nevadaluke Reviews

Snow White: A Deadly Summer (2012)

Get your money back

[8 May 2012]

This is a movie that is so bad that I called Redbox and complained that it was unwatchable -- and they agreed and gave me three free rentals.

Eric Robers and Maureen McCormick are by no means A list actors but they deserve to be embarrassed by this incredibly amateurish effort.

Every element of this movie -- including writing, acting and production values -- would get a failing grade in any university film class.

The only good thing to come out of it is that for the price of one rental, I received three free rentals -- or a net gain of two rentals. You may want to try the same thing -- rent this, then call Redbox and complain at 1-866-733-2693 and they may reward you with free rentals as well. Eventually, Redbox will decide that "Snow White: A Deadly Summer" is costing them more in refunds than it is earning in rentals and they will decide to pull it from circulation. That is the market at work.

Tooth Fairy 2 (2012 Video)

Passes the Test

[6/10 · 14 April 2012]

I watch family movies as part of my job.

I sat down to watch this one expecting excruciating torture. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Somehow, Mr. Whitney makes this madcap bit of nonsense work in a weird kind of way. He has exactly the right mix of bewildered goofiness and phony bravado to pull this off.

He also owes a huge debt of gratitude to his co-starring piglet and especially to Miss Reiter, who is a delightfully edgy antagonist. I look forward to seeing more of her work on the big screen.

I recall Roger Ebert's test: does this movie succeed at what it sets out to accomplish? This one does.

TF2 is an outstanding movie to watch with your 10-and-under family members.

Joey (1997)

Satisfying Slapstick

[7/10 · 4 April 2012]

This is a great way to spend 90 minutes watching a movie with your kid.

The comedy is broad and lighthearted, the child actors are cheery and enjoyable to watch and the mother, played by Rebecca Gibney, is a sympathetic and well-crafted character.

It's not often a baby kangaroo shows up in an animal movie, and this one (or however many played the part of Joey) is deployed with plenty of charm.

I might also add that this was an especially fine turn for Miss McKenna, who comes across as lovable without being the least bit annoying.

And, thankfully, the Australian accents by the actors from down under were also softened for the American ear. I, for one, find that the harshest Aussie accents are among the most painful sounds made by the human voice.

I give this a strong recommendation -- it's easy to find on the Netflix instant queue.

Snowmageddon (2011 TV Movie)

Where's the snow?

[3/10 · 11 December 2011]

Snowmageddon is one of those movies like "Curse of the Cat People" -- it has nothing to do with its title -- in this case an extinction-level plague of wintry mix.

I would bet a carton of Camels that it was written under the name "Snow Globe" -- until somebody discovered the title was snagged by the Christina Milian ABC Family movie. That flick, about a romance-challenged girl who disappears into a fantasy land residing inside her water-filled Christmasy glass ball, is 10 times more entertaining.

This time, however, the snow globe is oddly unsnowy. I was waiting for the obvious plot device -- somebody shakes the globe and the Ice Age returns to bury the town under two miles of glaciers. Instead, the little village in the glass ball is beset by weirdly unseasonal phenomena like quakes, horizontal stratospheric tornadoes and spiky things that thrust up through the Earth's crust -- the latter being the movie's shark-jumping moment. (Full disclosure time: I fell asleep for half an hour in Act II but awoke to decide that I hadn't missed anything. Maybe the globe was shaken while I was out...? nahhh.) The holiday angle is also oddly shoehorned into the proceedings. You string up some colored lights, scatter a few trimmed trees around the sets and abra-cadabra: An instant holiday movie. All you need is a line of dialogue about how it was a holiday miracle when the town was saved from destruction.

And as for the climax -- hey, look! there's a volcano suddenly erupting just outside of town! Maybe that has something to do with all this weird unnatural madness. Let's go throw this thing in there and surely that will put an end to our troubles. Poof! Problem solved.

SyFy Channel once again performs a valuable service for would-be screenwriters -- to prove that anyone can write one.

True Grit (2010)

Dare to Compare: The Duke Wins

[6/10 · 28 December 2010]

I watched the Original and the Remake back-to-back.

The Original is better.

I challenge all the other reviewers to do the same and argue differently.

The Original Act I is vastly superior in establishing the characters and their motivations. We see Mattie bookkeeping, bossing her father around and sharing a tender moment with him. We see where she gets her values and her steely determination. We see her insisting on seeing the hangings. We see her experience heart-breaking grief at her loss.

We see her negotiate for Cogburn's services at the unforgettable "rat writ" scene -- one of John Wayne's greatest. We see her dismissiveness at Le Boeuf's vanity.

In the Original, the horse-trading scene is brilliant and fully executed. "I will make money, my attorney will make money and you, Mr. Horse Trader, will pay..."

In contrast, Act I of the Remake is a muddled mess. Mattie comes off as oddly cold about her father's death. The horse-trading scene is truncated but Cogburn's court testimony goes on and on and on.

In the Remake, the Girl Who Would Not be Pushed Around is literally pushed around by a snoring old lady. I ask you: would Kim Darby's Mattie give up the quilt? Of course not. She would have kicked Grandma out of bed before doing that.

In the Remake, LeBoeuf sneaks into her room when she's asleep and confesses he wanted to kiss her while she's in bed. Talk about creepy! In the Remake, Mattie often looks terrified when she's on the trail.

In the Remake, Cogburn gives up the fight. He emotionally surrenders. Where's the grit?

