After a near seven year odyssey, visionary director Peter Jackson concludes his epic “tour-de-force” telling of “The Lord of the Rings”. His three part epic has brought audiences to their feet as each chapter pushed the envelope on how long a feature film presentation could be.

Probably the biggest box office gamble in Hollywood history finally concludes. But is the final installment worth waiting for or is it just some halfling dropping a ring into molten lava?

The third chapter picks up close to the conclusion of last winter’s “The Two Towers”. Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are still being escorted by the waif and tormented Gollum (Andy Serkis) deep into enemy territory as the stranglehold of evil still threatens to overcome Frodo.

Meanwhile, Gandalf (Ian McKellan), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) come upon Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) after the defeat of Saruman. The heroes return to Rohan where they are welcomed by King Theoden (Bernard Hill) and Eowyn (Miranda Otto).

But rising ever so quickly, the evil forces of Sauron look towards the weakening kingdom of Gondor for an epic defeat. Gondor’s capital Minas Tirith, homeland of fallen comrade Boromir (Sean Bean), is a classic warrior based city which has seen its powerful leadership wean with Boromir’s father and the kingdom’s steward, Denethor (John Noble).

If Gondor falls, the whole of Middle Earth will fall beside it. The heroes, the hobbits and the people of Rohan must once more lock swords with the evil of Sauron in hopes of securing of regal destiny for one of the heroes and the freedom of Middle Earth.

Can one small insignificant hobbit finally achieve his destiny? Can the forces of Sauron finally be destroyed? It comes down to this free-for-all and may the best man, woman, elf, dwarf, orc or hobbit win.

Peter Jackson’s conclusion is as long and drawn out as his previous films. Jackson begins his third chapter with a lot of slow key story points and eventually emerges into the epic battle for Minas Tirith. This battle is probably the best battle of the trilogy and is utter magic. The problem with this sequence being so good is that overshadows a lot of the rest of the film.

The struggle between Sam and Gollum is brilliant as Astin shows range he hasn’t used since the under-appreciated “Rudy”. Sean Astin’s Sam is a crowning achievement in this film. He so deserves an Oscar nomination for his powerful performance. He brings that character to another level beyond that of any hobbit in the film.

The Andy Serkis-Gollum CGI creation keeps getting more and more precious. (Please, forgive the pun!) I also loved the CGI creation of the giant spider. It was seamless and the whole sequence was amazing.

I also really enjoyed the separation of Merry and Pippin. It really allowed for each actor to show a different side of the hobbits. Each of their individual storylines was fun and it made for a more interesting journey this time around. I always felt they were under used and were insignificant compared to Sam and Frodo.

My biggest concern with the film was the ending. The film reaches about 7 different conclusions before the end credits. Each ending felt longer than the next because there was no flow or cohesion as we see a lot more than was needed. We love these characters but did we really need that extra 30 minutes?

I love the world of Middle Earth and all that dwell there. Peter Jackson has done what no other filmmaker ever dreamed of accomplishing with this project. Thanks, Pete for a wonderful journey.

4.5 out of 5

So Says the Soothsayer.

Written: December 2003

It’s always hardest to do the middle film in a proposed trilogy of films.

The second film is always the maker or breaker of a franchise. In some of the most successful franchises of all time, the second film has gone on to eclipse its predecessor. Examples of these stellar sequels are series like “Aliens”, “Star Trek”, “Star Wars” and even James Bond.

The hurdle that director and Tolkien visionary Peter Jackson had to endure was making a middle film in his epic trilogy that has neither a beginning or ending. It is like filming a middle chapter of an unfinished novel. In some ways that is exactly what it is.

People expecting a recap of “Fellowship” will be disappointed since Jackson dives straight into the story almost with out pause. The story picks up within seconds of where “Fellowship” left off.

The Fellowship has been split. Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) are off to Mordor to deliver the ring into Mount Doom. Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) are off to save hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) who have been captured by a troop of Orcs.

In the sequel, we find Frodo and Samwise lost in the Misty Mountains as they find themselves striking up a symbiotic friendship and alliance with the waif, Gollum (Andy Serkis). Gollum was driven insane when he possessed the “ring of power” now all he wants is to reclaim his “precious”. Can this creature be trusted or will this creature be the death of Frodo and Sam?

On the other front of the story, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli track their comrades to the kingdom of Mohan where they find a besieged kingdom that is about to overrun by the armies of the evil Saruman (Christopher Lee). A resurrected Gandalf (Ian McKellan) encourages the trio to join with King Theoden (Bernard Hill) to defend Rohan. Theoden leads his people and the trio to the legendary fortress Helm’s Deep where the final confrontation will be waged. Who will survive this battle? Will the fortress of Helm’s Deep fall? What did happen to Merry and Pippin and how will they figure into this chapter?

“Two Towers” is essentially three stories bridging the gap between the beginning and final confrontation with evil.

