Change Your Image
jamesv
Reviews
Starship Troopers (1997)
Outstanding!!! Something to love, loath and generate a zillion comments.
A few years ago a person commented here that how you liked the film depended upon whether you read the book.
I read the book as an adolescent and loved it. Now I look upon Heinlein as a hack who nearly had one mature moment with "Stranger In A Strange Land" but was endlessly boring in his later works. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, yada, yada, yada.
I saw the movie as an adult. The first time through I was titillated (got to make sure the kids are in the other room) by the nudity and violence but disappointed that it did not follow the sci-fi potboiler's plot line. I was also puzzled as to why Dougie Houser managed to join the SS.
I bought the DVD nonetheless since it was a great comic book.
Then came the Iraq War and FOX News. Suddenly the comic book started looking subversive. That will teach me to turn on the director's commentary earlier.
Verhoeven has a legacy of gratuitous sex scenes which, coupled with a Peckenpah level of obligatory violence, that probably fosters a cringe or two when he thinks over his career (look no further than Showgirls).
This cunning little epic is his vindication.
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
Terry Southern Lives!!!
I thought they broke the mold when Terry Southern died. Satire was never as raw as Dr. Strangelove. When Reiner and Guest brought the mockumentary into life, I thought that they were funny but I felt that they were written for the effete end of the cultural elite. The comedy was underplayed so often you had to be in the elite to "get it". Then I saw Williams' Drop Dead Gorgeous. Terry Southern lives.
Drop Dead Gorgeous is my favorite mockumentary. Williams' satire is manna for those of us amongst the great unwashed who, like Williams, had to break out of jerkwater towns and their caste systems. Where I came from the royal wedding was when the heir to the local sheep company married the gal whose dad, just like in DDG, owned the furniture store.
My empathic side just writhes in pleasure in watching this dark little film as I imagine Williams savoring an iced dish of revenge.
I was curious to note that the reviews in the regular press found this little gem to be mean-spirited and crude. The index on Rotten Tomatoes, a metric that I am usually compatible with was oddly low. Judging from the comments I imply that the caste that now serves us in journalism is skewed toward the effete end of the group I alluded to in the opening.
The Longest Hatred: The History of Anti-Semitism (1991)
Dated And Trite
Mr. Bloomstien, please broaden your coverage next time.
I had hoped to get a thorough examination of antisemitism. I had hoped that it would go into details and ironies like Edward I's expulsion of the Jews and Cromwell's welcoming them back. I'd even appreciate the mention of Le Affaire Dreyfus.
BUT Noooooooo, all I got was the version Woody Allen jokes about with the fixation on the Nazis and a rapid segway to the deadly perils of embattled Israel. This isn't rocket science: You know what you are in for when your talking heads include Bernard Lewis and Allen Dershowitz but not Noam Chomsky nor Norman Finkelstein.
An unexpected vignette which is a real gem is where the director (I assume) interviews Hanan Ashrawi, then 14 years younger than we see her today. This is indeed a class act with her poised, thoughtful and articulate enumeration of her values and how she maintains a humanistic balance when all about her is occupation and chaos, maintaining her calm even with the constant badgering of the director
The Reagan Legacy (1996)
Realistic Summary
This is the best historical time-line I have seen of Reagan's presidency, especially the first days. The History Channel's and PBS's American Experience efforts in describing his presidency are largely puff pieces. Great detail is expended on how he courted the boll weevil democrats like Kent Hance to the expense of his Budget Director's, David Stockman, wishes. It lacks the acerbic edge of Charles Wheeler in the BBC documentary of the same name and is thus not a Reagan hit piece.
PS Those familiar with Texas politics of the time will remember Hance as using the "All hat and no cows" approach concocted by his campaign manager Karl Rove to soundly defeat George W. Bush when Dubya ran for congress in 1978.
Landspeed (2002)
Who are those guys?
The plot hails from the formulaic "underdog makes good" (or bad) scenario that we've seen in Elvis movies, hayburners and the endless series of Eyaaaaaa!!! epics staring old kickboxing champions. Now add a production budget that even Roger Coreman would walk away from. Seem like a recipe for another snoozer?
Guess again Pilgrim. Somehow, somewhere, somebody made a major slipup.
Some cunning devil snuck great dialog as well as improbably playful and uncharacteristically good scripting in these scenes. The editing ain't bad either, even if you get to see the same dust trail over and over again.
I haven't been this surprised since Freeway.