Movie Critic

Silent Running

2009-12-14T16:30:00.006Z

Silent Running; Science-fiction drama, USA, 1972; D: Douglas Trumbull, S: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Riffkin

In the far future, on Earth there is no unemployment, no diseases, no hunger, but also no plant life after global ecocide. Orbiting Saturn, the last few examples of plant and animal life are preserved in greenhouse domes attached to spaceships. Astronauts in the spaceship all detract the forest, but environmentalist Freeman Lowell genuinely cares for the flora and fauna. After they receive the orders to destroy all domes in an explosion, Lowell rebels, kills one colleague and fools the superiors by lying that the ship has a malfunction. He flies with the spaceship away from Saturn into space and spends many lonely days with the 3 small robots. After his superiors find him, he blows himself up with a bomb, while his last robot remains on the last dome watering the plants.

One of the first, if not the first environmentalist film ever made, cult science-fiction drama “Silent Running” again started to emerge from the ‘archive’ after directors of films “Wall-E” and “Moon” quoted it as their inspiration, complimenting the character development and honest promotion of ecological awareness. Just like “Nausicaa” and “Soylent Green”, this film shows the apocalyptic future as a warning to the viewers of what we have today in nature and that it needs to be protected from ecocide, and thanks to Trumbull’s skills the small budget is used nicely to make the execution of the screenplay plausible, whereas the modest special effects are surprisingly good, giving some unusual images, like Lowell walking across his greenhouse, passing by the window in the background where Saturn can be seen in orbit or when he uses a telescope to look at Earth from his spaceship. The first half where Lowell’s astronaut colleagues don’t share his enthusiasm and even disdain the last remaining plant and animal life in the dome is incredibly electrifying stuff, not only because of the ‘green’ message, but also because of the symbolism about how modern generation have no respect of past cultures or traditions, so it seems very fitting that the hero would rebel to save the plants. However, the second half is weaker and deflates, since it just shows Lowell alone in the refugee spaceship, talking only to his three mute robots, which some have characterized as a welcomed shift from the preachy, while others have found overstretched and feeble ‘kammerspiel’. An interesting and valuable little film with a sad, haunting ending.

Grade:+++

What Lies Beneath

2009-12-13T13:25:00.004Z

What Lies Beneath; Horror-thriller, USA, 2000; D: Robert Zemeckis, S: Michelle Pfeiffer, Harrison Ford, Diana Scarwid, Miranda Otto, James Remar

Claire wakes up from a bathtub. She dreamt of a dead woman on the bottom of the sea. But strange things continue to happen: doors open, candles turn out, on a foggy mirror letter "MEF" show up, there's a spectrum of a woman...Claire's husband, Norman, tells her she needs to go treat herself, but he is actually the cause of everything. He namely slept with a student, Mary Elisabeth Frank, and killed her, throwing her body in the sea. When Claire senses that, he tells her it was all an accident. He tranquillizes her with a medicament and puts her in a bathtub filling with water. But the ghost scares Norman who trips and thus Claire is able to run to the car. Norman follows her and the car ends in the sea with them. But the ghost catches Norman, who sinks, while Claire swims up.

How could a director of so many excellent films like Robert Zemeckis fall for such a low product in his career? Truly, without the two stars, the film would seem more like some cheap B-horror. Yet the audiences weren't so picky and flocked to the cinemas, making "What Lies Beneath" eventually the 5th most commercial film in the year 2000. The biggest problem of the film is the banal screenplay and lack of style or some creative highlights, which is why it seems like some copy of "Poltergiest" and "Sleeping with the Enemy" that reaches for cheap scares (sudden music; sudden appearance of someone; loud sounds...) equipped with explicit violence. Harrison Ford makes an interesting debut as a bad guy and is, together with Pfeiffer's performance, the best part of the flick. Some also lamented about the ending, but it's the only part of the film where Zemeckis achieved a firm grip of the story and discovered an excellent Hitchcockian strength, but it's no use by that time since 90 % of the film has already turned average.

Grade:+

Contact

2009-12-13T12:51:00.008Z

Contact; Science-fiction drama, USA, 1997; D: Robert Zemeckis, S: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett

Scientist Ellie Arroway is strongly convinced that aliens exist, because, as she said herself: "If we are alone in the Universe, then it's a huge waste of space". After her father dies, she starts working at the SETI program at a Observatory. One day, they are surprised when they get a signal from the star Vega, which contains the first TV signal that left Earth, the '36 Olympics in Berlin - but also cryptic signals about how to build a space travel machine. The whole World's reaction is mixed regarding the whole issue. Ellie is chosen to be the pilot in the vehicle that travels through a wormhole - but there she only sees the projection of her father, a human form of the alien who tells her that this is only the first step of human contact with extraterrestrial life. When she returns, it turns out that she was only missing for 2 seconds.

Robert Zemeckis' first film after his most famous achievement, "Forrest Gump", wasn't so directed towards emotions and hypnotic awe which is why it earned far less and gained less critical acclaim than the above mentioned film. But "Contact", an adaptation of the novel with the same title by Carl Sagan, is a very thought provoking film that is so interesting because it never for a second shows how the aliens may look like, but instead just depicts how people around the World would react upon discovering that they are not alone in the Universe. The film starts out with a brilliant opening shot of the movie camera in space traveling away from Earth, while the further it goes to the edges of our Solar system, the older the music that can be heard in the background, since it shows how much time it takes for Earth's signals to reach to Pluto and beyond. The screenplay crafted an real odditorium of events on Earth, from the Larry King show up Tom Skerritt's character meeting Bill Clinton (president of the US at that time), yet the whole thing is done with measure. The special effects are quiet and subtle, mostly used only towards the end when Jodie Foster's character takes a journey in the alien designed vehicle, when the film, just like so many science-fiction films, again seems to share-borrow some things from Kubrick's "Odyssey". A long, but brave, philosophical achievement.

Grade:+++

Back to the Future

2009-12-12T12:46:00.005Z

Back to the Future; Science-fiction comedy, USA, 1985; D: Robert Zemeckis, S: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Claudia Wells, George DiCenzo

1985. Marty McFly is a normal teenager who is ashamed for his father George who is always taunted and terrorized by his neighbor Biff. Marty works for scientist Doc Brown and one night enters his time machine, in the shape of a car, in order to escape from some Lybian terrorists. Speeding to 88 miles per hour, Marty accidentally makes a time travel back to 1955. There he meets the young Doc, but also his teenage mother, Lorraine, who falls in love with him. With a little bit of luck, he manages to match his mom and dad and with Doc's help return back to 1985 - where now George is in charge and Biff is a wimp.

