Review: Spielberg's "THE COLOR PURPLE" Still Wants to Be Seen (Celebrating "The Fabelmans")

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 7 of 2023 (No. 1896) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Color Purple (1985)

Running time:  154 minutes (2 hours, 34 minutes)

MPAA – PG-13

DIRECTOR:  Steven Spielberg

WRITER:  Menno Meyjes (based on the novel by Alice Walker)

PRODUCERS:  Steven Spielberg; Quincy Jones, Frank Marshall, and Kathleen Kennedy

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Allen Daviau (D.o.P.)

EDITOR:  Michael Kahn

COMPOSER:  Quincy Jones

Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring:  Whoopi Golderg, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery, Willard E. Pugh, Akosua Busia, Desreta Jackson, Adolph Caesar, Rae Dawn Chong, Dana Ivey, Leonard Jackson, Bennet Guillory, and Laurence Fishburne

The Color Purple is a 1985 drama and period film directed by Steven Spielberg.  The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel, The Color Purple, by author Alice Walker.  The Color Purple the movie focuses on an African-American woman who suffers abuse from the men in her life, but finds strength in the women close to her.

The Color Purple opens in 1909, in rural Hartwell County, Georgia.  Celie Harris (Desreta Jackson) is a teenage African-American girl living with an abusive father who rapes her.  He has already fathered two children by Celie, both of which he sold shortly after Celie gave birth.  Celie's father eventually gives her to an older man named Albert Johnson (Danny Glover), who Celie calls “Mister.”

A widower with three children, Mister initially wants to marry Celie's younger sister, Nettie (Akosua Busia).  Now, Mister abuses Celie, while his children also mistreat her.  One day, Nettie arrives at Mister's door, thrown out after rejecting her father's advances.  Nettie eventually also has to fight off a rape attempt by Mister, who promptly throws her off his property.

In the years and decades that follow, an adult Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), grown meek from years of abuse, finds strength in two other women.  The first is Mister's daughter law, Sofia (Oprah Winfrey).  The second is a woman Mister once wanted to marry, jook joint singer, Shug Avery (Margaret Avery).  For Celie, however, there are still great secrets from her past that will eventually be revealed.

It had been nearly 37 years since I last watched The Color Purple.  I cried so much during the first time I saw it that I had not been able to watch it again until now.  Over the years, I planned to view it a number of times, especially during the twentieth (2005) and twenty-fifth (2010) anniversaries of its original release.  It is also one of my favorite directorial efforts by Steven Spielberg.  I forced myself to watch it again because of my “celebration” of the release of Spielberg's recent autobiographical film, The Fabelmans.

The film's themes of domestic violence, pedophilia, and sexism still resonate, and, for me, the themes of racism and sexism seem to have strengthen with time.  The screenplay does so much to emphasize these themes that it is as if it creates a world within the larger world where abuse and degradation are the natural order.  Over the years, I have encountered people, mostly black men, who say that the film makes black men look bad.  I say that the film makes an honest portrayal of the abuse that black women faced in the past – from both black and white men.  [Over time, I have spoken with African-American women who personally knew older African-American women whose experiences are of the exact kind of abuse faced by Celie, Nettie, Sofia and other women in the film.]

That aside, I consider The Color Purple to be one of Spielberg's most subtle efforts as a director.  Some contemporaneous commentary said that the film was overly sentimental, but I find that Spielberg allows the film's narrative and characters to grow naturally from the screenplay.  In collaboration with his longtime editor, the Oscar-winning Michael Kahn (nominated here), Spielberg creates the illusion that he is simply capturing the evolution of Celie's tale from its harsh beginnings to its golden-hued happy ending.  The Color Purple feels organic … although I don't think anyone would have described it as such when it was first released.

One of the most impressive things about The Color Purple is that two its best performances are by actresses who have little or no acting experience – Whoopi Golderg as Celie and Oprah Winfrey as Sofia.  Spielberg gets these performers to create characters that are unique in form and substance.  To me, characters like Celie and Sofia seem so genuine because they were utterly new to American cinema, and truthfully, there has been nothing like them since.

Truthfully, all the film's performances are unique and winning.  Margaret Avery amazingly makes her Shug Avery an oasis in the often relentless pain of this film.  Danny Glover is also brilliantly cruel as the awful Mister, and Willard Pugh is sweet and charming as his son and Sofia's husband, the hapless Harpo.

At the 58th Academy Awards, The Color Purple did not win in any of the 11 categories in which it was nominated.  In fact, Steven Spielberg did not even receive a “Best Director” Oscar nomination.  In the decades since its release, The Color Purple remains as relevant today as it was being a historical and monumental release in 1985 and 1986.  The films that bested it at the Oscars are largely forgotten compared to it.  Alice Walker's novel was also adapted into a 2005 Broadway musical, and the film adaptation of that musical is scheduled for release later this year (2023), as of this writing.

As a triumph in Spielberg's filmography, some may discount The Color Purple, considering the films Spielberg has made since then (such as Schindler's List).  Still, as a line in the film says (more or less), The Color Purple wants to be seen and loved … and it still is.