In the Remake, we get that long scene of Cogburn and LeBouef shooting corn dodgers. How did that advance the story?

In the Remake, we meet the Bear Man. How did that advance the story?

What did the Remake do better? I can think of four things:

Chaney is dispatched by the proper character.

LeBouef's shooting of Lucky Ned is staged better.

The scene down in the pit is handled better.

The musical score is better.

But so much was mishandled. In the Original, we hear that Lucky Ned only kills for a good reason. And so when Cogburn tells him to do with the girl what he thinks best, we understand why. When Cogburn tells him that in the Remake, it comes off as a lame joke.

The same goes for when Mattie encounters Chaney. He calls her the little bookkeeper. But we never see her keeping books so it comes off as an idiotic insult.

If I had never seen the Original, I would say this was a great movie.

I will admit Bridges was better at playing the wastrel and scoundrel. But was he better at showing a man who could be moved by a young girl's determination and devotion? Was he better at illuminating the human condition? Judge for yourself.

Quiet Chaos (2008)

Quiet Emptiness

[3/10 · 8 March 2010]

This is a movie that only Euro-cinephiles could possibly enjoy. Think of Bergman reading this script. Think of what he would have done with the Marta-Lara arc ... or the Claudia-Carlo arc ... Or the horror with which Pietro says he regards the Holocaust ... Or revealing what Pietro and Steiner discuss in the car with the windows rolled up. The mind boggles.

All in all, Pietro is a thoroughly unsympathetic character. The amazing dramatic turn here is that he is completely sympathetic in Act I. But he proves to be so indulgently inert that, by the end of Act II, you don't care much whether he takes the job, screws the girl who walks the dog, lets his brother marry his daughter or jumps back in the ocean and ends it all.

The inescapable conclusion is that he only "changes" when Claudia finally fires him as a weirdly obsessed Daddy.

Obsessed with what and on what level? Obsessed with protecting his daughter figuratively? Obsessed with achieving personal redemption metaphorically?

While we're thinking this over, let's call time out for a long, gratuitously graphic sex scene.

And this scene advances the story exactly how? Maybe one good reason for that scene is that, hopefully, it will protect Miss Paladini (or Yoshimi -- whatever) from experiencing the totality of this mess for a few precious years.

Orphan (2009)

Worthy of an Oscar

[9/10 · 30 October 2009]

After watching this in the theater and then on DVD, I'm convinced Miss Fuhrman deserves a Supporting Actress nomination.

Think not? I challenge you to view this and "Atonement" at one sitting and consider which child gives a more powerful, richly nuanced and emotionally devastating performance. If Miss Ronan was nominated, surely should Miss Fuhrman.

Watch her eyes in the dinner table scene when the family discusses her classmate's tumble from the play structure. The little girl covers the soul-wrenching subtexts in all of the vivid spectrum of emotions.

And if you're not moved by the brief scene when Esther goes to her little sister and pleas for help when the evil nun comes to take her away -- again, watch her eyes -- then you have no heart.

Moreover, the girl's courage in confronting the Last Great Taboo not only of cinema but of Western civilization must assure us that she holds the key to a career that promises monumental achievement.

I know I was not alone when I left my first screening of "Interview With The Vampire" convinced I had watched Miss Dunst give the Best Supporting Actress performance. I hope this disappointment will not be repeated.

Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins (2009 TV Movie)

Breakout Vehicle

[7/10 · 26 September 2009]

And it's not the Mystery Van....

The star of this movie is the scene-stealing Hayley Kiyoko, who has that sure-fire combo of a pretty face that's rubbery enough for broad comedy. There's no doubt that this DVD is her calling card to Big Things.

I like this iteration of the series despite its creaky gags, thin plot and underwhelming visual effects. The four human characters imbue the film with an infectious, bubbly chemistry.

The plot unfolds so rapidly you won't have time to fret over its flaws. Many of the gags, for instance, were old when they were done in Mack Sennett comedies. And some of the details may irk "Scooby" purists, such as Fred's dark hair this time around. On the other hand, there are a number of amusing back-story gags -- for instance, three of the characters are too young to drive. So guess which one has his license because he's been held back a couple of grades.

As for the special effects, the rendering of the title character puts him in the Salem the cat league ("Sabrina the Teenage Witch") -- cheesiness is part of the fun. When I caught this movie, I happened to be watching ABC's "Kingdom Hospital" miniseries, which features a remarkably lifelike anteater character. It crossed my mind that the money that went into creating that anteater was probably four or five times the budget for this entire motion picture.

"Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins" also provides a lot of material for drinking games here. Take a gulp every time you see Velma's knees, every time Shaggy says "Zoinks," every time you understand one of Scooby's lines -- you get the idea.

The Bracelet of Bordeaux (2007)

A Lesson in Fimmaking

[2/10 · 19 July 2009]

There is one good lesson to be learned from this film -- for prospective screenwriters: if this movie got made, then any movie can be made.

Miss Carson and Miss Edwards are enjoyable to watch but the story, the characterizations and the staging of scenes would earn no better than a D minus at any respectable film school.

Viewers aged in the high single digits will have little patience for this movie.

If you're looking for something worthwhile for your kid, give them something meaningful, such as "The Ballet Shoes" or even a "Roxy Hunter."

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Telegraphed MacGuffin

[7/10 · 31 May 2009]

"Drag Me" is an excellent movie that reminded me of the old quote, I believe from Thalberg, that a movie should contain three great scenes and no bad scenes.