Excellent comedy "Back to the Future" surprisingly became one of the movie icons of the 80s thanks to a simple, fun and elegant story that philosophically plays with the notions of destiny and coincidence, proving how high art and fun don't necessarily have to be two separate things. The film was nominated for 4 Golden Globes and it's unbelievable that Michael J. Fox didn't won as best actor in a musical or comedy for his amazing performance, yet he did manage to win the Saturn Award whereas the the film also won an Oscar for best Sound effects. Although relaxed, the movie as a whole is filled with irresistible situations (for instance, in his getaway from the Lybian terrorists, Marty speeds in the time machine car and accidentally transports himself in 1955; in a cafe he accidentally sits by his future dad, George, so they both turn their heads when Biff shouts: "Hey, McFly!"; Marty's future mother falls in love with him (!) when she nurtures him while he is in his underwear in her bed) and "subtle ambitiousness", while the soundtrack is full of love for the 50s culture and songs ("Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)"). So many time travel films trip over their own feet and mess everything up, but this is one of those rare instances where a time traveling storyline was so meticulously constructed that everything works in wonderful harmony, especially in the perfect end that humorously shows an "change" in the relationship between George and Biff in the present. The only question that remains unanswered is how the film would have looked like if Eric Stoltz starred in it, as originally intended, before he was replaced by Fox.

Grade:+++

Back to the Future Part II

2009-12-12T11:42:00.012Z

Back to the Future Part II; Science-fiction comedy, USA, 1989; D: Robert Zemeckis, S: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue, Lea Thompson

After the exciting events in the 1st film, Doc Brown uses his now flying time machine-car to bring Marty McFly and his girlfriend Jennifer into the year 2015, where Marty's son made such an incident that it ruined his whole family. Thus, Marty disguises himself as his future son and turns down a shady deal from Biff's grandson, the juvenile Griff and his gang, who crash in the city hall and get arrested. After that, Marty and Doc have to save Jennifer who accidentally found herself in her future home. But the Biff from the future secretly uses the machine to travel back to 1955 and give his younger version a magazine that predicts all sport bets until 2015. Returning back to the present, Marty and Doc find the evil Biff now wealthy. They return back to 1955 and destroy the sports magazine. But Doc's machine gets hit by a lightning bolt and sent to 1885.

Some things are better left alone. "Back to the Future" was a great little film with heart that, as Robert Zemeckis himself admitted, wasn't intended to have a sequel, but the huge commercial success set some other priorities. Luckily though, even though it doesn't grasp the energy of the original, thanks to Zemeckis' talent he still managed to make the best out of it. "Back to the Future Part II" is surprisingly good and appealing in the first 30 minutes when it delivers the promise from its title and really shows a fascinating little glimpse of the future in 2015 with great design, technical innovations and amusing-sweet jokes (most notably when Marty goes to an 80s nostalgia bar where Michael Jackson's song "Beat it" plays in the background or when he spots a holograph promoting the film "Jaws 19"). The basic premise that continues the story from the first film is rubbish and contradicts the character of Doc in every way, since he would as a scientist never agree to "modify" Marty's future no matter what, let alone for such a feeble excuse to save his son from jail, yet thanks to dynamic direction and irresistible take at the future, the first third of the film works. We could almost feel sorry that a hoverboard won't be invented by 2015. The story sadly goes downhill when the characters leave the future and return to a changed, dark present where the evil Biff became rich: nothing in that part works, everything is pretentious and terrible, whereas the writers incredibly messed up the whole time traveling storyline until it became pointless. That segment is one excruciating "plot device" and is simply almost unwatchable. Still, Michael J. Fox is again in top-notch shape and at least the film is a solid shadow of the first one.

Grade:+

True Heart Susie

2009-12-07T17:56:00.009Z

True Heart Susie; Silent drama, USA, 1919; D: D. W. Griffith, S: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Clarine Seymour, Kate Bruce, Raymond Cannon

Susie is a young girl living in a small village. She is in love with her neighbor William who eagerly wants to apply for college, but doesn’t have any money. Thus, Susie sells her beloved cow Daisy and sends him money anonymously. He attends a city college and returns back to the village as a pastor, neglecting Susie. When he meets a wild city girl, Bettina, he falls in love with her. Susie tries to be like a city girl too, applying make up and wearing a fancy dress, but it’s no use: he marries Bettina. Bettina cheats on him and spends one night at a wild party, but since she forgot her key she staying out in the rain and caught a cold, until she came to Susie’s home. After Bettina dies from the flu, William wows to always stay faithful to her. But one day he finds out the truth and begs Susie to forgive him.

One of lesser films of D. W. Griffith, far away from the grasp of "Intolerance" or "The Birth of a Nation", “True Heart Susie” is easily watched, but not really memorable nor worthy of a status of a classic, except maybe for being a prototype of modern soap opera. Griffith portrays the innocent, gentle village heroine from the title so idealistically that she is practically elevated into a saint, while the city girl Bettina is so demonized that she almost turns into a black and white “bad guy”, yet the story is effectively told and runs so smoothly that it seems as if it was realistic. Except for Griffith’s skills even during standard stories, the stand-out virtue of the film is actress Lillian Gish who wonderfully plays the innocent heroine. "Susie" relays mostly on that charm from the silent movie era when even the most banal stories still seemed somehow fresh because it was the first time they were ever presented on the big screen, hence the best parts are when Griffith actually inserts some stronger directorial intervention, like the "foggy" dream sequence where William imagines his wife Bettina is going to cook for him and their life will be ideal at home, but right then the camera shifts to the "reality" where William is disappointed when she just serves him 'frozen dinner', looks messy and doesn't even seem to be happy to see him.