10 of 10

Thursday, February 16, 2023

NOTES:

1986 Academy Awards, USA:  11 nominations: “Best Picture” (Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, and Quincy Jones), “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Whoopi Goldberg), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Margaret Avery), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Oprah Winfrey), “Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium” (Menno Meyjes), “Best Cinematography” (Allen Daviau), “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (J. Michael Riva, Bo Welch, and Linda DeScenna), “Best Costume Design” (Aggie Guerard Rodgers), “Best Music, Original Song” (Quincy Jones-music/lyrics, Rod Temperton-music/lyrics, and Lionel Richie-lyrics for the song “Miss Celie's Blues (Sister)”), “Best Music, Original Score” (Quincy Jones, Jeremy Lubbock, Rod Temperton, Caiphus Semenya, Andraé Crouch, Chris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Joel Rosenbaum, Fred Steiner, Jack Hayes, Jerry Hey, and Randy Kerber), and “Best Makeup” (Ken Chase)

1987 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (Menno Meyjes)

1986 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Whoopi Goldberg); 4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Steven Spielberg), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Oprah Winfrey), and “Best Original Score – Motion Picture” (Quincy Jones)

1986 Image Awards (NAACP):  2 wins: “Outstanding Motion Picture” and “Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture” (Whoopi Goldberg)

The text is copyright © 2023 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site or blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD" is Still Alive and Kicking

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 16 of 2022 (No. 1828) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Running time:  91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Dan O'Bannon
WRITERS:  Dan O'Bannon; from a story by Rudy Ricci, John Russo, and Russell Streiner
PRODUCER:  Tom Fox
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Jules Brenner (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Robert Gordon
COMPOSER:  Matt Clifford

HORROR/COMEDY

Starring:  Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews, Beverly Randolph, Miguel Nunez, John Philbin, Jewel Shepard, Brian Peck, Linnea Quigley, Mark Venturini, Jonathan Terry, Cathleen Cordell, and Allan Trautman

The Return of the Living Dead is a 1985 comedy horror film written and directed by Dan O'Bannon.  The film is indirectly related to the seminal 1968 zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead.  The Return of the Living Dead focuses on a small group of people trying to survive a riot of brain-hungry zombies that are raised from the dead by a strange poison gas.

The Return of the Living Dead opens early on the evening of July 3, 1984 in Louisville, Kentucky.  At the Uneeda Medical Supply warehouse, owner Burt Wilson (Clu Gulager) is leaving work for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, leaving his employee, Frank (James Karen), behind to close-up shop and to also train new employee, Freddy (Thom Mathews).  Frank tries to impress Freddy by showing him some old container drums that the U.S. military mistakenly shipped to Uneeda and are now stored in the warehouse basement.

What Frank does not know is that the drums also contain a toxic gas called “2-4-5 Trioxin.”  Frank accidentally unleashes the toxic gas from one of the tanks, which knocks him and Freddy unconscious.  When the two bumbling employees awaken, they discover that the gas has reanimated a medical cadaver stored in the warehouse's cold locker.  Frank and Freddy call Burt back to the warehouse, but everything they do to solve their “zombie” problem makes matters worse.  That includes asking Ernie Kaltenbrunner (Don Calfa), owner of Resurrection Funeral Home, for help.

Meanwhile, Freddy's girlfriend, Tina (Beverly Randolph), and his friends: Spider (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.), Trash (Linnea Quigley), Chuck (John Philbin), Casey (Jewel Shepard), Scuz (Brian Peck), and Suicide (Mark Benturini), arrive to meet Freddy at his job.  But they don't know what's about to happen at the Resurrection Cemetery, next door.

As long as I can remember, I have read print and online articles and commentary that refer to The Return of the Living Dead as a cult movie.  I never had much interest in watching it.  Over the past year, however, one of my cable movie channels started showing its sequel, Return of the Living Dead II (1988), which I have found to be mildly entertaining.  But that channel never shows The Return of the Living Dead, so after a long stint on the waiting list, I got it from DVD.com (a Netflix company).  Wow!  I wish I had watched it a long time ago.

The Return of the Living Dead is like no other zombie movie.  It is apparently the first to feature zombies that run and also talk.  Its zombies only want to eat the brains of living humans and not the rest of the body.  The Return of the Living Dead's mood and pace are accented by its musical score (by Matt Clifford) and by its soundtrack (which was also released as an album in 1985).  The Return of the Living Dead is a punk rock comedy and rock 'n' roll zombie movie driven by two punk rock sub-genres, “death rock” and “horror punk,” that emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  The songs give the film a freewheeling spirit that carries it through any narrative bumps and inconsistencies.

The film owes much of his identity, spirit, and success to writer-director, the late Dan O'Bannon (1946-2009).  He was one of the most imaginative and genre-busting screenwriters in the history of American science fiction, fantasy, and horror films, writing for such films as Alien (1979) and Total Recall (1990).  O'Bannon produces a film that acts as if it owes nothing to the zombie fiction and horror storytelling that came before it, while gleefully cutting and pasting bits and pieces of American pop culture all over itself.

The casting of this film is an accidental work of brilliance.  All the actors are pitch perfect:  tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top, comically straight, and slyly satirical.  James Karen and Thom Mathews are perfect as Frank and Freddy, respectively, the bumbling employees that release the gas which turns the dead into zombies.  Actor Clu Gulager, who always played the “White Man” boss/leader type, plays Burt Wilson with a artfully satirical edge that is easy to miss.  Linnea Quigley personifies a kind of punk sex goddess and later a deadly sex creature.  As “Spider,” actor Miguel A. Núñez Jr. creates what is one of my favorite male African-American horror movie characters.

