Fletch: In Spades

Fletch
           Irwin M. Fletcher (Chevy Chase, Fletch Lives) is on the scene, and things will never be the same. Old I.M. takes to the beaches of Los Angeles in hopes of exposing the drug trafficking that plagues the beach. The only problem is, the drugs seem to just appear like magic.

            While posing as a homeless junkie, he is befriended by a rich man who offers him money in order to kill him, so his family can cash in the life insurance, and he doesn’t have to suffer through bone cancer. Fletch has 72 hours to unravel the drug trade and figure out what the rich man is actually planning.

            The twists and turns of the mystery are matched beat for beat by Chase’s absurd offbeat comments and fast thinking character portrait of Fletch. His humor is right on target, and there  is much of Chase himself that is poured into the subtext.

            This is a great example of an imperfect yet perfect character. Chases impressions also come in handy as Fletch is a master of disguise, and a notorious fast talker. It’s the quintessential comedy mystery with an epic flourish. Just when it seems like things have gone wrong, and Fletch guessed wrong, he pulls a rabbit out of his hat, and makes this comedy classic a gem of a 2.

Fletch Lives

           A classic Character, Chevy Chase is at his finest as Fletch, the fast talking, ultra-sarcastic, sharp witted  womanizer. Sleuthing about on his usual beat, he is in another hassle with his editor, Frank, and getting flack from his ex-wife’s attorney. Just in the nick of time, he gets a call about a Louisiana plantation he has just inherited from his Grandmother.

            Immediately he hops a plane, but that night, after he ahs slept with the attorney in charge of the inheritance, he awakes to find her dead, killed in her sleep and made to look like a heart attack. The mystery is on and amidst the backwards southern culture, and Fletch is at his finest, giving false information, assuming fake identities, and generally being false.

            This might be an 80’s movie, but I really enjoy some of those, and this is one of the finest. Yeah it’s a cheesy reason for a sequel, but Fletch was hilarious, and a very interesting plot, and this one is great too, though not as good as it’s predecessor.

            What really makes these movies is Chevy Chase in what I’m sure is one of his favorite roles, where he is basically the smartest guy in the room, and knows, but is too lazy to really do anything about it, and somehow, it all works out for Erwin M. Fletcher.

But I like to call him Fletch. A 2.

The Salton Sea

            Danny Parker (Val Kilmer, Spartan) is your run-of-the-mill gack-head meth fiend who’s trying to score, make it by, and stay high for the endless night party. But Somewhere along the way he had to get out of a bind, and so he turned into a pigeon. Now he takes note of every detail of a dealers drag, and makes plans to turn them over to the gack-squad.

            Things begin to change when his buddy’s, hairbrained schemers that they are, try to score the motherload by helping a strange cowboy (BD Wong, Father of the Bride) to sell a ton of gack to a deformed dealer named pooh-bear (Vincent Donofrio, Full Metal Jacket).

            Danny is in even more of a bind when his police friends find out that he’s becoming a dealer behind their back. The entire time, Danny is searching for something. The LA drug culture is just the place he’s gone to hide since the death of his wife out near the Salton Sea.

            The final showdown takes place at the Salton Sea as well. The Salton Sea becomes this symbol throughout the film. It’s the place you go to lose everything, and to find out who you really are. It’s a very dynamic Noire piece, and rally presented strongly. I enjoyed this film so much, it made the top 25 of all time.

The Lakehouse

            Can I just say that I really enjoyed this film a lot. Way more than I thought possible. Although I tend to like some chick flicks because I can appreciate the ones which are well made, and this one is really one of the best. Right up there with Just Like Heaven. The Lakehouse is a romantic comedy that is staged in a very powerful style which I love, and that is Magical Realism.

            The two main characters who need to fall in love live in different times, and live in the same house only 2 years apart. They soon discover that they can write letters to one another through the shared mailbox. Rather than questioning this supernatural event, it becomes a part of their landscape, and they begin to know eachother through their letters and shared though separate activities.

            Things get complicated when a series of events reveals to the girl (Sandra Bullock, Speed) that the guy (Keanu Reeves, Point Break) is actually a no show, and later she finds out that he is in fact, dead. Can she save him? Can they be together? Can they truly wait? The story in this is so beautiful and just really delightful, as it paints a deeper and deeper picture of the two, we watch them grow together over an uncrossable distance. 2.

The Quick and the Dead

          This is not Louis Lamore’s tail of a family surviving in the frontier with the help of a friendly stranger. This is the story of a horrible bully (Gene Hackman, Narrow Margin) who runs a small town, enslaving it’s Mexican residents. He also hosts an annual shoot out competition. The ultimate western cliché comes to dramatic real life in this fantastically shaped ultrareal western.