Both the scenes with the cats -- the "hear, kitty-kitty" and the parents' dinner party -- were great, the set-ups with the rival at the office -- the sandwich bit and the Lakers tickets -- were great, and the graveyard scene was truly great. Christine was under water so long that I began groping around mentally for a new protagonist, a la the near-drowning scene in "Star Wars."

The only problem I had was the plot twist involving the coin and button in Act III. I was confident to a degree of absolute certainty that Christine was not giving Mrs. Ganush her button. Did that ruin the movie for me? Not really, because the question becomes what will Clay do with the button. When Christine was sinking in the cemetery, I flashed forward to imagine Clay at the train station, dropping the button and somebody truly evil picking it up -- a movie critic for the L.A. Times, perhaps.

What was interesting was the way Mr. Raimi avoided resorting to a Higher Power to resolve the conflict at the séance scene, as often happens in a supernatural thriller. Of course that sealed Christine's fate -- a la "Carrie." Still, "Drag Me" is an outstanding achievement at all levels -- I recommend it and look forward to repeated viewings.

S. Darko (2009)

Lessons From a Nightmare

[4/10 · 22 May 2009]

It's a bad week in Conejo Springs for Samantha Darko, the iconic Donnie Darko's little sister, now grown up and reprised by Daveigh Chase. Sam has hit the road with her bosom buddy, Corey (Briana Evigan), because she feels cast adrift by a family shattered by her brother's bizarre death. Not surprisingly, considering her history, she's a profoundly troubled young woman.

Fatefully, Sam's road trip brings her and Corey to a troubled little town in rural Utah plagued by missing children, a homeless veteran's post-traumatic stress, ennui among the young, a lecherous ex-con turned pastor and countless other eccentrics -- indeed, clinical neurosis seems to be a prerequisite for permission to live in Conejo Springs.

Sleep disorders are a common symptom of mental illness. Thus, if Samantha had been better rested, she probably would have thought to avoid a town named after the furry little mammals that inspired the hideous death creature that haunted her brother.

In any case, Sam lands in the town to work out her destiny at a time when a lot of the townsfolk are facing crises in their lives. Soon after she arrives, the specter of Things Falling From the Sky establishes itself as a motif of doom and a Doppelganger of our protagonist materializes to set off a countdown to The End.

After all this is set up, things go very badly for the title character -- and almost as badly for the audience. A casual movie fan might well consider this movie a wreck and feel cheated by the resolution. For the filmmaker and film student, it's worthwhile to analyze this movie because its inspiration was a landmark of cinema and culture.

I would recommend "S. Darko" if you're involved in movie-making -- or obviously, interested at all in Miss Chase. If you're not in either of those categories and you see it anyway, you may be tempted to take the DVD along with you next time you go to the trap range.

Be that as it may, the story is set up in a compelling fashion. But no sooner do we realize that The End is near than the question becomes: The End of what? About half-way through Act Two, you will understand why IMDb viewers rank this movie so low. This could have been -- should have been -- a great movie.

"S. Darko" has a strong cast of attractive young performers, and very good production values. The cinematography and music evoke powerful moods and the leading actor, Miss Chase, creates a deeply engaging and sympathetic character.

To consider what went wrong, two titles come to mind: "Psycho" and "Dallas."

Other than the shower scene, the Hitchcock masterpiece is best remembered for the extraordinary plot device of killing off the protagonist at the midpoint crisis. If anybody else has ever been able to get away with that risky twist, Mr. Fisher is not among them. And, as far as the prime-time soap opera goes, one of the most memorable achievements of "Dallas" was the entire run of Season Nine, which went into the books as the longest dream sequence in history.

Back to "S. Darko," let's assume for a moment that the whole project deserves to be taken seriously and you're left sorting through the usual existential questions during the closing credits.

The key question is how Samantha could have insinuated herself into the lives of so many people if, as it turns out, she departed so soon. Perhaps her dreams were a projection of her inner conflicts into characters she actually created? Otherwise, what would be the emotional reward -- for both protagonist and audience -- in having someone choose to commit themselves to a journey headed to certain doom when it turns out that journey doesn't exist? After all, the opening title crawl tells us that S. "has drifted deeper and deeper into the darkness of her sleep. And when darkness consumes the starlight, nightmares rule the night.…" Fair enough, but in the context of her life, the nightmares need to light the way to some kind of redemption, even if they've swallowed up all that starlight. Of course if the hapless Samantha's demise would have brought redemption to a subsequent protagonist, the average viewer would be left with feelings of fulfillment while taking the DVD out of the machine.

But instead, we're left with the message that a person can consider taking a certain path, and then have a profound nightmare about the consequences of taking such a path, and then wake up and achieve salvation. After all, Dorothy had a similar experience in "The Wizard of Oz" -- and she returned transformed from a wistful young girl to a wiser young woman. But Mr. Fisher chose in one scene to evoke "Alice in Wonderland," a story in which the protagonist has a bizarre dream that is its own adventure and leaves her largely without a transformational arc -- a curious hollowness captured perfectly by Walt Disney.

Here, at the end of all the sound and fury, Samantha seems to have had a nightmare that transformed her into a person who doesn't need nightmares. I suppose that is possible, but I think many viewers will be left wishing they could have the last 100 minutes back.

It's worth adding that Miss Chase has already done excellent work as a child and has a great future.