The Return of the Living Dead is now one of my favorite zombie films, and perhaps, it is a coincidence that one of my other favorites, George A. Romero's underrated post-apocalyptic jewel, Day of the Dead, was releases the same year, 1985.  [Or maybe something was trying to warn me about the future.]  I highly recommend The Return of the Living Dead (which is available in a “special edition” DVD) and its soundtrack.  This is the most fun I have ever had watching a zombie film … or zombie anything, for that matter.

8 of 10
A

Wednesday, March 23, 2022


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Review: "Just One of the Guys" Not Just Another Teen Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 3 (of 2016) by Leroy Douresseaux

[A version of this review originally appeared on Patreon.]

Just One of the Guys (1985)
Running time:  90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13
DIRECTOR:  Lisa Gottlieb
WRITERS:  Dennis Feldman and Jeff Franklin; from a story by Dennis Feldman
PRODUCER:  Andrew Fogelson
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  John McPherson (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Tony Lombardo
COMPOSER:  Tom Scott

COMEDY/ROMANCE

Starring:  Joyce Hyser, Clayton Rohner, Billy Jayne, Toni Hudson, William Zabka, Leigh McCloskey, Sherilyn Fenn, Deborah Goodrich, Ayre Gross, Robert Fieldsteel, Stuart Charno, John Apicella, Kenneth Tigar, Richard Blake, and Tony Brock and Jay Davis

Just One of the Guys is a 1985 comedy and high school romance from director Lisa Gottlieb and writers Dennis Feldman and Jeff Franklin.  The film focuses on a popular and attractive high school student who disguises herself as a teen boy in order to win a high school journalism contest.

Just One of the Guys introduces high school student, Terry Griffith (Joyce Hyser), of Phoenix, Arizona.  She has it all:  the looks, the popularity, and a college boyfriend who is quite the hunk.  Terry is also an aspiring teenage journalist, but her male teachers at Edwina Pearl High School don't take her newspaper articles seriously, mostly because she is a girl.  In fact, her journalism teacher, Mr. Raymaker (Kenneth Tigar), has chosen articles written by two male students to be entered in a contest that will land one student a summer internship at the Sun-Tribune.

So Terry comes up with an idea that will help her write an article that will earn her respect and hopefully win that summer internship.  With the help of her horny, little brother, Buddy (Billy Jacoby), and her lovelorn best friend, Denise (Toni Hudson), Terry disguises herself as a teen boy and enrolls in rival Sturgis-Wilder High School.  As a student at this new high school, Terry is sure that she can write an article about high school boys as secretly observed by a girl undercover as a boy.  Her mission goes awry when she meets handsome nerd, Rick Morehouse (Clayton Rohner).  Rick becomes her pet project, as she tries to give him a makeover and get him a date to the prom.  But Terry starts to fall in love with Rick.

I pretty much ignored 1980s teen movies that revolve around high school romance, and I had never even heard of Just One of the Guys.  However, a few weeks ago, I found an article on the Yahoo Movies website (https://www.yahoo.com/movies/are-those-what-i-think-they-are-a-revealing-175211213.html) about the 1985 film.  It turns out that 2015 is the 30th anniversary of the film's initial release (specifically April 26, 1985).  Apparently, Just One of the Guys is fondly remembered and has fanbase and something of a cult-following.  In fact, the magazine Entertainment Weekly once included Just One of the Guys in its listing of the “50 Best High School Movies” (at #48).

After reading a few paragraphs of the Yahoo article, I decided to rent Just One of the Guys from Netflix.  I enjoyed the film so much that it once again reminded me that Netflix is essential to my life as a movie-lover.  I won't call it a great movie, but Just One of The Guys is quite good and shouldn't be lost to history.

Just One of the Guys is a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy, Twelfth Night, which also inspired the 2006 high school comedy, She's the Man.  You don't need to have seen Shakespeare's play in order to enjoy this film.  All you need is the ability to sympathize with Terry Griffith and to see things from her point of view.  As Terry, Joyce Hyser gives a natural performance that sells the absurdity of her role and this movie's conceit.  I found myself willingly suspending disbelief because Hyser made me believe in Terry, her motivations, her plan, and her character.  In the way that Dustin Hoffman made Tootsie worthy of the audience suspension of disbelief, Hyser makes us want to latch onto Terry and buy into the entire act.

I can see why Just One of the Guys has a devoted following after three decades, and is apparently still winning new fans.  It is not a sparkling high school idyll, cool and slick, like those 1980s John Hughes films.  The earthy Just One of the Guys mines comedy gold in the minefield of high school society and in the lives of high school age young people.  It does not romanticize high school, not when it can love the high school years while simultaneously skewering it.  No high school movie list is complete without the surprising Just One of the Guys.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, November 14, 2015


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Review: "A View to a Kill" Still Has its Charm 30 Years Later

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 34 (of 2015) by Leroy Douresseaux

A View to a Kill (1985)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: U.K.
Running time:  131 minutes (2 hours, 11 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  John Glen
WRITERS:  Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson (based on the character created by Ian Fleming)
PRODUCERS:  Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alan Hume (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Peter Davies
COMPOSER:  John Barry
SONG:  “A View to a Kill” performed by Duran Duran
Golden Globe nominee

SPY/ACTION/ADVENTURE

Starring:  Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Patrick Macnee, Patrick Bauchau, David Yip, Fiona Fullerton, Manning Redwood, Alison Doody, Willoughby Gray, Desmond Llewelyn, Robert Brown, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell, and Daniel Benzali

A View to a Kill is a 1985 spy and adventure film from director John Glen.  It is the 14th entry in Eon Productions' James Bond film franchise, and it is also the seventh and last time that actor Roger Moore played James Bond.  2015 also marks the 30th anniversary of A View to a Kill's original theatrical release (specifically May 1985).