Grade:++

Family Plot

2009-12-06T12:44:00.006Z

Family Plot; Thriller comedy, USA, 1976; D: Alfred Hitchcock, S: Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, Karen Black

Blanche earns her money by pretending to be a spiritual medium. One day, a rich old lady, Julia, gives her the assignment to find her nephew Edward. Blanche's lover George starts the search, but only finds Edward's name on a tombstone. He later discovers that Edward is still alive, but is hidden by an auto mechanic. With a reason - Edward killed his father and with his wife Fran kidnapped numerous rich people to get ransom out of them, so he doesn't want to be found. Edward and Fran capture Blanche in the basement, but George releases her and instead captures them.

For his last achievement, Alfred Hitchcock allowed his fans a relaxed and casual comedy, "Family Plot", where he didn't hint that it would be his final show, especially since the story is so much tamer than his previous film, "Frenzy", his most uncompromising thriller. At first confusing, "Family Plot" later skillfully blended two stories into one - George is searching for Edward to bring him the happy news about inheritance, but Edward doesn't want to be found because he became a kidnapper in the meantime - and has a few sympathetic jokes, like when Blanche, a fake medium, is changing her voice in order to fool her clients. Likewise, the screenplay by Ernest Lehman has some good details, like when George discovers that Edward and Harry apparently died simultaneously, but that one tombstone is, surprisingly, younger than the other. Some real sharpness and virtuoso touch wouldn't have been expletive, but the film's running time runs smoothly and the "interrupted" ending is real Hitchcock's trademark. And yet, when one looks at those end credits, it's hard not to think what Hitchcock would have directed if he was alive today.

Grade:++

Frenzy

2009-12-06T11:40:00.007Z

Frenzy; Thriller, UK, 1972; D: Alfred Hitchcock, S: Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Anna Massey

London is ravaged by a serial-killer who strangles women after raping them. A sloppy, seamy man with a moustache, Richard Blaney, gets fired from working in a bar so his friend Bob offers him money, but he refuses. Richard goes to his ex-wife Barbara, but she gets killed by the "tie killer" - Bob. Now the police thinks that Richard is the perpetrator, so he hides at his girlfriend's place. When she also gets killed by Bob, Richard starts investigating himself. Bob frames him and Richard lands in jail. There he escapes and together with a police officer finds Bo in an apartment with a dead wife.

With time, legendary Alfred Hitchcock made more and more shocking films, breaking the taboos he couldn't in the 30s and 40s. When once asked in a TV interview, just a few years before his death: "If you could direct one more last film, what would it be?", he replied with: "Sex". After three shaky films in a row, he returned to shape with his penultimate, strong thriller, "Frenzy", that came as close as possible of him showing whatever he could uncensored, but with a right dose of direction (for instance, in the opening, the London's mayor is holding a speech in front of his public, announcing how he will "clean up the river", but just then a corpse of a naked woman floats at the shore). The story is refined in twisting the cliches upside down: at first, the viewers presume that the serial-killer is the sloppy character Richard, a man with a moustache, because he is unpleasant, crude and aggressive, whereas the polite blond Bob is innocent. And thus it comes as a real surprise some 30 minutes into the film that Bob is actually the killer, since "the first look is deceiving". The whole setting of London in the 70s isn't quite Hitchcock's style, but his humor is always spot-on (a matchmaking agency matched a woman and a man who are both "passionate beekeepers"; the running gag of the inspector's wife bad cooking) and some sequences are genius, like the one where Bob can't get his needle out of a corpse's fist, so he breaks its fingers into a straight posture. An ostentative, intelligent thriller. It was nominated for 4 Golden Globes: best motion picture - drama, director, screenplay and score.

Grade:++

Topaz

2009-12-06T11:18:00.009Z

Topaz; Thriller, USA, 1969; D: Alfred Hitchcock, S: Frederick Stafford, Karin Dor, John Vernon, Michel Piccoli, Claude Jade

The high ranking KGB agent Boris Kusenov leaves Cuba together with his wife and daughter in order to escape to Denmark, and then to the US where he tells the Americans Soviet secrets. French agent Andre Devereaux gets the assignment to investigate that. With the help of a reporter, Phillipe, he gets a hold of a secret Soviet plan about arming Cuba. He goes to Cuba and takes photos of secret rockets, but because of that his lover Juanita gets murdered. Returning to the USA, Andre discovers that French ambassadors Henri and Jacques work as spies for the Soviets. Henri dies while Jacques escapes.

Hitchcock's 51st film, "Topaz" caught the old master of wrong foot, but non-the-less he still managed to squeeze more material from it than some other bad director would have. This way some sequences are truly brilliant, like the one without a sound in a hermetic glasshouse where hero Andre talks with the reporter Phillipe or the one where Phillipe and Uribe get discovered by a Cuban leader when stealing secret plans from him in a room, and occasionally Hitchcock's humorous touch shows up (a Cuban soldier spots two seagulls in the sky carrying sandwiches), yet they are only small crumbs of pleasure. By taking the complicated story set in the background of the Cold War era, Hitchcock made an untypical, stiff and overstretched spy thriller of "James Bond" format. A conventional film with strange acting and schematic dramaturgy that didn't manage to ignite that cinema spark.

Grade:+

Marnie

2009-12-05T11:57:00.005Z

Marnie; Drama, USA, 1964; D: Alfred Hitchcock, S: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Martin Gabel, Diane Baker

An angry boss in a company is horrified when he concludes that the secretary, Marion, stole from the safe. But Marion's real name is Marnie and she lives with her mother. Due to kleptomania, she again applies for a job of a secretary, but this time at the rich Mark, and again steals from the safe. When Mark catches her, he forces her to marry him in exchange for not notifying the police. She quickly discovers that Marnie has a complex inherited way back from her childhood, so he brings her to her mother. There he discover the truth: her mother was a prostitute who had an argument with a client, so Marnie killed him when she was a child.

Alfred Hitchcock, who with time got more and more untrammelled, shocked the producers with the way he planned to film the intercourse between the title heroine and Mark: "I want him to stick it into her and the camera to film her facial expression during it!" The above mentioned scene, after a compromise, in the end looks like this: Mark disrobes Marnie naked (though her intimate parts are never shown), the camera follows her head in close-up while she is lying on the pillow, there's a close-up of his eye, the camera turns away towards the window. Though, it still looks quite daringly intimate for its time, which is exactly what Hitchcock was aiming at in the story. However, despite that fact that it contains all the typical calligraphy of the master (Hitchcock himself has a cameo 5 minutes into the film as a man exiting the hallway), "Marnie" is still a slightly disappointing film about the complexes and trauma from the childhood and, especially fascinating, about the frigidity of the heroine. It is a clever idea that whenever Marnie sees red color, which reminds her of blood, the whole screen becomes red, yet the whole story is overstretched and unfocused, sometimes even clumsy. Especially unconvincing is the final flashback of her childhood, though some critics consider it one of Hitchcock's more neglected, psychological films.