Jackson understands the scope of Tolkien’s Middle Earth as he finds a unique look for each of the kingdoms seen in this second Tolkien film. Tolkien and his master craftsmen built the castle of Rohan from scratch and etched out the fortress of Helm’s Deep from the walls of a rock quarry. They are truly amazing structures and Jackson uses them with passion and finesse.

The key performance of this film is the wonderful fully-digital Gollum. For once a computerized character seems to have a soul. The performance of the actor beneath the pixels shines through and he is amazing to watch in every frame. There is some humor in Gollum’s madness as he struggles with his loyalties but it’s the scenes where Gollum reacts and does things on his own that are more remarkable than his obvious psychological struggle. You can’t but feel for this misplaced creature.

I always thought that the first film took way to long to build momentum. I also felt the same about the novel. In the second film, Jackson continues the momentum he built in the third act of Fellowship. There are definitely lulls in a film of this length but Jackson never allows his audience to be bored as he delivers new and exciting things to look at in awe. The shame is that there are a lot of these spectacles that take away from the actors.

I continue to sing Viggo Mortensen’s praises in this film as I did the previous one. I also really started to enjoy John Rhys-Davies performances as Gimli the dwarf. I also have always loved the forever creepy actor Brad Dourif and I am positive there is no one out there who could have been as oozy as Brad was playing Grima Wormtongue. I liked Miranda Otto’s damsel Eowyn but I wish there were more meat in the role for this capable actress.

The biggest fault of this part of the epic trilogy is that it is the middle film. There are a lot of signs where the film could have gotten lost but Jackson stayed his course. I am sure that when we finally see the end of this epic journey the middle film will be looked on as a great bridge. There is a lot to be celebrated in this film but for people who aren’t familiar with the material they will be lost.

4.25 out of 5

So Says the Soothsayer.

Written: December 2002

As wonderfully crazy and fucked up as the city in which it’s set. Herzog isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions: “Do fish dream?” “Doesn’t everyone have a lucky crack pipe?” “What are these iguanas doing on my coffee table?” 64

Almost lost me, then it didn’t! One great lieutenant! 8/10 [IAN]

Buy it

MAGIA, ESPADA Y FANTASÍA (VI)

La segunda parte de la monumental adaptación a la pantalla de la obra de J.R.R. Tolkien por Peter Jackson y su equipo da comienzo en el punto en que la Comunidad del Anillo se disuelve: Frodo y Sam siguen su camino hacia Mordor, Merry y Pipin han caído prisioneros de los orcos de Sauron, y Aragorn, Legolas y Gimli, dejando a los pequeños portadores del anillo que encuentren su propio destino, van tras los cautivos para liberarlos, mientras Sauron y su aliado Saruman siguen acumulando fuerzas con las que aplastar a las razas libres de la Tierra Media, desunidas y parapetadas tras sus débiles defensas…

Tras el impactante efecto sorpresa de la primera entrega, Las dos torres ofrece más de lo mismo (pero peor) en la forma, aunque empieza la decadencia en cuanto al fondo. Como dijimos en su momento en esta misma sección, a medida que la trilogía avanza, sus grandes virtudes se van poco a poco diluyendo y los pequeños inconvenientes del primer capítulo, minimizados ante la grandiosidad del conjunto, van creciendo hasta poco a poco adueñarse de este puente hacia la conclusión. El problema, precisamente, es la entrega incondicional a la espectacularidad de las formas y el paulatino descuido de unas, ya de por sí, demasiado elementales, lineales, esquemáticas cuestiones de fondo (personajes, psicología, motivaciones, reacciones ante los hechos…) siguiendo, obviamente, las pautas marcadas por Tolkien pero haciendo que la película, exactamente igual que su antecesora y su continuación, dependa en exclusiva de los conocimientos previos del espectador sobre la obra literaria a fin de que pueda entender la lógica de acontecimientos y personajes, sin que se trate de un producto cinematográfico autónomo. A ello no es ajena la introducción de las grandes batallas y de las escenas de acción propias de la historia en las que la entrega a la espectacularidad es total, y en las que se desvirtúan algunos logros de la primera parte. Por ejemplo, donde hay un ingente esfuerzo por utilizar el maquillaje y la caracterización para la construcción de las diversas criaturas “no humanas” y de ambientación y dirección artística para los espacios, comienza a haber demasiada labor de computadora a fin de recrear enormes ejércitos en movimiento, espacios abiertos o decorados en los que transcurran los combates, auténticamente de videojuego por más espectaculares que sean, y también en el momento de provocar un buen número de efectos de la violencia sobre individuos y objetos. La batalla principal es tan grandiosa como artificiosa, con algún que otro guiño que supera lo humorístico para adentrarse en lo ridículo, completamente fuera del tono general de la historia, y las múltiples y complejas tramas paralelas que como un mosaico van salpicando la narración y cambiando el punto de interés y de tensión a cada momento, unidas a la excesiva duración del film, hacen que el ritmo vaya desde la lentitud más extrema al servicio del crecimiento de una tensión no siempre lograda (porque hay que entender que al igual que se depende del libro para presuponer aspectos de los personajes el espectador ya conoce el desenlace de los hechos sobre los que se pretende cargar emoción) hasta la vertiginosa sucesión de acontecimientos acelerados que siembran la película de altibajos y lagunas de emoción.