A View to a Kill takes its title from the short story, “From a View to a Kill,” which first appeared in the 1960 short story collection, For Your Eyes Only.  A View to a Kill the movie finds James Bond investigating a horse-racing scam perpetrated by a power-mad French industrialist, who also has his eye on monopolizing the worldwide microchip market.

A View to a Kill opens with M16 agent James Bond (Roger Moore) locating the body of agent 003 in Siberia.  From the body, Bond (agent 007) recovers a microchip originating from the Soviet Union.  The microchip turns out to be a copy of one designed to withstand an electromagnetic pulse, and one made specifically for the British government by a private contractor, Zorin Industries.

Bond discovers that Zorin Industries' owner, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), breeds racehorses and may be cheating by drugging his horses.  Bond travels to Zorin's palatial estate outside of Paris and pretends to be a prospective buyer of thoroughbred horses.  Bond learns, however, that Zorin has even bigger plans on the west coast of the United States, specifically Silicon Valley in California.  Before Bond can uncover Zorin's diabolical plot, he will have to survive Zorin's Amazon-like body guard, Mayday (Grace Jones).

Roger Moore was the first actor I saw portraying James Bond, and it only took a few Bond films with Moore before the actor imprinted upon my imagination as being the quintessential James Bond.  Over the years, I have pretended, a few times, that I preferred Sean Connery as Bond, especially when I was with friends who claimed that they preferred Connery as Bond.  I have even been in the thrall of the three actors who have, to date, succeeded Moore as Bond:  Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig.  I do think that Dr. No, the first film featuring Connery as Bond, remains the blueprint for both a Bond movie and for a secret agent movie.  Still, I come back to Roger Moore as Bond.

The past few years, I have revisited the two James Bond movies that I first saw while in high school, For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983).  I recently revisited A View to a Kill, and after this nostalgic mini-Bond film festival, I am sure of my love for Roger Moore as my cinematic James Bond.

Now, I won't pretend that A View to a Kill is a great film or that it is even the best of Moore's Bond filmography.  For one thing, the entire horse-racing subplot feels like padding to make the story longer, but it is fun.  Christopher Walken is an engaging Bond villain, and Grace Jones is a delightful riot as his bodyguard, Mayday.  Thus, any subplots and story that give them even more screen time is perfectly good padding.  In fact, the horse-racing section of the film is the reason we get to see actor Patrick Macnee as Bond's partner, Sir Godfrey Tibbett.

After 12 years as Bond, Moore was, by 1985, the oldest actor to play Bond, being 58-years-old when he retired after A View to a Kill was originally released.  He definitely shows his age in this film.  Maybe, it was time for him to retire, but, at least, his last film was fun, even if it wasn't outstanding.  Yes, Tanya Roberts delivers an awful performance as Bond girl, Stacey Sutton, but Roberts is likable.  She puts out the effort, and that is worth something even if the result is pitiful.

Besides, Tanya Roberts helps Roger Moore go out with a bang, as she is the last of the three women he beds in this film (including Mayday).  A View to a Kill certainly delivers what we like about Roger Moore as James Bond, and it makes me appreciate him all the more.

7 of 10
B+

Tuesday, August 25, 2015


NOTES:
1986 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (John Barry and Duran Duran for the song "A View to a Kill")

1986 Razzie Awards:  1 nomination: “Worst Actress” (Tanya Roberts)


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Review: "My Beautiful Laundrette" Tackles Social Issues (Happy B'day, Daniel Day Lewis)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 16 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  United Kingdom
Running time:  97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Stephen Frears
WRITER:  Hanif Kureishi
PRODUCERS:  Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Oliver Stapleton
EDITOR:  Mick Audsley
COMPOSER:  Ludus Tonalis
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/ROMANCE with elements of comedy

Starring:  Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gordon Warnecke, Derrick Blanche, Rita Wolf, Souad Faress, Richard Graham, Shirley Ann Field, Dudley Thomas, Winston Graham, and Garry Cooper

The subject of this movie review is My Beautiful Laundrette, a 1985 British comedy-drama directed by Stephen Frears and written by Hanif Kureishi.  The movie, which was originally intended for television, was one of the first films released by Working Title Films.  My Beautiful Laundrette focuses on an ambitious Asian Briton and his white male lover as they strive to find success with a glamorous launderette (Laundromat).

In My Beautiful Laundrette, director Stephen Frears (The Hit) and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi don’t tackle issues, so much as they present a story that involves the entanglement amongst class, economics, family, politics, race, and sex.  My Beautiful Laundrette subtly presents the issues, but presents them nonetheless.  Because the issues of the film tie everyone together, every character is a legitimate player, and the viewer has to always pay attention to all the characters.  That’s heady stuff in a world where the most popular and publicized pictures are glossy films with lots of throwaway appendages.

Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is an ambitious young Asian Briton of Pakistani decent who convinces his uncle to let him manage his uncle’s laundrette.  He convinces Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis, The Bounty), an old school chum and his gay lover, to join him.  They convert the dilapidated business into a colorful and glamorous establishment as they strive for success amidst familial and social politics – Omar’s mostly immigrant family and Johnny’s racist thug friends.

