gedixon Reviews

Rumble in the Bronx (1995)

laughably terrible and pretty entertaining early Jackie Chan

[8/10 · 20 August 2023]

Jackie Chan's first big US movie, shot in Vancouver with kind of a glossy made-up version of The Bronx as kung fu, where the actors speak their native language and then get dubbed into English, even though most of the actors were speaking English anyway--so it looks like badly dubbed kung fu, quite amusing.

There's a ridiculous motorcycle gang who terrorizes the "Bronx" grocery store that Chan's uncle sells to a Chinese-American woman. Chan steps in with prop-heavy kung fu, but the gang chases him and corners him in an alley and throws bottles that break over his head and cut him. He lays on the ground, near death, but then they mysteriously decide to stop. Chan then befriends a boy in a wheelchair. It turns out Chan and the boy are neighbors in the same apartment building. The boy's older sister is in a motorcycle gang--the same gang that beat up Chan. They race another gang in an alley over a bunch of parked cars, and later the sister dances in a bikini in a giant cage with a tiger outside the cage in a weird gang bar. The gang has a weird hideout that's kind of like a clubhouse with pinball machines. What? There's a big pinball machine set-piece, with Chan doing his awesome sliding, hopping, smashing kung fu with pinball.

There's a mafia group stealing diamonds, and they're more evil than the motorcycle gang; so Chan teams up with the chick and the motorcycle gang (they're suddenly and inexplicably his friends--don't ask) to fight the mafia in a giant set-piece with a hovercraft and Chan water skiing on his feet and the hovercraft taking to land and crashing into busses and driving over people including Chan (think Wile E. Coyote being run over with a street roller). It's laughably terrible and pretty entertaining. In the Hong Kong version, Chan was a cop back in Hong Kong, but those references didn't make it into the US release.

Fierce Creatures (1997)

A Fish Called Wanda (Light)

[7/10 · 3 August 2021]

John Cleese attempts to recreate the success of A Fish Called Wanda (1988) in a film (almost) completed seven years later (1995). Test audiences hated the ending, and so Cleese worked another two years, hiring a second director and waiting for Michael Palin to finish another project before finally finishing Fierce Creatures in 1997.

The result could be called "A Fish Called Wanda (Light)," not as good as the first film, but with a number of humorous scenes. The cast is almost identical. Jamie Lee Curtis is hired by Kevin Kline to be VP of a TV station (or something), but Kline (in an apparent satirical version of Rupert Murdoch) has just sold the TV station. So Kline gives Curtis a zoo to manage instead, along with Kline's daft son (also played by Kevin Kline).

He and Curtis take over the zoo from John Cleese, who has been assigned by old-man Kline to make the zoo show a 20% profit. Cleese decides to do this by ridding the zoo of cuddly animals and replacing them with Fierce Creatures.

Curtis' main role is to bend over and show her ass and cleavage, and since this film is rated PG-13, that's all she shows (unlike the R-rated Fish Called Wanda). She makes the most of it, and is sexy and funny.

The film is amusing in parts, laugh-out-loud in a couple of scenes, and mediocre throughout much of the rest. Fierce Creatures went on to lose about 10 million dollars, where A Fish Called Wanda had been a big success. Fierce Creatures is worth seeing if you like Monty Python, if you like Jamie Curtis, John Cleese, Kevin Kline, or Michael Palin. If you want to sit back and watch an amusing farce, this is not a bad choice, although it is a bit of a bad movie.

Freaky Friday (2003)

funny, with good performances from both Curtis and Lohan

[8/10 · 14 July 2021]

This was fun.

Curtis and Lohan are in a Chinese restaurant, where they fight, and the Chinese mom gives them magic fortune cookies so that they can walk a mile in each others' shoes. Curtis and Lohan both shine. There are funny moments. I thought this was better than the IMDB rating would suggest.

Lohan seems like she's 20 (she was 17), but at least she's not a 29-year-old playing a 15-year-old high school student. Curtis is middle-aged, and plays a middle-aged mom. Having actors play similarly aged characters. Imagine that.

The music is slightly edgy rock--a bit too polished for a high school garage band (the plot revolves around a key performance), but at least the songs weren't sappy Disney fare, and the music was catchy.

Nice work from all involved.

The Italian Job (1969)

We found the car chases boring

[6/10 · 4 July 2021]

My wife and I were not impressed. We found the car chases boring, but the three Mini Coopers leading the pack during the epic chase must have inspired the similar Bourne Identity Mini Cooper car chase.

The filmmakers of The Italian Job supposedly had little approval to stop traffic in Italy, and so they did it on the sly, and then filmed their surreptitious shutdown of downtown Turin.