Grade:++

The Birds

2009-12-05T11:29:00.006Z

The Birds; Drama/ Horror, USA, 1963; D: Alfred Hitchcock, S: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright

The daughter of a millionaire, Melanie, is constantly bored. In a bird store, she notices lawyer Mitch and decides to follow him to Bodega Bay in her car with two "lovebirds". Their potential relationship is disrupted, however, when birds suddenly start attacking the city's inhabitants. Hundreds of birds attack during a children's party and the highlight is when the students have to run away from school while followed by aggressive crows. Mitch saves Melanie and they hide in a house. When exiting, the birds suddenly return to normal and let them pass.

"The Birds" stayed remembered as a horror though it would be much more accurate to characterize it as an experimental film about nature gone wild, and thus in compliance with that it's slightly unjust that the most famous sequence remained the one where the crows quietly, slowly gather around on the playground behind Melanie's back, instead of the more dramatic one in which Mitch jokingly talks to her abut how he read in the newspapers that she was naked in a fountain in Rome. For the whole first hour, the movie is a quiet, almost romantic drama with many stand-out moments, especially the comical one where love struck Melanie secretly places lovebirds in Mitch's house, while in the second half the attack of the birds shows up, which can be interpreted the appearance of irrational hate (war, racism, prejudice...) that wrecks the idyllic state or as a reaction to the superficial nature of the characters. Directing birds and making them seem menacing was a tough task, but Alfred Hitchcock did it with ease which is why the suspense always seems plausible and haunts the human fear of the revenge of the polluted nature. Especially amusing are the dialogues which speculate how many billions of birds live in the US alone. The story is anamorphic and has flaws, but since Hitchcock is simply a master, then "The Birds" are also a valuable film.

Grade:+++

Walter Defends Sarajevo

2009-12-04T16:30:00.007Z

Valter brani Sarajevo; War action, BiH, 1972; D: Hajrudin Krvavac, S: Velimir ‘Bata’ Živojinović, Rade Marković, Ljubiša Samardžić, Neda Spasojević, Pavle Vujisić

World War II is looming its end. Faced with heavy defeats in the war, the army of the Third Reich plans to move from Sarajevo to Višegrad in order to pick up enough fuel for a retreat from the occupied Yugoslavia. But for quite some time a resistance fighter, known only as Valter, has been causing them headaches. In order to stop him from endangering their operation, the Third Reich sends a spy, Conrad, who will play the fake Valter, gather enough partisans and their trust and ultimately lead them into a trap. But the courageous Valter isn’t fooled that easily – he and his two pals disguise themselves as a German train conductors, and ruin their plan by stealing and destroying the train.

“Walter Defends Sarajevo” surprisingly became one of the most popular films from the former Yugoslavia thanks to the fact that it was hugely popular in China, where it was re-run dozens of times on national television. The legendary scene where one Nazi officer asks the other one to finally show him who the mysterious Walter is, and he shows him the whole city of Sarajevo from a hill and tells him: “This is Walter!” was turned into such a famous viral video that it was edited and modified numerous times during the elections in some countries of the former Yugoslavia. But other than that legendary scene, there is little else to be shown in the rest of the film. It’s a standard cheap partisan film, which means propaganda that offers some good parts at best. Velimir ‘Bata’ Živojinović is good as the title hero, yet the only clever moment that his role offered was the one where he disguises himself in a Nazi uniform to fool the Nazi spy into telling him secret information, while the rest is just your run-of-the-mill cheap action and fighting that seems as if came from Bollywood. The stale story still has to be congratulated, though, for avoiding the black and white cliches about Germans and actually showing them realistically rational and human. Humourless, campy, overlong and amateurish, with some blunders that are too obvious (in one scene, you can see a woman in a short skirt, even though the story is suppose to be set during World War II) and a dated Yugoslav ideology, “Walter” is non-the-less still a solid partisan film that has charm, even if it was just based on pure nostalgia values, and a sweet harmonic score which is why it enjoys cult status.

Grade:+

The Secret Agent

2009-12-03T16:14:00.005Z

The Secret Agent; Thriller comedy, UK, 1936; D: Alfred Hitchcock, S: John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, Robert Young

World War I. A British officer is surprised when he reads in the newspaper that he supposedly died from flu, but the head of the British intelligence explains him that it was done to make him a secret agent. Given a new name, Ashenden, he is sent to a Swiss town to discover a German spy who plans to turn the Arabs against the British in the war. Upon arriving to his hotel, he is pleasantly surprised that he was also equipped with a fake wife, Elsa, and a sloppy agent, the General. After the General kills a man suspected to be the spy on a mountain who turns out to have been innocent, Elsa decides to quit her job. She leaves with womanizer Marvin, but he turns out to be the spy. In a train crash, Marvin and the General die, while Ashenden and Elsa fall in love.

Following the success of his classic “The 39 Steps”, Alfred Hitchcock crafted a similar film “follow-up” that again impresses with a meticulous blend of thriller and comedy, elegant style and old-school narration that even tops the previous movie in the first half. John Gielgud may be an odd choice for the hero – some critics complained so much about his casting that he hasn’t appeared in a next film for almost 17 years – yet the exposition is so spot-on, so crammed with energy that it brings down the house: from the amusing opening at the fake funeral where a butler tries to pick up the empty coffin with one hand and Ashenden’s protests as to why he was reported “dead” up to the hilarious moment where he, entering his job as a secret agent, discovers he was given a secret identity – equipped with an attractive wife. When his fellow secret agent “the General” (Peter Lorre) discovers that, he starts a comical protest in anger because he “hasn’t been appointed with a wife” too. The film may be “Hitchcock light”, but it does carry all of his trademarks. Actually, if the suspenseful sequence on the mountain and the dog was just a little bit longer, it could have been one of the best from the “master of suspense”. “The Secret Agent” really does end too abruptly – it needed at least one more suspenseful moment before the end to work fully – but there is simply no way it won’t please the audience on the lookout for a classic with taste.