Warnecke and Lewis are excellent as the young businessman who leaps at every opportunity and the disaffected youth at odds with the world respectively.  In this early role, Lewis smolders, as he would so often in the future, showing the audience that there is more, much more, beneath the surface of his character, unseen and real – the window to the character’s soul.  However, the best part belongs to an actor seldom seen in film since My Beautiful Laundrette, Derrick Branche as Omar’s cousin Salim.  Every bit as racist as Johnny’s buddies and as ambitious as any of his relatives, he is the ruthless and blunt looking glass of this story.

My Beautiful Laundrette takes a while to get going, but its documentary approach to storytelling in which the characters are like real people and not actors acting like people is worth the wait.  Much of the love and romance is tepid, probably because the filmmakers wished to convey how difficult love can be amongst people straddling the borders between warring social groups.  Perhaps, the film could have been a bit more emotional, but maybe the filmmakers wanted to play down the passion of love in favor of presenting a broader picture of the societal pressures weighing upon the characters.  The viewer can decide for himself, especially if he likes films that focus on the common everyman.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
1987 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Hanif Kureishi)

1986 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Saeed Jaffrey) and “Best Screenplay – Original” (Hanif Kureishi)

Updated:  Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Vampire Hunter D" Bizarre and Unique

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 88 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Kyuketsuki Hunter D (1985) – animation and video
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Japan; Language: Japanese
DIRECTOR:  Toyoo Ashida
WRITER:  Yashushi Hirano (based upon the novel Kyuuketsuki Hatana ‘D’)
PRODUCERS:  Hiroshi Kato, Mitsuhisa Koeda, and Yuko Nagasaki
COMPOSER:  Tetsuya Komuro

Vampire Hunter D – English adaptation
Running time:  80 minutes (1 hour, 20 minutes)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:  Carl Macek
WRITER:  Tom Wyner

ANIMATION/HORROR/SCI-FI/FANTASY

Starring:  (voices) Kaneto Shiozawa, Seizô Katô, Satako Kifuji, Motomu Kiyokawa, Yasuo Muramatsu, Ichirô Nagai, and Michie Tomizawa

(English voices) Michael McGonnohie, Barbara Goodson, Jeff Winklers, Edie Mirmar, Kerrigan Mahan, Steve Kramer, and Steve Bulen

The subject of this movie review is Kyuketsuki Hunter D (Vampire Hunter D), a 1985 Japanese animated straight-to-video film.  This science fiction, fantasy, and vampire film was originally released as an OVA (original video anime).  This movie is based on the 1983 Japanese novel, Vampire Hunter D Volume 1, written by Hideyuki Kikuchi with illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano.

Kyuketsuki Hunter D or Vampire Hunter D was an animated Japanese film or “anime” that had one of the largest cult followings in the U.S. for anime in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.  The film was not a theatrical release in the Japan, nor was it initially in America.  As a home video release, this anime traveled as well or maybe even better than it would have as a theatrical release.

The film takes place in the far-flung era of 12,090 A.D.  Vampires plague earth, and rule over small pockets of civilization in a mockery of ancient feudal land baronies; in fact, humans travel, once again, by horse and buggy.  In a small village, Doris Rumm (voice of Barbara Goodson) hunts vampires and monsters, but she is also the object of affection of a local vampire ruler, Count Magnus Lee, who wants Doris to be his bride.  Doris’ salvation takes the form a mysterious vampire hunter known only as “D,” so she offers herself to the hunter in exchange for his eradicating the local vampires and their boss, the Count.  “D” must fight through a horde of demons, vampires, and assorted supernatural assassins to rescue Doris from wedlock with Count Lee.

The quality of the animation isn’t very good; it’s about the quality of TV anime like the “Dragonball” series that has run for so long on the Cartoon Network.  However, the character designs are very imaginative, especially the design of “D,” which was done by Yoshitaka Amano, one of the best known Japanese fantasy illustrators, animation character designers (“Genesis Climber Mospeada”), and video game conceptual artists (the Final Fantasy series).  Visually, bizarre images fill the film, as well as some bizarre nudity; in fact, the film creates a sense of anticipation as we wait to see what is the next weird thing that is going to fill the screen.

The voice acting is fairly good, but the English dialogue moves the story along quite well.  The music, a sweeping electronic score, is very nice and sets the appropriate mood.  Savvy viewers might catch similarities with New Line Cinema’s Blade film franchise, but Vampire Hunter D is more horror and fantasy, whereas Blade is an action/horror film.  While I have misgivings about the quality of the animation, Vampire Hunter D’s entire package is one of a highly imaginative film that should please fans of vampire horror, fantasy, and anime.  It has a steady rhythm of visual surprises that not only make it unique, but also exceptionally fun to watch when compared to most horror films.

7 of 10
B+

Monday, June 20, 2005

Updated: Friday, February 07, 2014


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Review: "Silver Bullet" is Like a Scary Bedtime Story (Happy B'day, Stephen King)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 238 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Stephen King’s Silver Bullet (1985)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Daniel Attias
WRITER: Stephen King (based upon his novella Cycle of the Werewolf)
PRODUCER: Dino De Laurentiis and Martha Schumacher
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Armando Nannuzzi
EDITOR: Daniel Loewenthal

HORROR with an element of mystery

Starring: Corey Haim, Megan Follows, Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Robin Groves, Leon Russom, and Terry O’Quinn

The subject of this movie review is Silver Bullet, a 1985 werewolf horror movie. The film is based upon the 1985 short novel, Cycle of the Werewolf, from famed horror author, Stephen King.