I saw one of her first roles in the Michael Landon biopic as one of about 20 children portraying kids growing up in a large family. I knew at once she had star potential -- I even called her agent (who corrected my pronunciation of her name -- it's "Da-vay," not "Davie") to find out what she was going to do next.

This movie will do little to harm her career. I remain convinced she'll go on to achieve great things in her profession.

The Informers (2008)

Existential musings

[7/10 · 25 April 2009]

Few characters find redemption in "The Informers." Only Laura, Jack and Tim are allowed to rise above their circumstances -- which are depicted as bleak all around in the mass state of hedonism shown to be Hollywood at the dawn of AIDS.

By bookending the story with the demise of two characters -- one by a freak auto accident and another by a Mysterious Disease -- Mr. Jordan invites us to contemplate the realms of fate: people who believe they control their own destinies are fools. And Graham's yearning for somebody to tell him what is good and what is bad is a plea any member of the cast could have made if they had taken a good, long look in the mirror.

I believe the director also was asking us to consider the past as prelude to the depressing mess that we all have to deal with these days.

One plot devise puzzled me, however.

I understand Peter's motivations for snatching and selling his young victim, but can somebody tell me why he would decide to dispatch the youngster because it would more humane than what the Bad Guys -- make that the Really Bad Guys -- would do to him when they came back.

Unless I'm missing something, Peter arranged for Dirk to "pick up the package," after which the victim's fate would be in Dirk's hands anyway. Why would the Little Skateboarder have had more to look forward to if Dirk had taken him away on his first visit? Of course it would make sense if Peter intended to silence a potentially troublesome witness who may have fallen into the hands of the police. But he would not have let Jack handle the messy details -- Jack doesn't strike me as one you'd want to trust with such an important assignment.

Then again Peter may have turned the matter over to Jack knowing that Jack would turn the rugrat loose. In which case Peter would chalk up a better score in the redemption department -- but I don't believe Jordan intended Peter to evoke anything in the way of sympathy. It would seem to be more in line with Peter's character to pack up his young charge and shop him around in another market -- one good market a little farther past Barstow on I-15 comes to mind.

That said, all the actors put over their roles convincingly, particularly Miss Basinger and Mr. Foster. Although I found Miss Ryder somewhat tremulous as a TV news reader -- especially in L.A., where dogs eat only slightly fewer dogs than in the movie business.

An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong (2009 Video)

Angst in a Rainbow of Colors

[6/10 · 15 January 2009]

Chrissa review 1/15/2009 11:19:01 AM

It's not a happy time for Chrissa Maxwell when she moves with her mother, father and older brother to the Minnesota home of her grandmother (Michael Learned). The fourth-grader left behind her bosom buddies back in Iowa, and her family is relocating in the wake of her grandfather's passing.

Intent on starting out on the right foot, Chrissa (Sammi Hanratty) promptly runs afoul of a clutch of Alpha Female bullies who pile on the abuse and push the hapless newcomer to the brink of dropping out in favor of home-schooling. But with a little help from her wise grandmother and a perceptive art teacher (Jennifer Tilly), she learns to stare down her adversaries, claim her place as a member of the student body, and provide a role model for bullying victims of all stripes.

"American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong" is a thoroughly earnest drama that squeezes the protagonist through a painful gamut of pre-adolescent conflicts, engineered primarily by Tara, the bully in chief played with wicked relish by the very capable Adair Tishler.

Young viewers will have little problem soaking up every drop of pathos projected by Miss Hanratty and by an even more sympathetic co-victim, a little homeless girl played to the hilt by Kaitlyn Dever.

Just a few things worth pointing out: Dealing with the subject of bullying apparently prompted the decision here not to make light of anything. Thus, the main problem with "Chrissa" is that there are almost no light moments. Good story-tellers know that humor is one of the best ways to relieve tension for viewers. Other than a spitting llama and a quirky characterization by the trouper Miss Tilly, there's not much to chuckle about in this movie. Miss Hanratty is convincing in various degrees of angst, but the movie may leave youngsters a bit exhausted by the time the theme is realized on camera: that is, standing up to bullies opens the door to friendship.

Another problem is the puzzling lack of motivation shown for Tara. Apparently she is insecure but we don't get much insight into what drives her to be Mean Girl No. 1 in this classroom. But then, maybe an exceptionally pretty, somewhat haughty little girl doesn't need any other reason to be mean.

As with other movies in the "American Girl" series, the subtext is in product placement. Here, it's a fashion show of contemporary looks. The cast is costumed in closets full of attractive dresses, sweaters, skirts, tops, headbands, swimwear – not to mention tights in a rainbow of colors.

This movie will no doubt give many young viewers a lot of exciting ideas for the next time they go shopping for their dolls and themselves.

The Tracey Fragments (2007)

Investors were skunked

[1/10 · 21 October 2008]

I mistook the first four minutes of this movie for the gag reel.

What? There was no gag reel? Then the taxpayers of Canada need to get a refund for this literally scatterbrained waste of film stock or digital memory, whatever applies.

As the old saying goes, when you aim at nothing, you'll hit nothing. In this case, if you want people to think you have nothing important to say, then just throw all your ideas at the wall and let people think you're saying whatever sticks.

Perhaps a cogent narrative could have been carved from the ideas and passions that inspired this effort. The writer and director should have encouraged one another to apply skill and discipline to the project and make something that would be moving and meaningful to a wide audience.

