) is getting married to his pregnant girlfriend against the wishes of his mother. After the shift at the steel mill ends, all of the guys go and get sloshed at the pub while the women prepare for the wedding. Steven is joined by Michael (Robert De Niro) and Nick ( Christopher Walken), as well as some friends who for whatever reason are not shipping out to the 'Nam, played by John Cazale, George Dzundza, and John Aspergen. They have all grown up with each other throughout the years, and they do nearly everything together. John Cazale plays a weasel very well ("Fredo, you betrayed me!") and I wonder how the other guys put up with his shit half of the time. When they make it to the wedding, all the guys keep drinking and Cazale ends up sucker-punching his date before continuing to slow-dance with her.

Throughout this sequence we learn that Mike has the hots for Nick's girl, played by the astoundingly sexy Meryl Streep (seriously, I never realized how hot she was years ago.) The town gives the fellas a big "good luck, Chuck" at the wedding reception and then Mike goes streaking naked through the streets. A lot goes unsaid between Walken and De Niro. You can tell that Nick knows Mike wants a piece of his girl, and they both wonder if they will make it out of the jungle alive. While Steven is on his honeymoon, the rest of the guys go deer hunting. Mike loves huntin' 'dem deer and he takes it damn seriously. He tells Nick that of all the guys, he's the only one he enjoys hunting with because everyone else is an asshole. This is true. Cazale apparently always forgets key items of gear and shows up in his dress shoes. The other guys just wildly chase after deer while getting drunk. Mike has adopted one of my favorite principles, "one shot, one kill" to hunting deer. He enjoys the hunt, being out in the open air, and he has no qualms with taking down a magnificent buck and tying him to his hood.

Abruptly, we are taken from the gang celebrating the successful deer hunt to being knee-deep in Vietnamese rice paddies. Somehow Mike has been knocked out and awakens as Steven and Nick arrive in a helicopter. They are then surrounded by the VC and taken to a POW camp. This whole sequence is very effective. The VC get their kicks from torturing the POWs and forcing them to play Russian Roulette (for those not in the know, it's where you place one round in the chamber of a revolver and pass it around to see who takes a bullet to the brain.) I'm not going to spoil everything that occurs in this sequence, but all three end up escaping from the camp. Nick took a round to the leg during the escape, and all three climb onto a downed tree and float down river. A helicopter approaches and takes Nick aboard, but Steven isn't strong enough to climb up and falls sixty feet into the river. Mike goes after him, and they float onto the shore. Steven has suffered a compound fracture to his leg from the fall and Mike has to carry him until they find a South Vietnamese military transport.

The rest of the movie is spent looking at how these events have changed the three men. Nick pretty much loses his mind and goes AWOL, Steven is crippled from his injuries, and Mike makes it home without serious injury to his person. But things are different when he makes it home. He avoids the big Welcome Home party and is cautious with trying to integrate back into his normal life. He begins to court Nick's girlfriend Linda, who is trying to come to terms with Nick's disappearance. He tries to hang out with the guys and even tries to go hunting deer again. He finds that he no longer enjoys the hunt, and can no longer take an innocent life. After finding Steven in a Veteran's hospital, Mike figures out that Nick is still alive somewhere in Saigon. He goes back to Vietnam to find Nick, and when he does you truly understand how damaged our soldiers became due to the horrors they faced in war.

Walken gives a haunting performance as he goes from charming Everyman to broken shell. De Niro gives a fine performance as usual, and the whole cast plays their respective parts well. This won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and for good reason. This movie will stay with you, especially as our Iraq War Veterans come home and face the same issues of finding a place in a word that left you behind.

Mitchell (1975)

Happy Tuesday, everybody. I must preface that the version of Mitchell that I viewed was not from the DVD that you can get from Amazon for a total rip-off price of $2.92 but rather from Mystery Science Theater 3000. For many people I know, this episode was legendary because it was Joel's last hurrah, and afterward Mike took over. For me...it's legendary for other reasons...

To be quite honest, I really can't tell you what the storyline for the gem is. I have tried to deduce what the hell the plot is, but it really is just a series of events that have only a vague connection to one another. The credit sequence is a one-frame-per-minute shot of Mitchell (the slovenly Joe Don Baker) doing something that requires him to grimace. It's nonsensical, which sets a perfect tone for the rest of the film.

The opening sequence involves a cat-burglar who is rummaging about a mansion. Cut to John fuckin' Saxon, with hookers on both arms, waltzing into the mansion making enough noise to wake the dead, but not alert the burglar. Saxon discovers the burglar and shoots him in the back. The police are called, and we meet our 'hero,' who is sleeping one off in the back of the responding officer's vehicle. The rest of the plot should branch off from that incident, right? I mean, any writer worth their salt should be able to craft a halfway decent and maybe somewhat suspenseful Matlock episode from that start. But other than a few random events later in the film, this opening sequence is never fully explained. Even worse, John Saxon disappears for the last half hour of the film and never returns! Instead, Mitchell is thrown off the Saxon case and put on a supposed 'fluff' stake-out that turns out to be some run-of-the-mill heroin bullshit. Even this is handled poorly, as the viewer never has any idea what the hell is going on, and shit just happens without any explanation.

The best scene of the movie has Mitchell trailing his criminal target to a golf course, where some other random guy happens to be standing in front of his car. Without warning, Mitchell goes up to the stranger, mentions something involving the criminal, and the stranger starts to run. Without even yelling "Freeze!" Mitchell pulls out his pistol and shoots the guy dead. Hilarious. Following in close second is the grand finale, where Mitchell is in a Coast Guard helicopter and is racing the criminal to the Mexican border in a fishing boat. Thrilling, I know, but it gets better when Mitchell lowers PROPANE tanks on a rope and proceeds to attack the boat by slamming the tank into the cabin. There's also this weird thing where Mitchell is sleeping with a hooker, but then feels the need to arrest her all the time because she smokes pot. There is no build-up to their relationship, and the scene before they perform awkward "whoopie" has Mitchell getting his ass kicked by two guys. No explanation for why he got beat up, just straight to a shot with the big lug and his Bo Derek lookalike hooker in the sack.