Some of the cinematography is grand, with sweeping Italian landscapes and crazy stunts, such as a race on the top of a domed building and car jumps between the tops of two buildings. The building jump was apparently done for real--live action--and caused some of the crew to walk off the set because it was so risky. But with all of that said, the car chases are just not exciting to watch.

The ending to The Italian Job is awful *spoiler alert*, with a bus hanging at the edge of a cliff, with the heisted gold bars on one end of the bus, and the characters on the other end. Then the credits roll. No resolution. The end. The filmmakers apparently overspent their budget, didn't have an ending, and the A-unit did not want to film their lame excuse for an ending. So they left it to the B-unit, and the film has no real ending. "It's a cliffhanger." Right. But it's not funny. The joke is on you, the viewer.

The Italian Job did inspire some films that are excellent--so there's that--and perhaps you want to see "the original Mini chase." But otherwise, just watch the Bourne Identity, or maybe find the original Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)--another film that was shot around real local people--not just paid extras (wow, scary).

Erik the Viking (1989)

Needed the rest of Monty Python

[5/10 · 15 June 2021]

It was hard not to give this a 5. My wife liked it. It's kind of "The Holy Grail" without Monty Python. The lead character (Tim Robbins)'s acting is bad through most of the film. The comic timing just isn't there without the Python players.

People praise the photography, but much of it looks like overlit TV.

John Cleese plays the bad guy in an extended cameo, and he's good. Terry Jones plays the shreaking shrew drag act that he does in Monty Python, as the king (queen) of Atlantis ("High Brazil"), and his bit is too long. If this had starred Monty Python, it would have been a good film. But it didn't, and it's not. It borders on awful.

The Boy Friend (1971)

Parody and homage to 1930s musicals is odd and uneven

[6/10 · 29 May 2021]

A long homage to seemingly every famous musical from the late 1920s and early 1930s with careful over-the-top scene stealing from Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rodgers, Ruby Keeler, and everyone else of the era. Everything is parodied to the point that it's hard to tell if the director, Ken Russell, actually liked those movies, or if it's just a game of "Look at what I can do."

The film grew on me late during the 2:20 runtime. The first hour I couldn't take all of the winking at the camera, much of it literal.

Twiggy is very good. Everyone else is (intentionally) overacting to great distraction.

Amusing, weird, trippy, long, and colorful, most of the dance routines and top-down kaleidoscopic cinematography are not as inspired as the originals. It's as if Terry Gilliam and Monty Python did an endless 1930s musical skit. It's surely a spectacle. But unfortunately it's less than great.

Cats (2019)

Lead cat, Francesca Hayward, is luminous. The film is weird, like the stage musical.

[8/10 · 9 May 2021]

It's weird. It's Cats. It does not deserve the hatred it has inspired.

The movie was true to the story. They do pretty much all of the musical numbers, with little dialog in-between to make sense of it all. Which makes sense, because it's Cats.

Idris Elba is the bad cat. Francesca Hayward, of the Royal Ballet, is luminous in her only feature film role as lead cat. She's an incredible dancer, and what an unfortunate introduction for her, because most everyone hates this film.

Many have not seen the stage musical, in order to say, "What the heck?" before seeing the film.

I am a TS Eliot fan. He is the poet who wrote the book (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats) that created the basis for the lyrics for Cats . I have read Practical Cats. It did not help.

People should go into the film expecting total weirdness--and greatness on the part of the lead, Francesca Hayward.

Sally (1929)

Marilyn Miller is a star. Film needs restoration

[7/10 · 20 April 2021]

Print and sound are horrible. Marilyn Miller is charismatic. Her horse-like dance number at a stable is awesome. Sunny was a Broadway hit, with a run of 517 shows, but they took out most of the musical numbers for the film, as movie musicals had become unpopular in the late 1920s.

This is the second of three films starring Miller, who was a huge star on Broadway in the 1920s as Ziegfeld Follies' lead actress. Miller only lived to be 37.

This film desperately needs to be restored. It could be a pretty good film. Although the story is pedestrian, some of the scenes are funny, although much of the humor is buried in poor sound quality. The film features early Vitaphone audio, which synchronized record albums with film. This can make restoration a particular challenge. The records were fragile and were only meant to be played a few times before they were replaced. If the discs are gone, what's left is whatever dub was made onto film long ago.

Follow the Fleet (1936)

Not as good as their other RKO films

[6/10 · 17 April 2021]

My least favorite Fred and Ginger movie of the 30s. Astaire is in the navy, on a ship, and the opening Irving Berlin number is "on the sea, we saw the sea."