But to toss a bunch of images together to end up with little more than a migraine-inducing hodgepodge is to limit the audience to young teenagers whose brains are already fried on video games and drugs.

Come to think of it, maybe turning this final cut into a video game isn't such a bad idea. All you need to do is make the picture boxes into targets. The player shoots and tries to hit as many antagonists as possible to score points. Penalties are deducted if you hit a sympathetic character.

What? There are no sympathetic characters?

In that case, a Golden Turkey Award seems like the only salvation for this mess. And then let's somehow amend Canadian law to allow unsuspecting viewers the right to sue to recover rental fees when they've been robbed by inept filmmakers.

Roxy Hunter and the Myth of the Mermaid (2008 TV Movie)

Six Star(fish) Family Treat

[6/10 · 17 October 2008]

One day, the spunky preteen sleuth of Serenity Falls sets her sights on winning a $300 "Junior Reporting" prize offered by the local newspaper. And so, when a beautiful young mute woman turns up one morning in her birthday suit apparently suffering amnesia and loitering at the door of the village's preeminent sushi chef -- well, what's a fledgling newsperson to do except get to the bottom of such a juicy mystery?

And so "Roxy Hunter and the Myth of the Mermaid Movie" is off and swimming.

In this third home video release in the "Roxy" franchise, Director Eleanor Lindo provides Aria Wallace as the title character with a well-crafted story that parents and their tots can enjoy on various levels. The capable supporting cast dishes up well-tuned comedy bits, an intriguing romantic conflict for Roxy's lovely young widowed mom (Robin Bǔlė) and a plot that unfolds with a worthwhile environmental theme.

There's even time for a show-stopping song-and-dance number in front of a world map as Roxy and the helpful town Librarian (Julian Richings) try to nudge the mystery girl's memory to help her recall where she came from.

As the title suggests, Roxy eventually deduces that she's dealing with a creature of mythology * not surprisingly, when the beautiful visitor lets out with a few haunting vocal interludes that utterly entrance Roxy's pal the medical-student barista (Vik Sahay), who falls under her Siren spell.

With only one word of dialog, Ashleigh Rains is enchanting as the putative Lost Girl From the Deep, and Sahay realizes a marvelous comic suitor. Alas, it's a one-sided romance, all meant to deliver the message that "toxic waste is not good for mermaids or other living things." As the precocious Roxy, Miss Wallace inhabits a character who only occasionally would seem to deserve a mild jerk of the chain to remind her of her manners.

And, in what is from the outset a police case, Lindo faces the delicate task of delivering a fantasy set in the real world. It's not giving anything away to point out that the climax will have attentive viewers aged in the double digits and beyond guessing for a moment how Miss Rains' character resolves her situation: Does she peel off her jeans and gambol off into the waves, or halt in the surf and whip out her undercover officer's badge? Turns out that's a good thing.

One final issue about the editing of this movie.

While it is apparently delivered in its 1-hour, 33-minute running time to fit into a two-hour cable TV window, it is bundled with a clutch of deleted scenes that would seem indispensable to a well-rounded movie experience. For instance, one of those scenes more fully explains the romantic predicament ensnaring Roxy's mom. Another pays off the MacGuffin -- that is, it resolves Roxy's quest for the Young Reporter prize far more satisfactorily than the framing device of the final cut. I believe that viewers of all ages would enjoy this movie better if all the scenes from the cutting room floor were re-edited into the home video release.

All in all, with long fall and winter nights on the way, parents and caregivers could do far worse than curl up with their young charges in front of a warm monitor and enjoy watching the irrepressible Roxy Hunter crack her latest case.

Riddles of the Sphinx (2008 TV Movie)

A Unique Take on History

[6/10 · 28 September 2008]

Factual concerns have little to do with this melodramatic fantasy. Forget the notion that you will learn anything about the Great Sphinx of Giza, mythology, or, for that matter, cogent story design in the art of cinema.

But you may enjoy seeing a strong cast working on green screen sets, trusting that the budget will be there to put them in a realistic and menacing setting. That trust was seriously misplaced.

I give it six stars because it crosses into the dreaded -- or prized -- "Plan 9" territory. Some will say this movie is a mess and a disaster. Others will say it's so bad it's actually fun to watch.

Filmmakers in this genre walk a fine line when they try to depict a fantastic scenario without losing the audience's suspension of disbelief. Here, the disbelief is unsuspended fairly early in Act One when the protagonist blows up his own house in order to kill a deadly mythical creature pursuing him. I was wishing I could be there when he gets around to explaining to the insurance adjusters what had happened.

The hero, Robert, is a high school teacher and language expert who transforms into an Indiana Jones clone as he and his allies jet from one ancient history site to another in search of clues to -- what else? -- the key to save humanity from a Biblical plague. Wait. Make that a pre-Biblical plague.

He does so with the help of Karen, his plucky teenage daughter, who has some kind of super-analytical skills that aren't really explained, and Jessica, a plucky operative of a super-secret paramilitary organization that labors outside of international law but somehow has the support of academics worldwide and seems to be intent on fighting the forces of evil. The fact that Jessica is a beautiful brunette who took her fashion sense from Catwoman gives this movie at least one leg up on similar Sci-Fi Channel fare.