Grade:++

Kimagure Orange Road

2009-11-29T11:26:00.011Z

Kimagure Orange Road; Animated fantasy romantic comedy series, Japan, 1987; D: Osamu Kobayashi, S: Toru Furuya, Hiromi Tsuru, Eriko Hara, Michie Tomizawa, Chieko Honda, Naoko Matsui

Teenager Kyosuke Kasuga moved with his family 7 times already because he and his sisters Kurumi and Manami posses “the power”, i.e. telekinetic abilities. Their father, a photographer, is on the other hand “normal”. In school, Kyosuke falls in love with the rebellious Ayukawa Madoka, but decides to lead a spare relationship with another girl who already fell in love with him, Hikaru, since he doesn’t want to break her heart. Ayukawa finds a part time job as a waitress in ABCB café while Kyosuke goes through numerous adventures with her. In the end, Kyosuke and Ayukawa kiss.

Sometimes the viewers are waiting for years and years for a new story to be filmed that would encompass a theme precisely they want and that would look as if it was made just for them. But they don’t know that often such a story was already made in the past, except that they don’t know about it. Yet, even though it’s from the past, when you look at it for the first time, it seems new. “ Kimagure Orange Road” is an anime Coelacanth, a forgotten jewel that almost nobody knows of, but a one which can be found in the long list of past ‘archeological’ anime. The animation is rather dated and some will find the hero’s flip-flop between two girls contrived, but in any other way the story would quickly end and wouldn’t develop the way it does, turning into a quiet delight. In one amusing episode at the beginning, Kyosuke wants to use his “power” to score during a basketball game so that he could impress Ayukawa, but then decides it wouldn’t “be honest” and thus plays normally, eventually losing in the game. Later, while sitting alone in the stadium, he thinks about his dilemma and nonchalantly uses his “power” to throw the ball across the whole stadium into the net – not knowing Hikaru accidentally saw him and fell in love when she saw that move, leaving it only to the viewer to realize and comprehend the irony of chance.

The story has wit: when Kyosuke forgets about his first date with Hikaru and comes too late to the place they were suppose to meet, he finds that she wrote her anger on the bulletin board, stating: “Kyosuke is a jerk!” Every time an author incorporates fantasy elements into a fairly straight looking story, he/she better have a good point for it, not to make it look as if it was there without any reason. Here, though, that concept – Kyosuke having telekinetic abilities – was exploited nicely when he, occasionally, wants the mill to “run his way” for a change: when Hikaru wants to take him to the ABCB café, he immediately wants to stop it because of fear that Ayukawa, who works there, will regard them as a couple. Alas, he uses the “power” to jam the door so that Hikaru won’t be able to open it and they would stay there, whereas when they eventually do get out he uses his ability again humorously to keep stalling it – to make the train crossing signal turned on as long as possible, even though that causes a giant traffic jam.

In one hilarious scene, he even accidentally teleports himself naked in a car in front of a love couple. One of the sweetest romantic moments, though, comes so swiftly and light that it has universal appeal, both for fantasy and drama fans, in the episode where Ayukawa gave the main hero instructions and then secretly inserted possible test questions in the menu when he came to the ABCB café, which shows unprecedented care. Unfortunately, the show lost its way from episode 30 onwards since the authors started to trip too much over their own feet with far too many unnecessary time travelling/body switching episodes. Instead of being a romance, as it was at the start, the show eventually became just a collection of insane stories. And yet if one would have to circle out those rare examples of masterwork writing, then it can still be found here, in episodes 22 and 28, which are perfect. The series ends with a bang, a very unusual end that made as much right as much as it did wrong. Unassuming and clumsy, with sweet 80s flair and fantastic music, “Orange Road” reminds a lot of “Maison Ikkoku”, and even though it doesn’t reach the latter’s heights since it’s too mild and hits too many false notes, it is still a small romance classic. Even “Maison” made mistakes, but when it did, its mistakes still seemed so much better than the mistakes “Orange Road” did.

Grade:++

House on Haunted Hill

2009-11-29T11:03:00.005Z

House on Haunted Hill; Horror, USA, 1999; D: William Malone, S: Geoffrey Rush, Ali Larter, Taye Diggs, Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher, Jeffrey Combs

In an asylum, the patients started a mutiny, killed the sadistic doctor who performed experiments on them and set the building on fire. Some 60 years later, the eccentric tycoon Stephen Price constructed a mansion on the ruins of the asylum, for his wife Evelyn. Five people were invited to come to the mansion and spend the night: Sara, Eddie, Melissa, Donald and Pritchett. When they enter, metal bars prevent them to exit until tomorrow. Strange things start happening: Melissa disappears while Evelyn is found dead. But Evelyn just pretended and kills Donald. The ghosts capture everyone in the end, except Sara and Eddie who manage to escape.

Horror remake of an '59 original with the same title, "House on Hunted Hill" is originally directed, but in the end still a cliched sprout of its genre which is dramaturgically on thin ice that breaks more and more towards the ice. The story doesn't lack suspenseful scenes full of adrenaline, like in the exposition where the mad doctor is performing an operation on a patient who is still awake, but then gets stopped and killed by other patients, yet to complain a horror film that it's too suspenseful would be as if one would complain that a comedy is too funny. Still, "House" is just a sufficient achievement and nothing more whose greatest flaw are too many one-dimensional characters and cheap style. The best scenes are the ones in fast-forward loop, like the one of the arrival of a demon or a monitor on the camera where the protagonists are watching the disappearance of her colleague, yet humor and intelligence would have given the story more color.

Grade:+

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

2009-11-28T11:32:00.010Z

Gake no Ue no Ponyo; Animated fantasy adventure, Japan, 2008; D: Hayao Miyazaki, S: Hirko Doi, Yuria Nara, Tomoko Yamaguchi, Kazushige Nagashima

A fish-girl, Ponyo, who lives in father's Fujimoto underwater home, curiously swims to the shore of a port town where she is found and saved by a boy, Sosuke, who puts her in a can with water and brings her along to kindergarten. Ponyo gets retrieved back by Fujimoto, but decides she wants to be a human, grows arms and escapes to go back to Sosuke. That causes the flooding of the town. Sosuke and Ponyo go to search for Sosuke's mother Lisa. In the end, Fujimoto and the sea goddess agree to let Ponyo stay in human form.