Famed best-selling novelist Stephen King spent a lot of the 80’s whining about the film adaptation of his novels. Given a chance to prove how good he’d be at filmmaking, he took it. Stephen King’s Silver Bullet (the film’s complete USA title) was his effort as a screenwriter, and while it isn’t ugly, the script isn’t the prettiest girl in screen town. The film flopped, not making a return on its production budget (reportedly 7 million) at the box office (around $5.5 million). Still, Silver Bullet would certainly make my top 25 list of best horror films, as it’s a delightful little scary campfire tale.

In the town of Tarker’s Mill, a series of sadistic murders begins in the late spring of 1976. A wheel chair bound boy named Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim) discovers that the killer is not maniac, but a werewolf. He convinces his sister, Jane (Megan Follows), that there really is a killer werewolf in town, but Marty and Jane (who narrates the story) can’t make their Uncle Red (Gary Busey), with whom Marty is very close, believe them. However, Uncle Red does build a motorized wheel chair/motor cycle, christened the “Silver Bullet,” that comes in handy when Marty needs to avoid both the werewolf and its human form, a prominent and highly respected member of the Tarker’s Mill. Eventually, the siblings convince Uncle Red enough to get him to join them in an attempt to destroy the werewolf.

While not a great film, Silver Bullet is an excellent mystery horror film that is teen friendly in it’s edited-for-TV version. Actually, the R-rated, theatrical version seems to have gore and violence strictly for titillation. The performances are passable and the production values are of made-for-TV quality, but the film’s small town setting feels authentic, enough to make the atmosphere of a small town under siege feel real. Stephen King’s Silver Bullet isn’t great, but it’s a quaint little horror film worth watching with some genuinely good scary movie moments.

6 of 10
B

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Review: Original "Fright Night" Still a Fright

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 72 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

Fright Night (1985)
Running time: 106 minutes (1 hour, 46 minutes)
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Tom Holland
PRODUCER: Herb Jaffe
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jan Kiesser (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Kent Beyda
COMPOSER: Brad Fiedel

HORROR/COMEDY/THRILLER

Starring: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall, Stephen Geoffreys, Jonathan Stark, Dorothy Fielding, and Art J. Evans

Fright Night is a 1985 horror film written and directed by Tom Holland. A hit at the time of its original release, Fright Night was successful because it was a horror movie that was both scary and funny. This film is about a teenager who discovers that his new next door neighbor is a vampire, but can’t make anyone believe him.

The story centers on Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale), a mostly ordinary high school boy trying to convince his girlfriend, Amy Peterson (Amanda Bearse), to go all the way and have sex with him. Charlie also has an active imagination and is huge fan of horror films and of Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), the host of a local horror movie television program.

Charlie’s active imagination kicks into overdrive when two men move into the empty house next door to Charlie and mother, Judy Brewster (Dorothy Fielding). By chance, Charlie discovers that one of the men, the dark and seductive Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon), is a vampire. Charlie tells Amy and his acerbic friend, Edward “Evil Ed” Thompson (Stephen Geoffreys), but they don’t believe him. The police also ignore him, and even Peter Vincent isn’t buying Charlie’s story. Charlie will need to convince someone soon, because Dandridge and his roommate/carpenter/bodyguard, Billy Cole (Jonathan Stark), are preparing to kill Charlie.

I believe that film spoofs work best when they look like the genre in which they are spoofing. Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles convincingly looks and acts like a Western, so its skewering of the conventions of Westerns is supremely effective. It’s the same with Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, a send-up of Universal Pictures’ black and white horror films. Fright Night is a genuine horror film, but the screenplay takes so many digs at the conventions and stereotypes of vampire movies – from the way movies depict vampires’ fear of the crucifix to the way movies portray vampires seducing female victims.

Even with its humor and gentle mocking tone, Fright Night is a scary movie. I am old enough to have seen it in a theatre when it was first released back in August of 1985. Fright Night was both an old-fashioned monster movie and a vampire movie with a devilishly alluring villain as the vampire, superbly played by actor Chris Sarandon with cool, smooth arrogance and a dark charm. Fright Night was so different from the horror movies that thrived back in the 1980s. These were bloody slasher movies featuring masked maniacs wielding any kind of implement that could gouge and slash out the most blood from their victims. The young actors playing the victims were not interesting and were merely meat for the slasher film beast.

That’s different in Fright Night. The characters are either surprisingly witty or appealingly silly. I can see why this film has been remade. Every time I watch it, Fight Night works its scary movie magic on me.

8 of 10
A

Thursday, August 18, 2011

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Review: Walt Disney's "The Black Cauldron" Has a Good Side

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 79 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Black Cauldron (1985)
Running time: 80 minutes (1 hour, 20 minutes)
MPAA – PG for some scary images
DIRECTORS: Ted Berman and Richard Rich
WRITERS: David Jonas, Vance Gerry, Ted Berman, Richard Rich, Al Wilson, Roy Morita, Peter Young, Art Stevens, and Joe Hale (based upon the novel series The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander)
PRODUCER: Joe Hale
EDITOR: Armetta Jackson, Jim Koford, and James Melton
COMPOSER: Elmer Bernstein

ANIMATION/FANTASY

Starring: (voices) Grant Bardsley, Susan Sheridan, Freddie Jones, Nigel Hawthorne, Arthur Malet, John Byner, John Hurt, and John Huston

Considered a box office failure and a critical disappointment, The Black Cauldron, released in 1985, was Walt Disney’s 25th full-length animated feature film. The film is a loose adaptation of The Chronicles of Prydain, a five-book children’s fantasy series from author Lloyd Alexander, specifically the first two books, The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron.