El problema es que la ingenuidad y expectación del discurso de la primera parte se torna aquí en una oda a las imágenes animadas desprovistas de discurso de cualquier tipo o, lo que es peor, intentando alcanzar la sublimidad de ciertos mensajes a través de la mera repetición de frases y situaciones pretendidamente trascendentes y decisivas (cuando, insistimos, el lector de Tolkien, espectador a quien va dirigida la película, no como intención, pero sí como construcción, ya sabe qué va a pasar y qué no) pero que, a través de ese culto a lo entendido como modernidad e innovación visuales, son en el fondo de una emotividad vacía, de una emoción nula, sin una aventura real, sin un riesgo o un peligro que realmente cruce al otro lado de la pantalla, sin unos personajes vivos por los que podamos sentir una empatía que vaya más allá de lo que los personajes dicen representar, sin llegar a sentir algo por los personajes en sí.

La película acumula historias que transcurren de manera paralela pero no por ello gana en solidez, muy al contrario, es una forma de perder pulso, de deshilvanar un puzzle que en la primera entrega había quedado ensamblado de manera aceptable. Se vuelve facilona, vulgar, reiterativa, simple y lineal, por más que visualmente pretenda todo lo contrario, resultar majestuosa, abigarrada, rica, espectacular; busca enganchar por la belleza y el impacto de imágenes grandilocuentes, olvidándose de atraparnos por el cariz de los acontecimientos que cuenta, y es ahí donde, a pesar de que engancha y obliga a seguirla, apuesta por explotar los elementos más pobres y simplones del lenguaje cinematográfico y busca convencer a través de algo, en el fondo, tan fácil como es apabullar, embaucar por aplastamiento.

Habiendo alcanzado así la trilogía la cúspide de lo que podía ofrecer, buena parte de esta segunda entrega y toda la tercera parte son un lento caer hacia la superficialidad en el discurso y el tributo a las formas animadas por ordenador en detrimento de la historia misma, al metraje excesivo en la creencia de que la mejor adaptación es la que cuenta todo (ya dijo Voltaire que el secreto de aburrir consiste en decirlo todo), de que a más, siempre es mejor. Y el cine nos ha dado gran cantidad de muestras, seguramente las mejores, de que lo mejor suele ser siempre lo contrario.

Child’s Play is a 1988 American horror film, written by Don Mancini and directed by Tom Holland. It was released on November 9, 1988. The film met with moderate success upon its release, and has since developed a cult following among fans of the horror genre. The film is the first in the Child’s Play film series, which was originally a whodunit film in contrast to the latter sequels. This was the only film in the series released by MGM/UA, as the rights to the series were sold to Universal beginning with the sequel.

Taglines

You’ll wish it was only make-believe.

Andy Barclay has a new playmate who’s in no mood to play.

This doll is killer.

Cast
  Catherine Hicks … Karen Barclay
  Chris Sarandon … Mike Norris
  Alex Vincent … Andy Barclay
  Brad Dourif … Charles Lee Ray/Chucky
  Dinah Manoff … Maggie Peterson
  Tommy Swerdlow … Jack Santos
  Jack Colvin … Dr. Ardmore
  Neil Giuntoli … Eddie Caputo

Buy this Title on DVD

Make Up Department
  Michael Hancock … makeup artist
  Marina Pedraza … hair stylist

Special Effects Department
  Howard Berger … shop supervisor: chucky construction crew
  Richard O. Helmer … special effects supervisor
  Rick Lalonde … lab technician: chucky construction crew
  Ron Pipes … hair: chucky construction crew
  Zandra Platzek … hair: chucky construction crew
  James D. Schwalm … special effects
  Carl Sorensen … lab technician: chucky construction crew
  Christopher Swift … lab technician: chucky construction crew
  Kevin Yagher … designer and executor: “Chucky” doll
  Mark C. Yagher … shop assistant: chucky construction crew
  James Kagel … lead sculptor

Child's Play Chucky Doll

Visual Effects Department
  Peter Donen … visual effects supervisor
  Joseph Yanuzzi … visual effects editor

Amazon Specials!