This would probably be a good time to note that Joe Don Baker should never headline a movie that isn't titled Walking Tall. He is the consummate slob, and has a natural klutziness that makes me wonder how he never shot himself in the foot with his own pistol. Joel and the gang really make fun of his weight, breathing heavy whenever Mitchell walks briskly or making food references all of the time. They really hit the nail on the head with this one. If you have a friend who has never seen an episode of MST3K, the Satellite of Love segments may need some explaining, but the comedy is brilliant as you sit through this piece of mierda.

Grindhouse Presents: Planet Terror (2007)

Bueno, here is another installment in my massive (two!) review series. This afternoon, I will be sharing my thoughts on one half of the Grindhouse feature, Planet Terror directed by Robert Rodriguez.

First off, my feelings toward Rodriguez tend to sway towards appreciation more than actually loving the guy's recent work. I loved Sin City, but it was more for the great character work from guys like Clive Owen the Mickey Rourke (plus the Carla Gugino nudity) than the directing. Plus, considering it was shot nearly panel for panel based off of the comic book, Frank Miller is the one responsible for the copious amounts of money shots.

That said, I love the first half of From Dusk 'til Dawn (once the vampires show up I usually turn it off), El Mariachi and Desperado are great for different reasons but Once Upon a Time in Mexico is such a squandering of good will it should be criminal. What does all of this mean, you ask? I consider Rodriguez to be more workman-like in his directing, and until I watched Planet Terror I would have considered him something of a flash in the pan who somehow ended up convincing Rose McGowan to sleep with him.

I have watched the movie three times so far, and with each viewing I like it more and more. It really helps that I am a big fan of 80's and 90's action/horror films, because they are lampooned to great effect. A few of my friends did not realize this, and they we calling it 'stupid' without realizing the joke. I don't hold this against them. It is difficult for me to gauge how the common layman will perceive the humor because movie cliches have become part of my movie viewing experience. I can't help it at this point.

The story is fairly straightforward in that a miltary-grade gas has escaped and is infecting people. They turn into zombies. The survivors band together and try to fend them off and get to Mexico. Straightforward, yes, but within this framework is about a dozen hilariously cliched subplots that could each fuel their own movie. This is what make the film really shine. There is just so much going on, but nothing is overly complicated, so the viewer can leave the room to go take a dump and come back and still be able to figure out what is going on.

The film is rife with "Hey, it's 'That Guy'" moments, and it features definitely one of the better performances by early 90's heart-throb Jeff Fahey. All of the actors have intentionally wooden performances, including over-the-top dialog aplenty, so I doubt any Oscars will be handed out next February. Rose McGowan is better than she usually is, but towards the end of the film you can really notice her collagen implants. Freddy Rodriguez does very well as the mysterious badass, El Wrey, and his rampage through the hospital with butterfly knives was great. However, I think the breakout star is Josh Brolin. He's been having a fantastic year so far, and I can't wait to catch No Country For Old Men when it hits wide release this weekend (edit: I saw it on DVD; fantastic). He plays such a prick that I truly believe the wife-beater stories that came out about him a few years ago.

The special effects were crafted by Rodriguez's own homegrown company, but KNB provided the physical effects, and they are hilarious and exagerrated. The squibs shoot out ten feet of blood with each gunshot and the numerous zombie kills are handled nicely and with the glorious cheese that made the 80's so fun. Definitely give this movie a shot.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of The People's Temple (2007)

For this evening's fare, I watched a fantastic documentary on the tragedy of Jonestown. For those not in the know, Jonestown was a commune set up outside the United States by a fuckin' loon by the name of Jim Jones. He started as a small-town minister who happened to have a bond with the oppressed (ie, black people) and started up a church known as People's Temple. Throughout the years, People's Temple became more and more popular and Jones used that clout to get himself appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority as the Chairman.

All is not as it seems in the People's Temple, and as 10 of his former followers come forward to the city newspapers with allegations of all kinds of control-freak behavior and other deviances, Jones flees the country to Guayana, where he has begun construction on his own utopia, dubbed Jonestown. I don't want to spoil the ending, because it is ultimately tragic and for someone like my wife, who really didn't know too much about Jonestown before watching, it strikes a very strong chord deep down and poses many questions that you don't want answered.

This is where I think the documentary is the strongest. There is a build-up of dread from minute one. Having read up on the tragedy, I knew where it was all leading, but I was still surprised by the last twenty minutes. The documentary crew used actual footage taken from People's Temple proceedings and you could see and hear Jim Jones as his own followers could, which was haunting. At first you think, "this guy is nothing more than a Roy Orbison look-a-like!" But as Jones becomes more demented, he becomes the stuff of nightmares.

I don't know if the original PBS airing was edited for content, but the DVD I watched had profanity, but it was not for profanity's sake. Some of the actual Jonestown survivors don't utter one single curseword until the last five minutes, and it is because of that fact that their raw emotional response are given an extra, heartbreaking resonance. This documentary will haunt you long after it is over. You will question how something like that could happen to so many people. You will probably ask yourself if you yourself would have fallen victim. Personally, I find many allegories to our current political climate, and how we have all been lining up to receive our Kool-Aid for the last seven years. But that is neither here nor there. Check this film out.