The Berlin numbers are middling, except for the finale, Let's Face the Music and Dance, which is awesome--the song, Astaire's rendition, the dance by Astaire and Rogers. Unfortunately, that's the only thing awesome about the film.

There is little plot. Astaire first intentionally loses Rogers a job, then unintentionally loses her a second job--both played for laughs. Randolph Scott is Astaire's navy buddy. He doesn't really fall for Rogers' sister, Harriet Nelson, who is a teacher and wears glasses. Once she glams up, she catches Scott's eye, but he dumps her anyway. And we're supposed to cheer when they get back together. Both male leads, Astaire and Scott, are kind of jerks, even forgiving the fact that it was 1936. Cringey.

There are two solo tap dances, one by Astaire, one by Rogers. I always think the solo numbers pale in comparison to their partnered dances that mix swing and ballroom dancing with tap. The solos emphasise tap dancing, and I find them boring. That pretty well sums up the whole film for me. I am a huge fan of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, but I am not a fan of this film.

Ava (IV) (2020)

NOT THRILLING

[5/10 · 17 April 2021]

Boring thriller with a woman assassin Jessica Chastain/Ava, whose boss is John Malkovich, who supports Ava's great assassin-ness even though *SPOILERS* she insists on moralistically asking her victims to confess before she kills them.

Colin Farrell, Malkovich's boss, is less forgiving, and *SPOILERS* sends out hitmen to kill Ava, and then Malkovich. None of this makes any sense, because what's the big deal anyway if she talks to her victims, since she kills them anyway, and no one would know, including Farrell.

Anyway, that's the setup, and there are family issues with Ava and her mother and sister and ex-boyfriend who is marrying the sister, blah blah blah. The problem is that the film is not thrilling. The action is poorly staged. Several of the famous actors turn in middling performances.

Whoopee! (1930)

sexy, funny and cringey

[8/10 · 10 April 2021]

Goldwyn Girls in two-strip Technicolor do a catwalk routine down a mountain wearing huge Native American headdresses and little else. This, along with Eddie Cantor in black-face, distinguish the film as an early monument to the pre-code and pre-PC America of 1930. Whoopee! Was a hit on Broadway in 1929 when the stock market crashed to start the Great Depression, and producer Florenz Ziegfeld (of Ziegfeld Follies fame) lost everything. To save himself from ruin, he sold the rights to Whoopee! And ended the Broadway run while his show was still hot. Eddie Cantor was the Broadway star and transposed his performance to this feature film. Cantor is funny, with his exaggerated expressions very similar to his vaudeville and Broadway contemporary, Groucho Marx. Cantor is also reminiscent of the neurotic shtick of Woody Allen, predating Allen by decades. Busby Berkely directs the musical dance numbers, with overhead shots of sexy "natives" arranged in moving flower patterns, a camera dolly through the spread legs of the chorus girls, and the fancy big production number catwalk to end the film. It's sexy, funny and cringey. Watch at your own risk.

Shall We Dance (1937)

Has its moments, and some issues

[7/10 · 8 April 2021]

Best/most famous songs: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off (You say, "tomato," I say, "tomatoe," performed on roller skates in "Central Park") and Can't Take That Away from Me--some of George Gershwin's last work (score, with brother, Ira, lyrics) before dying of a brain tumor shortly after the film's release in 1937. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers tweak their usual "mistaken identity" theme--this time around, "people think they're married, but they're not." Astaire poses as a Russian ballet star, Petrov, under the direction of Edward Horton on a cruise ship. (Petrov shifts out of his ridiculous Russian accent so often it's hard to tell if he's seriously posing as Petrov, or if it's just an obvious ruse to everyone--but apparently people are really supposed to believe he's Petrov.) Rogers/Linda Keene is a jazz/tap dancer to whom Astaire is attracted. Petrov, through Ed Horton, suggests to Petrov's unwanted ex that Petrov is actually married to Rogers, and thus begin the shenanigans. Astaire and Rogers don't dance until the 57-minute mark and have only 2-1/2 dance routines altogether in the film. The big production number finale is 3/4 weird ballet, with Harriet Hoctor dancing bent over backwards, like a ballet contortionist, dancing on toes--an odd and poor choice, fitting for such a mixed movie, which got a middling reaction from the public in 1937. But like all of their films, it does have its moments of greatness.