My ultimate wish was that this was made as a comedy. That certainly must have been the conclusion of the closed-caption editors, who obviously had great fun. Several times every scene, when the pulsating soundtrack was turned up to explain motivation, the CC line was "music" -- flashing every 10 seconds. When Robert used his mystical amulet to try to break through an ancient Plexiglas barrier to save Jessica, the caption was "Bash, bash..." Indeed, this could be taken as a comedy until the last scene, when the climax unfolds in context of Ultimate Sacrifice. Certainly not the stuff of comedy.

This then, is the Riddle of the Riddles of the Sphinx. Is this a Disaster for the Ages or a misbegotten comedy of errant intent?

You be the judge.

Walker Payne (2006)

A cautionary tale -- for filmmakers

[5/10 · 28 August 2008]

I recommend "Walker Payne" as a good example of how story design can go wrong. This movie has a lot going for it: it has a better-than-average cast, with Jason Patric as the title character and the scene-stealing Sam Shepard as a slick grifter; it has high production values that create the late-1950s setting; and it has a compelling plot about a father trying to get his daughters away from his ex-wife amid the seamy world of dog-fighting. But the lesson -- an expensive one for the investors and producers here -- is that if you think your script might be in trouble, why not spend a little more for a script doctor? For one thing, there is a major problem with the motivations of one of the key characters and Walker's love interest, Audrey. Audrey at first makes such a convincingly prissy bank clerk that her transformation into a bar-hopping hussy is baffling. As the old saying goes, a person's IQ goes up 25 points when he walks into a movie theater and most viewers won't buy Audrey as a plausible character. Another old rule of thumb is that a movie that ends well will satisfy audiences even if the rest of it is a mess. This rule is demonstrated in Act Three. The major plot turn is when the chief antagonist, Walker's ex-wife, makes the big decision to leave their two young daughters behind, get on a bus and go off to nursing school. The big secret was that she was in cahoots with the Grifter to push Walker into entering his beloved canine, Brute, into one more big championship dog match -- a plot point that makes her character a co-protagonist as well as the chief antagonist. Walker's last Big Decision was at the start of the Act Three when he decided to enter that big match. Of course, that assumes that you will suspend your disbelief at the notion of a dog-fighting championship belt -- er, collar. At any rate, after Walkers' decision on that, things mostly happen to him. Indeed, he makes only two small decisions in Act Three: first, to drive his seriously injured dog home. But that fails when the dog dies and Walker, a parolee, is caught by the police and thrown in jail for a potentially long sentence. And then in jail, his young daughters come to visit him and he tells them he has given up their Great Dream to move to a house with a swimming pool and a swing set. The final action shot shows Audrey walking out of the jail hand-in-hand with Walker's daughters and his father figure (Bruce Dern). Together they face the future. But then there are shots of an old mine that had eventually been transformed by Mother Nature into a beautiful lakeside park where Walker and Audrey had enjoyed a romantic interlude back in Act Two. Then the credits role. And that leaves you asking what was the theme of this movie? Every writer and filmmaker knows that the theme must be shown on screen. A movie that leaves its audience scratching its head about the theme has committed the eighth deadly sin. Here, the protagonist has just suffered three huge downers: dead dog, jail time, and telling his kids he's a loser. Remember: a character suffering a series of devastating setbacks is a common comedy device. Here, when Audrey, Dern's character and the kids walk outside to face the future, we can only assume that Walker is back in his cell, hanging himself. In any event, this suggests the theme: "Don't be cruel to your dog because you will lose everything you hold dear." But the additional shot of the old mine that became a beautiful park suggests the theme "Time heals all wounds." A script doctor might have suggested, for instance, that the dog could die and Walker escape the police. Then he recovers his children when the ex-wife leaves town. Or the dog survives and he gets arrested, and the girls nurse the dog back to health while Walker does his time and Audrey takes them in. Either way, Walker gets his kids and learns his lesson not to be cruel to his dog. But time heals all wounds? That theme could only work if there were a framing device of one of the daughters narrating the opening and closing by looking back at the events as an adult. I think that's why the resolution of "Walker Payne" doesn't work -- and why viewers have given it such a low rating. Still and all, it's an excellent cautionary lesson in film-making: a potentially good idea went to photography with a strong cast and a good production-design budget, but sank because of a lack of hard work and imagination that should have gone into the story design. Amazing how many producers and directors make this same mistake over and over.

Opal Dream (2006)

Story of reconciliation

[6/10 · 9 June 2008]

Screened on DVD June 8, 2008

It's a warm holiday season in the South Australia mining town of Coober Pedy, and for the Williamson family, festivities are juggled around nine-year-old Kellyanne's devotion to her invisible playmates, Pobby and Dingan, and her dad, Rex's, single-minded pursuit of the perfect opal.

The hypnotic gems possess a dangerous allure, as the girl's brother, Ashmol, says in his framing narration to "Opal Dream." Everybody comes to the place to dream -- presumably about a better life somewhere -- as they dig for opals. The more you dream, the deeper you want to dig, but if you dig too deep, you might never get out -- never wake up, he says.

For the Williamsons, the town offers dreams and not much else. Rex hopes to strike it rich for his wife, Annie, and their kids. But after a year in town, they don't have much. Rex needs a bit of luck at the races to afford the kids' Christmas presents.

Moving to Coober Pedy has taken the hardest toll on Kellyanne, for whom Pobby and Dingan are two very real people, and she shares with everyone her enthusiasm for her friends' artistic, gentle, natures. "They're pacifists," she explains.

Her teacher says Kellyanne has a vivid imagination but she's a dreamer who doesn't have many friends -- "she doesn't find people very easy." When Rex complains about Pobby and Dingan, Annie points out that they're as real as opals are to him.