DIRECTOR WERNER HERZOG’S STATEMENT:

ON THE FILM’S TITLE AND SHOOTING IN NEW ORLEANS:

It does not bespeak great wisdom to call the film The Bad Lieutenant, and I only agreed to make the film after William (Billy) Finkelstein, the screenwriter, who had seen a film of the same name from the early nineties, had given me a solemn oath that this was not a remake at all. But the film industry has its own rationale, which in this case was the speculation of starting some sort of a franchise. I have no problem with this. Nevertheless, the pedantic branch of academia, the so called “film-studies,” in its attempt to do damage to cinema, will be ecstatic to find a small reference to that earlier film here and there, though it will fail to do the same damage that academia — in the name of literary theory — has done to poetry, which it has pushed to the brink of extinction. Cinema, so far, is more robust. I call upon the theoreticians of cinema to go after this one. Go for it, losers.

What the producers accepted was my suggestion to make the title more specific—Port of Call: New Orleans, and now the film’s title combines both elements. Originally, the screenplay was written with New York as a backdrop, and again the rationale of the producers set in by moving it to New Orleans, since shooting there would mean a substantial tax benefit. It was a move I immediately welcomed. In New Orleans it was not only the levees that breeched, but it was civility itself: there was a highly visible breakdown of good citizenship and order. Looting was rampant, and quite a number of policemen did not report for duty; some of them took brand new Cadillacs from their abandoned dealerships and vanished onto dry ground in neighboring states. Less fancy cars disappeared only a few days later. This collapse of morality was matched by the neglect of the government in Washington, and it is hard to figure out whether this was just a form of stupidity or outright cynicism. I am deeply grateful that the police department in New Orleans had the magnanimity and calibre to support the shooting of the film without any reservation. They know — as we all do — that the overwhelming majority of their force performed in a way that deserves nothing but admiration.

ON FILM NOIR AND NICOLAS CAGE:

New Orleans. This was fertile ground to stage a film noir, or rather a new form of film noir where evil was not just the most natural occurrence. It was the bliss of evil which pervades everything in this film. Nicolas Cage followed me in this regard with blind faith. We had met only once at Francis Ford Coppola’s, his uncle’s, winery in Napa Valley almost three decades ago when Nicolas was an adolescent, and I was about to set out for the Peruvian jungle in order to move a ship over a mountain. Now, we wondered why and how we had eluded each other ever since, why we had never worked together, and it became instantly clear that we would do this film together, or neither one of us would do it. There was an urge in both of us to join forces.

Film noir always is a consequence of the Climate of Time; it needs a growing sense of insecurity, of depression. The literature of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett is a child of the Great Depression, with film noir as its sibling. I sensed something coming in the months leading up to the making of the film: a breakdown which was so obvious in New Orleans, and half a year before finances and the economy collapsed, the signs were written on the wall. Even films like Batman turned out to be much darker than anyone expected. What finally woke me up was a banality: when attempting to lease a car I was confronted by the dealership with the unpleasant news that my credit score was abysmal, and hence I had to pay a much higher monthly rate. Why is that, I asked — I had always paid my bills, I had never owed money to anyone. That was exactly my problem: I had never borrowed money, had hardly ever used a credit card, and my bank account was not in the red. But the system punished you for not owing money, and rewarded those who did. I realized that the entire system was sick, that this could not go well, and I instantly withdrew money I had invested in stock of Lehman Brothers while a bank manager, ecstatic, with shuddering urgency, was trying to persuade me to buy even more of it.

ON THE SCREENPLAY:

As to the screenplay: it is William Finkelstein’s text, but as usual during my work as a director it kept shifting, demanding its own life, and I invented new scenes such as a new beginning and a new end, the iguanas, the “dancing” soul (actually this is Finkelstein’s, who plays a very convincing gangster in the film), the childhood story of pirate’s treasure, and a spoon of sterling silver. I also deleted quite a number of scenes where the protagonist takes drugs, simply because I personally dislike the culture of drugs. Sometimes changes entered to everyone’s surprise. To give one example: Nicolas knew that sometimes after a scene was shot I would not shut down the camera if I sensed there was more to it, a gesture, an odd laughter, or an “afterthought” from a man left alone with all the weight of a rolling camera, the lights, the sound recording, the expectant eyes of a crew upon him. I simply would not call “cut” and leave him exposed and suspended under the pressure of the moment. He, the Bad Lieutenant, after restless deeds of evil, takes refuge in a cheap hotel room, and has an unexpected encounter with the former prisoner whom he had rescued from drowning in a flooded prison tract at the beginning of the film. The young man, now a waiter delivering room service, notices there is something wrong with the Lieutenant, and offers to get him out of there. I kept the camera rolling, but nothing more came from Nicolas. “What, for Heaven’s sake, could I have added,” he asked. And without thinking for a second I said, “Do fish have dreams?” We shot the scene once more with this line, and it looked good and strange and dark. But it required being anchored in yet an additional scene at the very end of the film, with both men, distant in dreams leaning against the glass of a huge aquarium where sharks and rays and large fish move slowly as if they indeed were caught in the dreams of a distant and incomprehensible world.

I love cinema for moments like this.