One last time, the animation veteran Hayao Miyazaki again returned from retirement to direct his 10th and final film and deliver another pure anime jewel to the world. "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea", even though not Miyazaki's best achievement, is a return to his old shape and a spiritual successor to his "Kiki's Delivery Service" and almost all of the great animes he made in the 80s, his most creative phase. Unlike his last two films, "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Mowing Castle", where he went overboard with the phantasmagorical, here he kept a fantasy story with a measure, creating a gentle and wonderful film with a pure heart, and surprisingly addicting water fascination. A simple story (friendship between a boy and an unidentified fish-girl species) that mirrors "The Little Mermaid" became a likable base for a poetic film, filled with neat animation, great shot composition and humor that simply glides throughout. Some scenes are amusingly charming (after a flood hit the port town and placed it under water, fish can be seen swimming through its streets) while other are irresistibly charming (the enchanting moment where Ponyo hugs Sosuke so hard that it leaves a bruise on both of their faces). Innocent, sympathetic and harmless, with a surreal ending that can be forgiven, "Ponyo" is a wonderful relaxed fun that leaves a load of positive energy.

Grade:+++

The Samurai

2009-11-28T10:43:00.005Z

Le Samouraï; Crime-drama, France/ Italy, 1967; D: Jean-Pierre Melville, S: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier

Jeff Costello is a payed hitman who lives alone in an apartment with a bird in a birdcage. After an assignment, where he killed some club owner, he gets picked up by the police in a routine gathering of potential suspects. Even though he has an in advance prepared alibi from a hired prostitute, the Commissioner is certain he is the killer. Still, due to lack of evidence, he is released. Due to such a blunder, the mafia boss decides to kill Costello. Still, Costello kills him. He bonds with a singer in a night club and deliberately points with an empty gun towards her so that he gets shot by the police.

Director Jean-Pierre Melville - whose quote that "even the worse director can once make a great film" became famous - and his sad-melancholic-minimalistic crime drama "The Samurai" often get mention from critics at numerous occasions. It's a matter of an intelligent and calm film where the protagonist Costello, played by the famous Alain Delon, is not portrayed as a bad guy but as a lonely outsider, and, as the title suggests, as a "modern Samurai". Of course, as a realist, Melville never tries to "polish up" the bleak story: during the (only shown) assignment, when Costello meets his victim who asks for his name, he replies with: "It's not important" before he shoots him. There's a lack of that distinctive "coolness" factor and a surplus of pretentiousness, yet Melville leads the film economically whereas his cohesive low-key style is good.

Grade:+++

Spider-Man 3

2009-11-24T16:30:00.004Z

Spider-Man 3; Action fantasy drama, USA, 2007; D: Sam Raimi, S: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haiden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rosemary Harris, James Cromwell, Theresa Russell

When she gets fired due to bad acting, Mary Jane starts distancing herself from Peter Parker. An extraterrestrial symbiote merges with Peter who starts behaving darker and breaking the rules: he takes a dark Spider-Man costume, flirts with Grace and causes photographer Eddie to get fired. Marko, a convict who killed Peter’s uncle to get his money to pay for his sick daughter, falls in an accelerator and becomes Sandman, a robber who steals across town. Peter eventually gets himself rid from the symbiote, which lands on Eddie who transforms into Venom and teams up with Sandman. They kidnap Mary Jane, but Harry and Spider-Man team up and save her. Sandman and Venom die, Harry dies.

After Sam Raimi managed to “outsmart” the producers and raise the bar with the 2nd film, which amazed with rarely seen drama for a super-hero film, the expectations were high for “Spider-Man 3”, yet all the fans got was a cold shower since it turned out the creativity again lost the battle with the clichés. The film starts off promisingly, again featuring that refreshing drama when Peter Parker talks with his aunt May about how he plans to propose Mary Jane. But, just as he is driving in his motorcycle on the street, the film makes the first wrong step when he is picked up and dragged into the sky by the New Goblin/ Harry on his flying machine, which ends up in such a over-the-top fight between them across the city that not even Peter Griffin and that chicken from “Family Guy” would be ashamed off. The film simply has way too much “hero-gets-saved-in-the-nick-of-time” clichés, silly stunts and CGI overkill to carry it without a consequence. The only moment in that fight that makes the viewer stop in amazement is the one where Peter sets up a spider’s web across two walls that cause Harry to trip and fall on the ground – and get so seriously hurt that Peter has to call the ambulance. But then we find out he has – amnesia! Why the writers had to make up such absurd clichés can probably be explained by the fact that the producers invested a lot of money, and wanted a lot of crowd-pleasing moments to ensure themselves a success, among them forcing action sequences that don’t have any purpose at all.

The Sandman character is pure Marvel trash, yet at least Raimi puts a little ironic jab at the story when, after battling him, Peter takes off his Spider-Man mask, discovers his hair is full of sand, and just says to himself: “…Where do all this guys keep coming from?” Sandman, Venom, Mary Jane-Peter love relationship, Harry-Peter rivalry and an extraterrestrial symbiote that creates an evil Spider-Man – the story tried to cram 5 plots into one, but it just crashed over itself, whereas the storyline about Spider-Man battling with his evil self resembled at times too much to the one in “Superman 3”. Tobey Maguire is again in very good shape as the nerdy hero Peter, effortlessly doing many comical scenes that are a delight. Some even found his transformation into the “bad Spider-Man” being a political allegory about certain powerful politicians at that time who liked to “break the rules” and use “dirty” methods to achieve their goals. Though, again, the film went overboard with some of those “bad guy” moments: when Peter starts dancing at the night club to make Mary Jane jealous, it all seems plausible, but when he starts swinging on a Chandelier the whole thing turns into Bollywood. Still, even though it was dead-set at becoming wasted, the authors still inserted some ambitious details and complex drama that is food for thought, which makes the film a great topic of discussion. While standing in a queue, some guy once asked his friend: “Have you seen “Spider-Man 3”? The main actor cries for half of the film!” , which evidently shows that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill superhero series.