The film takes place in the land of Prydain and focuses on a young man named Taran (Grant Bardsley), the Assistant Pigkeeper to the enchanter, Dallben (Freddie Jones). Dallben has charged Taran with the task caring for and protecting Hen Wen, a magical oracular pig (meaning she can see into the future). Hen Wen’s powers will allow her to see the location of the mystical Black Cauldron, which has the power to raise the dead.

The evil lord known as the Horned King (John Hurt) desires to use the cauldron to create an invincible legion of undead warriors that will help him conquer the world. When he loses Hen Wen, Taran must battle the Horned King, who will stop at nothing to attain Hen Wen, his key to the cauldron’s whereabouts. Luckily, Taran gathers new friends who come to his aid, including the imprisoned Princess Eilonwy (Susan Sheridan); the elderly bard, Fflewddur Fflam (Nigel Hawthorne); and a loyal, but greedy creature named Gurgi (John Byner).

In terms of quality, The Black Cauldron would certainly rank at or near the bottom of the list of Disney’s animated theatrical films, but even something considered a Disney failure is better than animated films from other studios. The characters and the story are the problems with this film. The characters are not fully developed, and the script doesn’t reveal much about them except for the barest minimum needed to make the story move forward. The story does not have much drama, and the conflict seems feigned. There is not much suspense and tension before the end of the film and the final conflict.

Where the film really works is in the visuals. The Black Cauldron was the first Disney animated feature to use computer-generated imagery (CGI), but the star is the beautifully drawn, colored, painted, and illustrated world Disney’s artists created for this film. The backgrounds, sets, and environments are some of the most beautiful fantasy art created for film. A lovely pastoral cottage farm, verdant forests, a barren wasteland, an ominous castle, cavernous dungeons, the magical underworld of the Fair Folk, and the gloomy dwelling of three witches: all are presented in vivid, rich color and drawn in a sturdy manner that brings Prydain to life.

These splendid visuals make a weak fantasy story a bit stronger. The Black Cauldron may not be perfect, but its trip to Prydain is a true journey into fantasy.

6 of 10

B

Thursday, September 23, 2010

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Review: "Alamo Bay" is Powerful, But is Also Too Angry

 

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 138 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Alamo Bay (1985)
Running time: 98 minutes (1 hour, 38 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Louis Malle
WRITER: Alice Arlen
PRODUCERS: Louis Malle and Vincent Malle
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Curtis Clark
EDITOR: James Bruce
COMPOSER: Ry Cooder

DRAMA

Starring: Amy Madigan, Ed Harris, Ho Nguyen, Donald Moffat, Truyen V. Tran, Rudy Young, Cynthia Carle, and Bill Thurman

When filmmakers tackle difficult subjects, especially subjects dealing with social and class conflict, they often produce films that fail financially or that get lost in the shuffle of the movie making industry. Louis Malle’s (Atlantic City) film, Alamo Bay, is just such a movie. It’s about a clash of two cultures and two different ethnic groups. When one doesn’t understand the other, when one feels threatened by the other, and when has no regard for or cannot understand the other, the result is violent confrontation. This conflict may seem to have an easy solution - a coming together of the two groups to talk through their differences, but the process to joining hands is long, strained, difficult, painful, and often unlikely. The film reflects the absence of an easy solution, so it can be painful to watch.

Shang (Ed Harris, The Right Stuff) is a Vietnam veteran despondent over loosing his livelihood as a shrimp fisherman when he cannot meet his boat payments. He and his fellow townsmen clash with the newly arrived refugees from Vietnam who move to their (fictional) town of Alamo Bay. The Vietnamese immigrants work harder and labor longer hours to catch shrimp. Shang and his cohorts see this as undercutting them. His old girlfriend, Glory (Amy Madigan, Places in the Heart), returns to Alamo Bay further complicates his life, as does her friendship with a newly arrived young immigrant, Dihn (Ho Nguyen).

Malle and screenwriter Alice Arlen don’t spare us the nasty words, ugly confrontations, and brutal bigotry the white townspeople unleash against the immigrants. What the movie sorely lacks is better view of the Vietnamese townsfolk – their feelings, their grudges, and their ethics. Very few of Vietnamese characters speak English in the film, and the Vietnamese dialogue in the film does not come with English subtitles. That does help to create a sense of the immigrants as the other, as well as convey the sense that they have a difficult time communicating with their hostile new neighbors who really don’t want to talk to them. Still, the film felt like it needed more interplay from the new arrivals, because as the film is, it’s mostly about whitey’s anger.

The entire cast is very good. They absorbed their characters without overplaying them. They seemed up to the task, but many of townsfolk were left with little room to maneuver outside of being cardboard bigots or victims. Madigan’s character has dimension, but she spends a lot of time crying and pining over her lost love with Chang and whining in general. Harris is the true star of this film; he passionately takes on his part, and in his eyes, the audience can read a novel’s worth of history and information on this man. Sadly, except for a few snippets, all we get is the angry bigot.

This film is built on anger, and although it gets the emotions and feelings correct, the story itself acts like an outsider, as if it just walked in on the bad situation in the town. It claims to be inspired by real events, but it only snatches up bit and pieces of the whole story. Powerful and visceral, it’s a noble attempt, but it could have been so much more.