The films stars Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Vondie Curtis Hall, Shawn Hatosy, Denzel Whitaker, Xzibit, Shea Wigham, Katie Chonacas and Brad Dourif.

Due out at the end of November.

Source: Film School Rejects

Is it me, or is Michael Myers starting to look suspiciously like Leatherface?

A mere 10 minutes in and with some help from a white horse and his kohl-pencil loving wife, Rob Zombie loudly announces his intentions for ”Halloween II”: He’s out to make a thinking man’s movie about Michael Myers. One where the immortal murderer sees his dear departed mum (Sheri Moon Zombie) in spooky, hazy midnight hallucinations and she lays out a master plan for family togetherness that involves dispatching young Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton). She also offers motherly advice about future kills (“now go have some fun”) and strokes her hulking son’s furrowed brow.

In a word: Spare me.

Or perhaps I should say spare us, Zombie-comma-Rob, and by “us” I mean all the Michael Myers fans who have been hanging in since the start, the ones who have seen every petrified crap-pile remake and sequel and meta-sequel with the tiniest shred of hope that this director saw the original, or at least read the blurb on the back cover of the DVD. Zombie’s first attempt, “Halloween,” showed a wee flicker of promise because there was an eerieness there (thanks to Daeg Faerch) that nearly balanced out the gore. Not so with “Halloween II,” a mindless, pointless exercise in blood spillage interrupted frequently by crazy, acid-like dream sequences. So ”Halloween II” isn’t just a stupid movie, it’s pretentious one, too. The fact that Zombie attempts to combine these qualities is about the only original thing this huge, lumbering disappointment has to offer. 

Right off things don’t look so bad, since ”Halloween II” begins where its not-so-bad predecessor ended: Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) has survived the Halloween massacre of her brother Michael (Tyler Mane), but not without serious physical and psychological scars. Now living with her friend Annie (Danielle Harris, whom you might remember from “Halloween 4″ and “Halloween 5″) and Annie’s father, Sheriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif), Laurie’s wracked with nightmares and panic attacks. Her anxiety only deepens when Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) outs her as Michael’s sister and proceeds to turn her name and Michael’s victims into big book sales. Slowly slicing and dicing his way into this storyline is Michael, driven by hallucinations to find his baby sister and stage the kind of family reunion that would make the Firefly family squeal with delight. 

That’s really all that happens in “Halloween II” in the way of plot. There’s some random teen-age sex (in a van, no less) that’s generic in its sluttiness included for good measure, or perhaps because that’s a horror movie requirement, but mostly “Halloween II” is a veritable smorgasbord of crunched bones, split throats, stomped-in craniums and severed heads. It’s crass and pointless, and what’s more it’s not inventive or even terribly interesting. If Zombie’s out to startle us with gore, he more than missed his chance — the “Hostel” and “Saw” movies long ago killed off the shock centers of our brains. What “Halloween II” serves up in the way of violence barely merits a raised eyebrow, let alone a quick dip behind the popcorn bucket or a hands-over-the-eyes maneuver. This is positively run-of-the-mill, and on its own the gore would be enough to make “Halloween II” an average horror movie.

The bigger problem here is that Zombie tries to merge Michael’s self-consciously arty and trippy visions with all the killing, and it just plain doesn’t work. There’s a serious disconnect between these two stories that never gets repaired; in fact, it seems like Zombie wrote two movies and tossed both scripts into the air, grabbing the pages and putting them in random order. Either approach would have made a decently watchable movie, but together these storylines create a big mess.

There’s probably not much point in mentioning the acting, since McDowell is no Donald Pleasance, Laurie’s friends are largely dispensable and Taylor-Compton makes Laurie into a potty-mouthed, whiny Anyteen who can barely keep our interest, much less our sympathy. She does, however, get one good line: “Nightmares are chewing at my head again … they just seem to be getting worse.”

After sitting through “Halloween II”? Yeah, I’d say my brain felt decidedly nibbled.

Grade: D

Just in time for next month’s release…

Welcome to Remake Radar, where we take on Hollywood’s penchant for remaking films for better or worse (which is most of the time). This month’s movie:

“Bad Lieutenant” (1992)

Stars: Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, and Frankie Thorn

Director: Abel Ferrara

Story: Harvey Keitel plays the main character, a guy who is as much a criminal as a cop. Buried under gambling debt and looking for the next score, he ends up helping out a nun (Thorn) and reflecting on his life, searching for forgiveness.

What do we know now?: Werner Herzog has taken the reins on this one, subbing in Nic Cage for Keitel and relocating from NYC to Bayou country. Cage is investigating the killing of five Senegalese immigrants. Eva Mendes (who was with cage in “Ghost Rider”) shows up in this one as well. Also starring is Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, and Brad Dourif.

The release date is set for November 20, 2009.

Original trailer:

Remake trailer:

Originally published in Rip-in Magazine Issue 046, 2007.