Grade:+

Spider-Man 2

2009-11-23T17:58:00.011Z

Spider-Man 2; Action drama, USA, 2004; D: Sam Raimi, S: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina, J.K. Simmons, Rosemary Harris, Dylan Baker

Peter Parker found a new apartment in New York, but is unable to find a job. His big love Mary Jane became an actress and engaged herself to Harry, who still hates Spider-Man because he thinks he killed his father. The new villain is Dr. Octavius, a scientist with 4 mechanical arms, who creates a dangerous source of energy. He dies during an experiment, while Mary and Harry discover that Peter is Spider-Man.

A long time ago, only "Terminator 2" and "Aliens" were sequels considered better than the original. In the meantime, that stopped being an endemic phenomenon. "Spider-Man 2" is in absolutely every aspect, absolutely every detail superior to the 1st film, a story where director Sam Raimi and screenwriter Alvin Sargent somehow managed to gain the upper hand compared to the producers and actually dared to film something new, which is why the sequel is, disregarding the banal-wacky bad guy Dr. Octavius, truly interesting. The biggest change is that "Spider-Man 2" is this time a drama, a quiet social critique of the world (Peter barely survives due to his financial difficulties!) with enough emotions to fill even "Terms of Endearment" and a fantasy part that serves as a catalyst of the relationships of the characters.

The brilliant action choreography is still there, but this time it seems as if it is just a sly pretext for the long dramatic scenes in between in which the authors actually wanted to say something. The film is filled with memorable moments that flow so naturally: in one scene, Peter, with Pizzas in his hand, hides behind a corner and shows up again as Spider-Man, while some passer-by shouts: "Look! Spider-Man stole that guy's Pizzas!" After his powers start to fade away, Spider-Man has to get off a building in an elevator, where some curious man also enters it and observes the superhero. Some super-hero cliches are still there, yet there are also some scenes that have never before been seen in any kind of super-hero film so far. Especially fascinating is the montage of a carefree Peter in tune to the classic song "Rain Drops Keep Fallin' On My Head". Who ever placed that song there is a genius.

Grade:++

Spider-Man

2009-11-23T16:33:00.006Z

Spider-Man; Fantasy, USA, 2002; D: Sam Raimi, S: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe, James Franco, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons

New York. Peter Parker is a clumsy and unpopular teenager living with his uncle and aunt, whereas he is in love with Mary Jane from the neighborhood. He gets bitten by a mutated spider in a museum and, as a consequence, gets the powers of climbing up the walls, strength and throwing spider's web. When a burglar kills his uncle, Peter becomes Spider-Man and decides to fight against evil. Meanwhile, scientist Norman becomes the Green Goblin after getting fired and wants to take revenge on his colleagues, while his son Harry is also in love with Mary Jane. In a duel, Goblin throws his glider at Spider-Man, but dies himself from it. Mary falls for Peter, while Harry swears for revenge.

Back in '77, a low budget live action TV show about Spider-Man was made, an embarrassing experiment where the hero was fighting against the mafia (!), but the expensive movie version made for the big screen 25 years later isn't that much better either, except for the high production costs. Unfortunately, Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" is one long introduction to the series, and as such seems very stiff in forcefully setting up the beginning of the story. Some action sequences are spectacular (in one, Spider-Man uses his web to swing from a skyscraper down the road while the camera is following him), yet on the other hand many situations are unconvincing and naive - for instance, Peter tries his luck as a wrestler and let's some burglar run away. But when that same burglar kills his uncle, he also sees his face behind the Spider-Man mask. Of course, the authors "kept" the hero's identity and his honor clean by having the burglar conveniently trip down a pipe and fall out of the window, dying. Tobey Maguire, on the other hand, is surprisingly good as Peter, and Willem Dafoe is also great as the villain. Raimi's direction was predictably "numbed down" by the big budget since the producers wanted to play it safe, yet he still managed to insert solid details about growing up and some ironic references to "Superman", like when Peter takes his shirt off like Clark Kent, or when his aunt tells him: "You work too much. You're not Superman, you know".

Grade:+

Night Moves

2009-11-21T11:49:00.009Z

Night Moves; Thriller-drama, USA, 1975; D: Arthur Penn, S: Gene Hackman, Janet Ward, Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren, Kenneth Mars, Harris Yulin, James Woods, Melanie Griffith

Detective Harry Moseby is rather relaxed and unorthodox. One day, he gets a new assignment: actress Arlene hires him to find her rebellious daughter Delly. Harry quickly finds her in Florida, at her stepfather Tom and his colleague Paula. During diving, Delly accidentally discovers a corpse in a sunken ship while Tom promises he will call the police. Harry escorts Delly to her home, but she dies the next day in a mysterious car accident when she was shooting a film in a car driven by a stuntman, Ziegler. Harry comes back to Florida and discovers that Delly's death was ordered by Tom because the corpse indicated at his smuggling business. Harry beats him up, but gets attacked in a ship by an airplane flown by Ziegler, who dies. Harry survives while the ship is driving around in circles.

Unknown film "Night Moves" from the rich opus of director Arthur Penn, the author of such classics like "Bonnie & Clyde" and "Little Big Man", is a crime film that is a one constant queue of surprises. In the exposition, the story shows the private detective Harry, played brilliantly by Gene Hackman, as an unfocused and relaxed kind of guy who often misses out on small details, and as such is wrong for this kind of job, yet is still hired to find the daughter of actress Arlene (who also at one point says she has "silicon breasts"), following the footsteps of crime classics "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Big Sleep". But 60 minutes into the film, the hero already finds her. The case is solved already half way into the film, which is why the story is the whole time avoiding the cliches and casually traverses into drama with a different subplot, always having interesting ideas (the bad guy attacks the hero with a shell!). The much talked about ending is good, symbolic, but not as strong as the endings in some other great 70s films, like "Being There".

Grade:+++

The Mothman Prophecies

2009-11-21T11:17:00.006Z

The Mothman Prophecies; Fantasy thriller, USA, 2002; D: Mark Pellington, S: Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Debra Messing

Reporter John Klein lives peacefully in Washington with his wife Mary. But one day she has a car accident and in a routine control in the hospital, the doctors discover a tumor at her. Before her death, she draws a bunch of sketches about some creature called the "Mothman". 2 years later, John inexplicably got lost in the town Point Pleasant where strange things are happening: the inhabitants saw UFOs, the 12 foot tall Mothman and heard strange noises. Police officer Connie falls in love with John. They discover that the so called Mothman prophecies always happen before a disaster. And truly, a bridge collapses in the city, where many people die.