6 of 10
B

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Second Elm Street, "Freddy's Revenge," Poor Follow-up to Classic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 127 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
Running time: 87 minutes (1 hour, 27 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Jack Shoulder
WRITER: David Chaskin (based on the characters created by Wes Craven)
PRODUCER: Robert Shaye
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jacques Haitkin and Christopher Tufty
EDITORS: Bob Brady and Arline Garson

HORROR

Starring: Robert Englund, Mark Patton, Kim Meyers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Marshal Bell, Melinda O. Free, and Tom McFadden

With Freddy Krueger, the boogeyman of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, set to arise again in the upcoming Freddy Vs. Jason, I thought I should see one of the two “Elm Street” films that I hadn’t seen, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. In this the first of many sequels, Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) and his family move into the home that Freddy’s (Robert Englund) evil spirit haunted in the original film. Freddy’s uses Jesse’s body as his new conduit into the real world where he can get at a fresh batch of Elm Street teens. You see it was the parents of those Elm Street kiddies who, in an act of vigilante justice, murdered Krueger, a child killer who’d evaded the law. Years later, Freddy, the embodiment of evil, comes back as a malevolent spirit who haunts the dreams of his murderers’ offspring and kills them in their sleep.

Freddy’s Revenge isn’t so much an entire movie as it is part of a movie. As an entry in a long running series, it’s barely a chapter. The movie begins with a lot of poorly constructed setup. It’s boring because we don’t need to know the history of Elm Street. The audience knows Freddy will come; drop the bull and bring on the bad guy. Instead, we get a lot of scenes of Jesse having difficulty adjusting to school and to life as a teen, although he does have a girlfriend. Jesse’s role as a teenage misfit is mostly boring, and I couldn’t care less about the rest of the cretins who populate his high school world. The show doesn’t really start jumping until you-know-who shows up, but by the time Freddy really busts out, the movie is about over.

Clearly the writer and the director of Freddy’s Revenge didn’t have a grasp of the character like original writer/director and Freddy creator Wes Craven did. They did keep Freddy carefully cloaked in the inky darkness of night, his face mostly hidden in shadows, a creepy and convincing bogeyman (gleefully played by Englund), but they didn’t let Freddy run amuck enough. The great thing about the original was that Freddy really got to let loose. He was a truly frightening monster, especially when we couldn’t see him, but we knew he was there. There are some interesting moments here, mostly to do with Freddy. I must say that this film isn’t as bad as I expected it to be, but it’s really a clunky film. It’s feels like what it is – a sequel the studio rushed out to catch some of the good buzz left over from the first film. It’s cynical, cheap, and sad, because if they’d taken their time, the filmmakers had enough good ideas to at least make a really good scary movie.

3 of 10
C-

The Real "Brazil" Still Dazzles the Imagination

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 209 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux


Brazil (1985) – Director’s Cut
Running time: 144 minutes (2 hours, 24 minutes)
MPAA – R
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK
DIRECTOR: Terry Gilliam
WRITERS: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown
PRODUCERS: Arnon Milchan
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Roger Pratt
EDITOR: Julian Doyle
Academy Award nominee

SCI-FI/FANTASY/COMEDY with element of romance

Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Peter Vaughan, Kim Greist, Barbara Hicks, Charles McKeown, Kathryn Pogson, Shelia Reid, and Holly Gilliam

In a dystopian future, an inefficient bureaucracy controls society. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a daydreaming civil servant in the Department of Records (part of the Ministry of Information) who spots an error in a sea of paperwork – an innocent man was arrested and apparently killed because that error mistakenly identified him as a terrorist. In this future, the government expects citizens to pay fines and monetary penalties for their offences against society (the government) simply because even the most minor offenses generate so much paperwork. So the family of the innocent, now-deceased man is owed a refund for the money charged them for his “crimes.” While attempting to deliver the refund, Sam encounters Jill Layton (Kim Greist), and she looks exactly like the woman who is in all his daydreams. In the course of trying to catch up with Jill, Sam incorrectly becomes the object of government’s (via the Ministry) ire, as they assume him to be the mysterious, illegal serviceman and terrorist, Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro).

Part social commentary, part outrageous fantasy, and black comedy, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is one of the most dead-on socio-political satires in film history. It so accurately portrays both bureaucratic excess and negligence that it is both uncanny and uncannily timely, especially in light of recent events involving individual citizens being mistaken for terrorists because of their names, nationalities, and/or ethnicities. In fact, the Ministry of Information’s slogan, “Suspicion Breeds Confidence” defines the mentality of post-9/11 America.

The things that make this film excellent are the script and the actors’ ability to interpret its subtleties, while performing amidst the director’s indulgences. Terry Gilliam’s (Time Bandits) direction is obtuse, and he often seems more enamored with the dressings of his scenario rather than the narrative and allegorical aspects of it. Meanwhile, the cast seems better at bringing Gilliam’s vision to the screen that the director himself. This includes a brilliant performance by Jonathan Pryce as an exasperated everyman who doesn’t realize that he truly is different from everyone one else (kind, considerate, intelligent) and how much that endangers his life. The text (writing) is what makes Brazil a superb social commentary and an exceptional black comic satire, and luckily the cast acted as midwife to bring the script’s best aspects to screen even when Gilliam meanders.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1986 Academy Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown) and “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (Norman Garwood and Maggie Gray)


1986 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins” “Best Production Design (Norman Garwood) and “Best Special Visual Effects” (George Gibbs and Richard Conway)

Sunday, October 8, 2006