Genre: Horror

Actors: Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Tyler Mane, Daeg Faerch, Sherie Moon Zombie, William Forsythe

Director: Rob Zombie

Children are a delicatessen of horror films. Big, hulking and gargantuan blokes with a cleaver are still in the menu but it is an old recipe that is both passé and outdated. Children, however, add that something-special to the plate and wet the palate of tired consumers of slasher movies. After all, it’s not every season that we get to watch a ten-year-old boy slice the throat of his step-father, (literally) backstab his sister and clobber the skull of his sister’s boyfriend with a shiny baseball bat. In Rob Zombie’s Halloween, Michael Myers (Faerch) has infantilised to four feet of pure innocence and evil.

Based on John Carpenter’s original screenplay in 1978, Halloween has attracted cult-status. With an unforgettable soundtrack that is the ringtone of hardcore fans, the film has gathered itself a following of mask-wearing, plastic knife wielding devotees.

Unlike its predecessors, Zombie’s Halloween goes back in time to the awakening of Myer’s bloodlust. Slasher films do not normally bother with storyline or plot. The point is to hack and hack and hack. But the director has taken steps to introduce a rare ideology, which is ‘intrigue’, and this is evident through 45 minutes of intricate storytelling.

The audience is siphoned into the world of young Michael Myers who suffers from a severe split-personality disorder. On good days, the boy is all smiles, hugs and feminine innocence. On bad days, a Cruela Deville look-a-like nurse gets stabbed with a fork. Dr. Samuel Loomis (McDowell) is introduced as the specialised psychologist that could possibly cure Myer’s deranged personality disorder. Of course, his success rate is as slim as an anorexic drinking full cream milk.

Seventeen years passed and, to the surprise of no one, Myers manages to break out from prison. And from here onwards, it is 45 minutes of unadulterated slasher idiocy. The Incredible Oaf (adult Myers played by Tyler Mane) roams the streets of Haddonfield, unobtrusively picking up and cutting down the residents that no one seems to miss. Later on we realise that Myers plans to kidnap his baby-sister (Sheri Zombie) but for what reason, only hell knows.

You know a slasher movie as a slasher movie when more than five bullets enters the body of a nutcase and he still gets up with an insouciant gait to kill the victim. At the very end, even I doubted a bullet to the head would keep the mute monster down. But like all good horror movies, you could smell a sequel before the audience breathes out their first stale breath.

All in all, you would only watch Halloween because it is rated R and you wanted cheap thrills. If you’re hell bent on going and paying to see this flick then bring a pen to the movies. You might get an itch to draw your neighbour’s arm after the first 45 minutes.

The showdown between a nurse and a patient. Let the games begin.

Implacable rabble-rouser Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is committed to an asylum and inspires his fellow patients to rebel against the authoritarian rule of head nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher).

The film has one of the greatest feuds between 2 characters I have ever seen on film. A nurse and a patient doesn’t seem so heavy you say, but after you see this then you will question no more. Nurse Ratched is all about order and discipline. Randle on the other hand represents everything anti-establishment, who is in the nut house pretending to be crazy to escape being in incarcerated.Both feud and show dislike towards one another and its surely something great to see.

The film has a great sense of the human qualities to it. Randle treats these patients as if they are normal old human beings and not some drugged out nut cases that have to follow a same routine everyday. This makes you think and makes you feel about life in a great and wonderful way of who you really are.

There are scenes that are just simply unforgettable much of due to the charisma of the stars portraying these characters. They all seem so real in a creepy kinda weird way. Jack Nicholson gives an amazing performance that is too great to be true and brings all of the energy to the film. Having Louise Flecther playing the quiet but very strict nurse is totally effective as she is a lady that doesn’t talk too loudly and wants everything done her way but when that flip switches, oh god it sure as heck switches. The rest of the cast do very exceptional jobs as many will see great debut films for such stars as: Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and Brad Dourif.

The mixes with comedy and drama throughout but ultimately is the most effective tragedy of all-time. The on-going feud between Nurse Ratched and Randle are simply one of the greatest feuds on screen of all-time and set the grounds for many more effective feuds in cinema history.

There is nothing bad I can say about this film other than it truly is a wonderful American Classic. All should see if you want a film that will make you laugh, cry, think, and overall be happy about your own life, and not many films nowadays do that.

10/10=Full Price!!!

There have been oodles of monster countdowns. There have been ones about “giant monsters”, “sea monsters”, “classic monsters” and “human-sized monsters” so where was all love for the little monsters!

So in the spirit of Halloween, this top ten looks at all those small monsters people quickly forget:

We have looked at 6-10 (Click HERE if you forgot) and now we on with the countdown.

#5. Troll

The Troll series has become legendary. Troll 2 is considered one of the worst best movies of all time. Whatever that means. Troll 2 also inspired a 2-hour documentary about the phenomenon called Best Worst Movie that is currently a smash on the festival circuit. 