Rex has his share of more tangible problems. He has relocated after an apparently minor brush with the law, and he finds himself in a community of narrow-minded ruffians who don't coddle to "ratters" -- blokes that come around at night and noodle around your claim for highly prized colored opals.

Adapted from a Ben Rice novel, "Pobby and Dingan," the movie "Opal Dream" is the story of Rex's reconciliation with his new town and his growing family as two crises unfold.

It all starts off innocently. In a clumsy but well-meaning attempt to wean his daughter off Pobby and Dingan, Rex offers to take the amorphous pair along to the mines with him and Ashmol while she and Mom go to a holiday party. Kellyanne agrees, but when he comes home without her unseen sidekicks, Kellyanne talks him into going back to look for them. When he does, the bloke at a nearby mine discovers Rex on his claim and calls the cops.

Rex is soon headed to a hearing to face mining violation charges. Worse, the whole town turns on the family: Annie loses her job at a grocery store and, when Ashmol goes for a bike ride, he finds a rat swinging from the handlebars left by a gang of jeering kids. Again, Kellyanne gets the worst of it -- without Pobby and Dingan around, she falls ill and, to the bafflement of her doctors, steadily deteriorates.

The way the reconciliation is achieved carries the story satisfactorily through Act III. But the climax and resolution are squeezed together so tightly that the outcome for all the characters can only be described as ambiguous, especially for poor Kellyanne, whose actions were only the metaphor for her family's isolation.

Director Peter Cattaneo's production has an outstanding cast throughout, particularly the Williamson clan. Production values are excellent. Newcomer Sapphire Boyce is a strikingly beautiful child.

Jacqueline (1956)

She's cute, spunky and saves her family

[6/10 · 3 June 2008]

(Screened on TCM, May 29, 2008)

It's another hard day on the job for Mike McNeil, who sways unsteadily as he fits a mast high in the air above a shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The shipyard owner, Mr. Lord, takes notice and upbraids the luckless lad, blaming booze for his troubles. Sure enough, when the whistle blows to end his shift, Mike heads straight to the pub, downs two double shots of whiskey -- and orders two more.

These are not happy times for Mike and the same goes for his wife, Elizabeth, and children, Michael and Jacqueline, in the family melodrama "Jacqueline." Mike's life is bearable thanks to the apple of his eye. He dotes lavish love and attention on Jacqueline and she returns it in spades. She stands up to the neighborhood kids who gather around Mike to jeer and taunt him when he staggers home after from the pub. At school, she's spurned by classmates when she spins improbably tall tales, not the least of which is that her Daddy never touches a drop. From the perspective of half a century later, we would say she's over-compensating to boost her self-esteem.

In the end, she proves she can stick to Daddy's side through thick and thin and clears the way for his redemption. She even takes a pledge of her own -- to stop stretching the truth. Mike's obstacles are the bane of many a family man – at least every Irish family man: he's tempted to drink at risk of job and family. Audiences will have little doubt all these pitfalls await poor Mike before he and daughter manage to work things out.

In "Jacqueline," Roy Don Baker, the noted British director, works with a marvelous cast but somehow can't wring much of an emotional punch from the script by the credited group of writers. Scenes that unfold around celebrations marking the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II neatly time-stamp this as a slice of everyday working-class life in Belfast in 1953; instructive, but as an effort to capture the universal human condition, this movie falls sadly short.

Robert Osborne's brief commentary after a recent airing on TCM indicated that even Baker wasn't very happy with this picture because he had to step in for another director late in the game, and apparently there was a problem getting the largely Catholic cast to portray Protestant characters. For whatever reason, the crises that develop in "Jacqueline" are too thinly sketched.

We learn that Mike (John Gregson) is unhappy in the city because he's a good cattleman but jobs on the farm are scarce. Alas, who wouldn't be driven to drink because he'd rather muck stalls and deliver calves than punch a clock and struggle with dangerous ship-rigging? Aside from that powerful thirst, Mike's chief antagonist is his mother-in-law, Mrs. McMullen (Josephine Fitzgerald), who not only encourages her daughter to leave her husband, but also tries to set her up with the well-off bachelor who used to be sweet on the girl. In Ireland, all's fair in love, war and motherly meddling.

But the great problem here is that the characters don't seem to be under much great tension. Alas, great tension requires comic relief and there's little of that too.

One of the main subplots is son Michael's ambition to get into prep school, and Mike's actions make him seem almost callously indifferent toward the boy. At the same time, we see that the family is three weeks behind the rent and a good chunk of the budget goes to support Mr. McNeil's weakness, but there's still enough in the sugar bowl to provide Jacqueline with a closet full of pretty, fashionable frocks.

The title character is Jacqueline Ryan, the daughter in real life of actress Kathleen Ryan, who plays the Mom, Elizabeth. Kathleen is a very attractive woman and here she infuses effervescence into her role that doesn't quite match the tone audiences might expect. As for Jacqueline-the-actress in her only film credit on this website, she was certainly a cute 9- or 10-year-old in her blonde Buster Brown-style cut, but she doesn't bring much poise to Jacqueline-the-character. In a pivotal scene in which she has to sweet-talk the stern Mr. Lord (the era's ubiquitous Liam Redmond) into giving Daddy a break, little Jackie literally keeps dropping her drawers to bring in the subtext that she's using her feminine wiles to bend the old man to her will. Angela Cartwright would have done the job with a wink, a wiggle and a coo.