            The ones we really care about besides the boss are the Lady (Sharon Stone, Catwoman), The Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed) and the preacher (Russell Crowe, Gladiator). They fight against 12 other larger than life characters in a traditional style shoot out tournament.

            The characters are the highlight of this film, as the story telling style highlights some incredibly well written and archetypical characters. It’s a lot of fun, and very well made. The movie fully acknowledges that it is not doing anything original, yet brings some tremendous energy into a well composed script.

            2. This is a great 90’s western, up there with Unforgiven and Dances with Wolves.

Freddy vs. Jason

           This is a funny little experiment. Freddy Kruger, the master of dreams, and former child-slayer, has been forgotten. Anyone with any knowledge of him has been shut up in an asylum, and doomed to be on anti-halucegenic drugs forever. Bur freddy can’t be forgotten, and so he haunts Jason Voorhies, long buried in the grave next to his mother, and awakens him, to punish the children of Elm Street, just as he punished the children of Crystal Lake.

            Then Jason gets out of control, and Freddy gets brought from the dream world into the real world. It’s a hilarious and intense romp through two defining icons of the horror genre, and is really quite laughable. It’s definitely not worth watching if you don’t think horror movies are crazy, though.

            It’s up to the same zany kids to fight off not one but two serial killers. Hilarious. 1.

Four Brothers

            John Singleton (Baby Boy) is still an amazing director, and can masters both the indie film and the main stream. The scene opens with a gangland robbery and massacre at a quickie mart, complete with Indian clerk, and little old lady victim. The old lady in this case is Mother Mercer, one of the legendary saints of the run down Detroit Projects, responsible for finding homes for over 1000 lost children, including a certain set of infamous boys.

            They are introduced at the funeral: The four brothers who Mercer raised herself, because they were such lost causes. Bobby (Mark Wahlberg, Rockstar) is the hotheaded gunslinger, a thug and hockey enthusiast. Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 from Outkast) is a former gang member, former union member, and independent businessman. Angel (Tyrese Gibson, 2 Fast, 2 Furious) is a marine, and former hustler, and womanizer. And Jack (Josh Charles), the youngest, a rockstar in the making, and victim of child abuse.

            The Movie goes on to chronicle their search for their mother’s killer, which eventually leads them to a long list of dirty laundry and corruption, which they systematically take down. Or not so systematically. This is another fine Hollywood piece in which the wrong choice becomes the right choice, and the morality of real life is flipped on it’s ear. A 2 in the tradition of Payback, 2 Fast 2Furious, and Kill Bill, this is a fun movie, and well worth watching. Singleton can bring any story to the big screen and make it sparkle.

Gran Torino

            This movie is a gem, and kind of a surprise that it’s not up more than golden globes as it came out shortly before the start of the year. Clint Eastwood plays your dad. Basically, he is everyones father, if your father is patriotic, hardnosed, racist as hell, and has a fuse as short as a brazilian midget. Walter is his name and he doesn’t take guff from anybody.

            He’s a retired autofactory worker, and the only hold out in a naighborhood taken over by Vietnamese immigrants. His kids work for Japanese car companies, and he is totally separated from them. His wife just died, and her ninny catholic priest keeps coming around, and He can’t stand that guy.

            He catches a young Vietnamese boy breaking into to steal his car, but the confrontation quickly becomes obvious that it’s an initiation into a gang, a gang he doesn’t really want to join. Walter becomes an unwitting neighborhood hero after stopping the altercation without resorting to deliberate violence.

            As the violence grows worse, Walter realizes he must do something to stop it, and he begins to realize there is hope for all those around him, and maybe even for himself. This movie isn’t that deep, and some of the scenes are downright hilarious, but the pacing is really what’s perfect, you feel what the actor feels, and see what he sees, and while there are some tough scenes, you can learn right along with everyone else.

            This is a clear 2, a great tribute to The America of old, and what growing old truly means in 2010. A real educator for a younger generation.

Midnight Cowboy

            Meet Joe Buck. Jon Voigt (Anaconda) stars as this southern Texas fake Cowboy. He’s a cowboy, but not a real one. This dishwasher has quit his job and after saving up a bit, he’s headed to the big city to be a big time hustler. Joe doesn’t know anything about anything really, and the first half of the movie is a picture of failed dreams in the big city. Joe goes around naïve, and foolish, quickly blowing his savings and getting swindled, and never quite making it as a hustler.