To be honest I dont understand the appeal. I have seen both Troll movies and they are just not worth your time. The series ranks #5 on my list because of all the hoopla surrounding the series. I have read many reviews of Troll 2 (377 on imdb alone) and so many people say its the funniest movie they have ever seen.  Could be the worst movie ever, fascinating.

As for the documentary on  the making of Troll 2, check out the link below:

http://bestworstmovie.com/

#4. Leprechaun
 

This pint-sized wonder has the most sequels of anyone on this list. The success of the Leprechaun series is mind-boggling. Warwick Davis, best known for playing Wicket in Return of the Jedi and Willow Offgood in Willow, is at the centre of this hidden franchise. His wisecracks and pure insanity in the role have made Leperchaun one of the most successful DVD horror series ever with six films.   

 The series started when a man stole the Leprechaun’s pot of gold and fled to the US. The Leprechaun tracked him down but was outsmarted by the man and locked in his basement. Many years later Tory (Jennifer Aniston) and her brother release the Leprechaun who is hell bent on getting back his pot of gold.

 Taking the Leprechaun myth and making it sinister and twisted is interesting for one movie, but six? Well, they did really get extremely desperate with carrying on this series when they launched the Leprechaun into space and took him to “the Hood” for two sequels.  

 His astonishing success and Warwick’s dedication to the role place him #4 on my list but I can’t say I have ever been a fan of this series.

#3. Critters

 Critters was a series of films (4 believe it or not) that captured my imagination because of just how silly they were. An meteor carrying these sharp toothed menaces crashes into a field outside a small town and in the first film the townfolk have to fight back against these little guys.

The Critters are aliens kind of like a cross between Tribbles from Star Trek, Gremlins and I am not sure if you remember a toy called Madballs. The Critters roll into balls and then bounce around before they strike.

I am still not sure if the humor in the movie was actually supposed to be there. The central hero of the series is a hapless mechanic named Charlie, (played by Don Keith Opper), who leads the fight against the Crites in all four movies. What makes him such an interesting hero is that he’s the unlikeliest of heroes. He’s dim witted, unattractive, not very imaginative but enthusiastic. He’s also quite funny.

In the first film, the Crites are tracked by some bounty hunters who are trying to stop them before they destroy another planet. Eventually Charlie teams up the hunters and becomes one. This series is quite imaginative and worth a look this Halloween. Oh did I mention the third movie stars a very young Leonardo DiCaprio?

I have fond memories of it as one of those horror series that people never admit they liked. Okay, I admit it!

#2. Chucky

Okay, I have a pretty simple reason why I love Chucky so much! The whole idea of taking a serial killer and mystically placing his mind in a child’s toy that looks like a cross between a Cabbage Patch Kid and Raggedy Andy is utterly brilliant. The whole Cabbage Patch Kid phenomenon freaked me out to begin with but putting a mind like Jeffrey Dahmer inside it made me howl with glee.

Chucky rocks! The comedy about him complaining he can’t do basic human things and how mad it gets him makes me howl. I love how this serial killer is in hell. Not to mention you have to give credit for the amazing voicing by Brad Dourif for bringing that frustration to the surface.

Since Chucky debuted in 1988, there have been five films as Chucky’s twisted mind and curse are examined and re-examined through each sequel. The first three films show us some of Chucky and how complicated he is but the films feel more like Halloween sequels. In 1998, seven years after the last sequel, Chucky returned in Bride of Chucky and this time Chucky became more than a twisted child’s toy but a real life character. The whole series was changed forever with that movie as the humor and Chucky’s frustation manifested even more and well the addition of a love interest was definitely going to amp up the humor as a whole.

I love Chucky movies because of the humor and how writer and creator Don Mancini was able to shape Chucky into something more memorable than a psycho with a knife.

#1. Gremlins

In 1984, Steven Spielberg sponsored the former Roger Corman protege, Joe Dante on his new film Gremlins. The movie told of a down-on-his-luck inventor who buys a Christmas present for his son, Billy (Zach Galligan). The present is an animal called a mogwai, whom Billy names Gizmo. The cute adorable little creature comes with three very special rules.

1. They hate bright lights.

2. Don’t get them wet.

3. And what ever you do no matter how much they beg and scream, never, ever feed them after midnight!

Roger Corman actor-staple Dick Miller makes an appearance in the film as he has done in so many of Corman’s goofier classics. Anyone remember Chopping Mall? But in this film he is the one warning Billy about gremlins and how they get into machinery and are a menace.  Billy laughs off the warnings. Well his mind changes when Gizmo’s offspring are accidentally fed after midnight.

The movie is a classic because it mixes horror and comedy into a holiday-themed family movie to amazing results. The clever rules, little creatures, distinct personalities and well the chaos that comes after are all priceless. I still love that kitchen battle with the Gremlins.