Richard Gere was often, without a reason, badmouthed by some critics who tried to glue him a negative reputation, yet here and there he would star in a small jewel. The small fantasy thriller "The Mothman Prophecies", based on the book with the same title written by John Kiel, assured itself at least 2 huge virtues: it has a brilliant visual style by director Mark Pellington which creates an elevated mood, and a rumour that it was based on real events that happened to Kiel in '67. Such a subtle build up of fear is endemic, especially in the creepy sequence where alien (?) Indrid phones Kiel and tells him he knows everything, even what he holds in his arm in the dark. The lack of focus is bothersome, the polished tone also but a little less, yet this cult film still creates a really interesting mystery piece.

Grade:++

The Blues Brothers 2000

2009-11-20T17:30:00.007Z

The Blues Brothers 2000; Musical comedy, USA, 1998; D: John Landis, S: Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman, J. Evant Bonifant, Joe Morton

In the first film, the Blues brothers saved an orphanage, but landed in jail. 18 years later, Elwood Blues is finally released yet finds out his brother died. He goes to his old orphanage, but there a nun gives him a little kid, Buster, to take care of him. Elwood quickly dresses him up in black suit and sunglasses, and together with bar owner McTeer decides to re-new his music group. They are also joined by an African American cop - their only fan, because they are again chased by law enforcers. In a swamp, they are hired by an attractive voodoo woman to play, but when the police arrives, it all ends in chaos: the Blues brothers continue their runaway.

Some grouchy viewers who superficially view it maybe won't be satisfied, but the sequel to the excellent comedy "The Blues Brothers" is a surprisingly solid film and has a similar style as the original. Who loved the first film, will at least mildly enjoy this sequel, even though it just palely imitates him. Still, the sequel was 18 years too late, which is why it wasn't especially too popular. The second thing that bothers are the too long music segments, so those who are not fans of Blues will gladly skip those minutes. The director, John Landis, once himself admitted in an interview that a director can't always direct what he wants in Hollywood, and it's obvious he did a much better job in the first film than in this second one, but in this case he did the best out of the situation, amusingly paying a homage to the first film with an unbelievable situation: with over 60 crashed cars on one pile, the movie set a record in movie history! Despite the unnecessary addition, the kid J. Evant Bonifant is solid, but another setback is the fact that James Belushi, the brother of the deceased original Blues brother John, couldn't play a part in this film, and was thus replaced by John Goodman.

Grade:+

Dreamgirls

2009-11-19T17:35:00.010Z

Dreamgirls; Musical-drama, USA, 2006; D: Bill Condon, S: Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, Anika Noni Rose, Danny Glover

An African-American girl group, "The Dreamettes", consisting out of Effie, Deena and Lorrell, takes part at a talent show in Detroit, but they lose. However, they seize the attention of music producer Curtis who teams them up with the R&B star Jimmy. They quickly rise to fame, but with a price: the married Jimmy has an affair with Lorrell, whereas Curtis decides to place the chubby Effie in the background, so that the more attractive Deena would sing as the main star of the trio. That causes Effie to leave the group and she is replaced. Jimmy dies of a drug overdose. In the end, the three girls reunite again, while Deena leaves Curtis.

An acclaimed film, "Dreamgirls" are a too "rigid" kind of musical, without any kind of concession towards the the other part of the audience who are not that inclined towards that genre. Just in the first hour of the film, there are already around 10 music acts with just 2-3 minutes of break in between to give place for the real drama: it suffers from music overdose, since the actors and actresses display great voices and harmony when singing, but this is not suppose to be a long music spot, but a real film. When in one scene, during which she realizes that she was replaced by another woman in "The Dreamettes" group, Effie suddenly even starts singing during her argument with Curtis, and he starts singing back, it all becomes too much. In every musical, great songs have to be there for the story to work, yet here some of the songs are good, but some are also quite bleak, and it is hard to sit through all of them for 130 minutes. Most performances are also, naturally, based on how well the actors and actresses can sing, and based on that, they can sing really great: Jennifer Hudson has a great voice and plays Effie really well, whereas even the small performance by Eddie Murphy is surprising, since it shows him in unusually serious edition as Jimmy who with time becomes decrepit from drug addictions, but his comic roles were better. It's a solid film, but it's no "Yellow Submarine".

Grade:+

Spies Like Us

2009-11-16T16:54:00.009Z

Spies Like Us; Comedy, USA, 1985; D: John Landis, S: Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Forrest, Donna Dixon, Bruce Davison

Austin Millbarge, an insignificant codebreaker, and Emmet Fitz-Hume, an insignificant spokesman working for the US Department of State, apply for a special agent test. Caught cheating, a couple of CIA officers decide to send them on a wild goose chase mission in Pakistan in order to use them as decoys, to keep the "heat off" from the real agents there. However, once they manage to get to a snowy mountain in the Soviet Union, they team up with the real spy, the beautiful Karen. Following orders, they launch a nuclear missile towards the US, because the generals want to start a war with the Soviet Union. Luckily, Austin is able to stop the missile.

Silly-goofy comedy "Spies Like Us" only has some loose relevance because it was referenced once in a "Family Guy" episode, but other than that it's that lame kind of film that offers just an occasional good joke at best and nothing more to the viewers. The first 10 minutes are actually rather fun, like in the scene where a courier enters a CIA office and announces loudly how he has brought "top secret documents", upon which one of the superiors cynically says: "Why don't you speak a little louder? They haven't heard you over there in Moscow", but once the two heroes Austin and Emmet are sent on an aimless mission in central Asia, the whole story becomes an aimless mess itself that quickly starts going on ones nerves. Blatant execution and cheap attempts at humor don't result in much, since zany and slapstick were never the best examples of comedy, and not even the director John Landis' sure hand can be really sensed, which is why he chose to cast numerous directors and celebrities, like Bob Hope, Joel Coen and Costa Gavras, in cameo roles to at least keep a little bit of attention in the uninteresting plot.

Grade:+