The Taming of The Shrew (1967)

Early exploitation flick by the master bard

[1/10 · 26 March 2021]

Just unbearable, perhaps due to Shakespeare's original text (although the text for this screenplay was greatly changed Shakespeare's original play), Liz Taylor plays an insolent shrew whose father wants to marry her off before letting her young hotty sister get married. So Richard Burton takes cash to tame Taylor, who is forced into a marriage she does not want, spanked, left in a ditch with her donkey on the honeymoon, and then tortured and berated until she succumbs to Burton/Petruchio (which of course is what she needs--what Shakespeare thought in the 17th century, anyway, and wrote in the text of the play--what a lark, it's a comedy). This almost seems like a precursor to horror exploitation where women are stripped and then killed. Here, Taylor/Kate is stripped of her nature and her will is killed. There is an academic argument about whether this, the clear surface interpretation, is meant to be ironic. I find this to be wishful thinking. Shakespeare is idolized--perhaps rightfully so. He may be great, but The Taming of the Shrew was a painful watch for both me and my wife. I suggest The Shrew be reinterpreted as an example of the horrors of past-thinking, where women were shadows of their husbands, their wishes unimportant--needing to be tamed.

Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers first dance

[7/10 · 24 March 2021]

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' first film together, they are secondary characters outside a love triangle where a band director (Gene Raymond) falls for a woman (Delores del Rio) on her way to Rio (de Janeiro) to marry her fiance (Raul Roulien). Fred Astaire was a big star on Broadway by 1933, becoming famous dancing with his sister, Adele Astaire, who split up the act to marry into British nobility. I was surprised to find Fred Astaire a secondary character in this film (new to Hollywood, not yet a film star). Ginger Rogers was known better known in film, but is also secondary here. There is a sexy production number with dancers supposedly on acrobatic planes late in the film. Astaire and crew can't get a permit to put on a show at their Rio hotel, as some shady Greeks are trying to move in to force purchase of the venue. The acrobatic plane sequence features chorus girls in very nipply sheer outfits--pretty scandalous, the likes of which would soon disappear with enforcement of the Hays Code. This chorus line dance number is weird and wacky, and for me was the highlight of the movie, almost rivaling the lurid exuberance of a Busby Berkely number. (The dance director here was Dave Gould.) Flying Down to Rio is predictable yet entertaining, and my wife found it amusing (high praise, as she's often bored by pre-code musicals). For Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers fans this is a must see. In the middle dance number, they dance the Carioca, which became a craze and swept The States. And then there are chorus lines on stunt planes.

Reggie Watts: Spatial (2016 TV Special)

funny, weird, awesome improv beatbox rapping

[9/10 · 23 November 2018]

"He's incredibly weird. And talented," my wife coughed during the show. (She has a cold.) "Hugely weird. Hugely talented," I replied.

The beatbox raps are the most awesome. Watts lays down a loop with beatboxing, then sings over the loop with weird (pseudo)profound raps, singing, and harmonizing. Watts has an awesome singing voice. Who knew?

There are several skits with comedic actors that are as lame as a bad SNL bit. They punctuate the show and drop the rating one star. But they're forgivable, given Watts' inspired live performance.

The ending credits are a short rave with the audience dancing, featuring lights and trippy effects trails. I'm a wine drinker, personally, but those of you in-the-know will find this scene highly worthy.

Troll Hunter (2010)

good, shaky cam, monster movie with dry humor and haunting fjords

[7/10 · 1 April 2011]

This is a good, shaky cam, monster movie, in the tradition of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. I saw the film at the Wisconsin Film Festival at the Orpheum Theatre in Madison.

The film chronicles the adventures of three film students in Norway, who chance upon a bear poacher. But the dead bears are wrong, somehow. The local hunters chide the tracks and crime scenes as fake.

The students track down the bear hunter and find he is hunting something different, and much larger. These developments are spooky and effective. The rainy fjords of Norway are beautiful, and provide a haunting backdrop to the narrative.

Trolljegeren is strong in this setup, the ghostly North Sea setting, and the dry performance of Otto Jespersen, the troll hunter. The film is very funny, and the audience laughed out loud.

The Troll Hunter is weak in character development. The students are two-dimensional. There is no backstory. There is no internal conflict, even though in their horrific encounters, the students should have been struggling with major misgivings, facing fear and death.

In that respect, Cloverfield is considerably better in this genre, and I gave Troll Hunter a seven, rather than an eight or nine. But character development and backstory are frequently absent in monster movies, and so this criticism may not be key to the movie's monstermoviegreatness. Still, while perhaps a great monster movie, this is only a good film

You should see Troll Hunter for its humor, acting, and special effects. Much of the fright develops off screen, one mark of a good suspense. I recommend this as an entertaining monster movie. See it!