            Enter Enrique Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman, Wag the Dog), aka, Ratso. Prime New York Scum. Ratso has his own dreams, of making it big and then retiring to Miami. He’s just a two bit conman, and can’t really put anything together, and he’s a bum, and a cripple. They meet and he promptly swindles Joe Buck, but they connect later, and begin to bond as friends.

            It’s supposed to be provocative, and edgy, but, it’s really just weird, and kinda boring. The powerful scenes, and the craziness of the lives these guys lead is kinda gritty, but overall, it lacks. I’m gonna give this a 1, because, it’s just not all it’s cracked up to be. We start to see the depth of character at the end, as the boys attend an acid party, and then depart for Miami as Ratso lays dying, but, too little too late.

            This movie is DOA, just like Rizzo, and poor Joe Buck does a good job, but, blooms to late to make this movie worth it.

Formula 51

             This is a surprisingly charming direct to video release from the British film vault, released in other countries under the title “The 51^st State”. It stars Samuel L. Jackson (Snakes on a Plane) as chemist Elmo MacElroy. Busted on a drug charge in the 60’s, his licensure as a pharmacist was lost. He turned to the Lizard (Meat Loaf) and started making pharmaceutical drugs, finalizing his masterpiece, POS51, 51 times stronger than cocaine, and 51 times more hallucinogenic than acid, 51 times better feeling than e.

            The one problem is, Elmo doesn’t like the Lizard, or the way he pays. He’s selling out to the british. Enter Felix De Silva (Robert Carlyle, Trainspotting). He’s a middle level enforcer. After a major his nails everyone but MacElroy and De Silva, they’re off on a buddy comedy adventure full of violence, gun-play, drugs and yelling.

            These 2 volatile stars make for some great on screen romance. Compared to other performances, Jackson feels somewhat flat, but he still dazzles in many of his lighter moments.

            Carlyle as well brings the british culture out very richly and stands his ground without getting dominated by the huge talent and domineering persona of Jackson. The Balance is restored in their buddyship. The twists and turns in the plot are pretty weak, but it’s still quite entertaining and well approached. 2.

Logan's Run

             Michael York stars as the title character in this ground breaking sci-fi underground hit. Logan is a sandman in the City. People have lived in the City, a domed wonderland, for over 2000 years, not knowing anything of the outside. All people are born with ID crystals which tell their age. Everyone in this wonederland pursues hedonistic pleasure until age 30, when they are summarily executed for the purpose of “rebirth” by the fantastical ceremony known only as “Carousel”.

            Sandmen are feared and honored, for it is their job to stop anyone who doesn’t participate in Carousel. They Terminate Runners. Logan is great at his job, and loves the pleasure lifestyle, and he’s only 26. But, when he destroys a runner and finds an ancient symbol on his body, the central computer hatches a plan to locate all the unaccounted Runners. Logan will be aged, and made to appear as a runner. His purpose is to infiltrate the little known underground, named “Sanctuary”. Sanctuary is believed to have harbored and exported over 1000 runners.

            Logan, as well as a girl he falls in love with, is about to make a daring escape, and seek to go all the way to the outside. In very symbolic cinematography and an intricate world, this movie is really quite a lot of fun to see. It is also groundbreaking in it’s effects, being the first film to use “Laser Holography” later made popular in the Star Wars Series.

            While it isn’t much to look at, the movie is definitely worth watching, and has a lot of cool ideas about what true freedom is, and what it means to be human, and what an American is. And it’s got that idealistic feel to it, very THX-1138 in it’s outcome. A 2.

Amistad

             This was Steven Spielberg’s (Raiders of the Lost Ark) first film with the newly formed Dreamworks SKG company, and man, did it sizzle. This is a great film chronicling much of the darker part of U.S. History. A ship of slaves is headed for the new world when it’s cargo breaks free and kills it’s captors, save for the owner, and they attempt to sail back to Africa, but are seized and taken to the U.S.

            There is a very confusing and interesting trial that takes place. Mr. Collins (Matthew Maconaghay, A Time to Kill) plays a young property lawyer who takes the case, on behalf of the Abolitionist movement. Through many trials and tribulations, and much development, including the retelling of how the slaves were captured in Africa in the first place, they eventually are set free. However, seeking to be re-elected, President Martin Van Buren decides to retry the case at the supreme court level.

            Throughout the movie, the differences in culture and language of the villagers and the Americans are remarkably well done. The whole scene is powerfully captured, and te courtroom and other performances are masterful. The final speech by John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs) is stunning.

            The cinematography is typically spielbergian, and the whole movie portrays the deep sense of sorrow that we as Americans ought to have for our countries history. The true sense of our freedom is what we fail to grasp, and what these Africans so keenly and desperately wanted. An easy 2.