Still, the movie is worth watching on many levels. Film students can imagine how the script and production could have been beefed up to endow this with a stronger spine and make it vastly more rewarding. And then there's the cultural setting: This reviewer's wife is an Irish girl (folks from Clare and Tipperary) and he thinks anybody who enjoys watching cute Irish girls and their family dynamics will get a lot out of "Jacqueline."

Sleepwalking (2008)

Coming-of-Age Story With a Twist

[7/10 · 15 March 2008]

One night, Joleen Reedy's boyfriend is arrested in a drug raid, so she and her 12-year-old daughter Tara move in with her somewhat slow-witted brother, James.

Soon, Joleen follows her heart down the highway with a long-distance trucker, and when James loses his job and Tara starts missing school, it's not long before Child Protective Services shows up and Tara goes off to a group foster home.

This is a movie about coming of age. And, as the story develops in Act II, we have every right to believe this is Tara's story. She talks her uncle James into learning to drive, pushes him into searching for Joleen, and finally convinces him to help her take a hiatus from the group home. And so they hit the road. Along the way, they stop at a motel where she wakes up one night bathed symbolically in red light, and the next morning at poolside, she's squirming seductively for the benefit of a pair of adolescent boys who watch in fascination.

Eventually, their journey takes them to James' boyhood home, the ranch to which Joleen said she would not return in a million years. Why did she say that? The answer comes when James and Tara experience profound abuse from his father, a tough old rancher played by Dennis Hopper.

This is when the viewers will realize that this is James' story, because he does what he must to vindicate what must have been the horrific upbringing he and his sister endured.

"Sleepwalking" is put over with excellent performances, notably Nick Stahl's James, who grows into a man able to rise to the occasion when it's time to carve out a destiny from the wreckage of his past. Charlize Theron convincingly inhabits another fascinating character from the seamy side, showing glowing embers of yearning that burst into passion. And Hopper chews scenery entertainingly as the abusive rancher. The supporting cast is uniformly strong.

But the star of this show is AnnaSophia Robb, who makes Tara a child who realizes she needs to shed any air of fragility to press on with the quest to reunite with her mother. Driving past a message board flashing an Amber Alert with her name on it only steels Tara's determination to succeed.

This is an excellent example of a script that turns into an independent film that draws an excellent cast and, when it hits the screen, does a good job of telling a good story and telling it well.

It should also be noted that AnnaSophia Robb is growing to be an actress not only of exceptional skill, but of extraordinary beauty.

Pollyanna (1960)

Monumental Hollywood Injustice

[5 February 2008]

This film was made during an era in which work by juvenile actors was treated with shameful condescension. Here, Haley Mills was given a special "Juvenile Oscar" for her performance as the title character. Watch this and see her hold her own against several outstanding adult actors. Better yet, watch this movie and "Butterfield 8" back-to-back as I did a few years ago and see which leading lady did the better work. Elizabeth Taylor won the Oscar that year for Best Actress, but it is clear now that Mills deserved that Oscar. Back then, the Academy could toss a sop to a child actor with impunity. It's too bad that Oscars can't be re-awarded after 50 years to adjust obvious cases of injustice. The test of time and popular appeal have proved that Mills was in fact the most outstanding actress of 1960. The highest praise one can give Taylor for "Butterfield 8" was that she obviously phoned in her performance because that's what the role demanded. Hogwash. Taylor's Oscar that year was a sympathy award for a glamorous queen of the box office who had had "health" problems. The little girl would just have wait.

Iris (2004)

Passion in a Time of War

[6/10 · 3 February 2008]

Iris (Silke), a beautiful young photographer, flees an unhappy marriage and returns to her mother in a village in Spain. The Spanish Civil War is raging and this is a time when life often dangles by a thread. Iris's story is shaped by the twists of fate during armed conflict and the choices she makes as she tries to follow her heart. When capricious violence claims Iris's mother (Jesusa Andany) and the young woman takes refuge with others in a shelter during a bombing attack, she also takes comfort in the arms of Oscar, a handsome doctor (Gines Garcia Millan). She builds a new life in her childhood village, embarking on a passionate love affair with Oscar and forging a fateful relationship with Magdelena (Ana Torrent), a young nurse at his hospital. Iris enjoys but a brief season of relative peace and happiness, however, as her worlds collide. Her ex-husband, Julian, reappears briefly about the same time her new husband is called away to treat wounded -- and never returns. The old husband heeds the call to arms, and when Iris gives birth to her daughter,Agata, Julian's mother, Rosario (Martirio) enters the story to assert her parental rights, contending that a divorce never occurred. Iris' attempt to resist only results in unhappy legal complications under a system that regards adultery as a crime. Iris's struggles to reunite with her daughter (Aida de la Cruz as a child, Merce Pons as an adult), and to find Oscar become a trans-generational quest as she tries to fulfill her heart's destiny. This production, directed by Rosa Verges, is put over with earnest performances from a strong cast, but staging of key plot points is awkward, bordering on amateurish. Most American viewers, for instance, probably will cringe at the demise of Iris' mother. And the scenes showing the raging passion between Oscar and Iris seem overplayed to the point that they make the final resolution feel as if it oddly misfires. Even so, Silke is radiant in the title role and Torrent, as Iris's loyal friend, speaks volumes with her extraordinary eyes. Aida de la Cruz is enchanting as the young Agata.