Gremlins spawned many copycats after it was released and many of them made this list but the reason they are number one isnt because they started the whole phenomenon but because of the film’s impact. The film seems to magically get us to love these creatures almost right off the bat. Most horror movies don’t allow us to relate or even treasure every frame that these little puppets are in. Some franchises it takes movie after movie before we even get to know the creatures but for Gremlins that is established as soon as Billy’s dad recites the rules. That is why they rank #1 this list.

I love how the movie plays up the fact that utter chaos can come from simplicity. Gremlins is an amazing movie and one I still watch every year around Christmas. Gremlins 2 also ranks in my top 50 favorite sequels of all time. So when or if ever are we going to see a third movie? This series is screaming to be a trilogy.

So Says the Soothsayer. 

Cult and classic favorites, new editions, and complete series collections dominate today’s new release schedule.

Christmas is a little over nine weeks away, and already the movie studios and television networks are pumping out special editions of DVD and Blu-Ray sets unmistakable for their gift potential, including new editions and expanded versions of cult and classic favorites. This week shows a pretty broad cross section of the last forty years of film and television, including at least one half-forgotten classic TV series, possibly the best cop show ever, and a half-dozen other, smaller releases with appeal to more selective audiences.

The big release this week, of course, is Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD and Blu-Ray. Nevertheless, the following is just a sampling of what else is available, including the suggested manufacturer’s list price. Of course, prices may vary according to retailer, and will likely decrease as the holidays bear down on us.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles – “Those Aren’t Pillows” Edition ($14.98)  Boasting career highs from both writer-director John Hughes and co-star John Candy, this 1987 classic features Steve Martin as Neal Page, an uptight Chicago executive stuck in a series of accidents, near-accidents and strokes of bad luck while trying to fly home for Thanksgiving. Candy plays Del Griffith, the slovenly shower curtain ring salesman who dogs his every errant step and false move. The chemistry between Candy and Martin is almost legendary, with each new calamity building on the last to overwhelm the mismatched travelers. Full of quotes and scenes you’ll re-create with friends through the holidays. “Dell Griffith, please to meet you.”

This new DVD includes Hughes and Candy retrospectives and a deleted scene.

Monsoon Wedding – The Criterion Collection ($39.95) This 2001 dramatic comedy won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and helped reignite foreign film afficianados’ love affair with Bollywood cinema. Directed by Mira Nair (the upcoming Amelia), the story follows the entanglements and complications arising from a traditional Punjabi wedding, showing the ups and downs of both the family members and the servants on whose shoulders the celebration ultimately rests. Maybe some of the characters are a bit broad, and the observations a little precious, but audiences who enjoy family centered works such as this probably won’t care anyway.

The Criterion edition contains all the usual premium-grade extras you’d expect, including three short documentaries about India directed by Nair. Also available on Blu-Ray disc.

Easy Rider ($38.96) - The iconic road movie about 60s rebellion comes – only a little ironically – to Blu-Ray disc with a new featurette and commentary by director and co-star Dennis Hopper. For those few who don’t already know, the 1969 film follows two rebels (Hopper and Peter Fonda) as they drive from California to New Orleans in order to see Mardi Gras. Along the way they pick up a small-town lawyer (Jack Nicholson, in his star-making role) who shares their disillusionment with society and its trappings. For a treatise on freedom, the film’s attention to form, structure, and even geographic accuracy are appropriately loose, with digressions and long talky passages frequently interrupting the travelogue montage sequences. And the infamous ending, though explosive at the time, today feels both pretentious and stiff. Still, the movie overall captures the era’s zeitgeist, even while as a work of cinema it gets creakier by the year.

Vega$: The First Season Volume 1 ($36.98) More than twenty years before the sexy lab rats of CSI:, Las Vegas was kept safe by freewheelin’ private detective Dan Tanna (Robert Urich), cruising the streets in his vintage Thunderbird and solving cases with his bumbling sidekick and single-mom secretary. The show is vintage late 70s cheese, right down to the swanky, horn-driven music and do-your-thing attitude, and with his cool car and hip bachelor pad Tanna is the archetypal private eye of the period. Urich, who might be described not unkindly as the Tim Daly of his generation, holds the show down thanks to his easy charm. The three-disc set includes the first half of the first season, though why CBS video wouldn’t spring for the other half is anybody’s guess.

Homicide: Life On The Street – The Complete Series ($149.95) About as far from Vega$ as humanly possible in tone and approach alike, NBC’s critically-adored, audience-starved 1993-99 procedural consistently struggled to find its audience, and no wonder. The show was simply ahead of its time, as demonstrated by the success of The Wire, Homicide creator David Simon’s later effort and a sequel to this earlier series in all but name. Based on Simon’s book chronicling his year with the Baltimore Police homicide department, Homicide the series ranks among the best television ever produced, and for our money it’s the best cop show ever. Utterly and completely riveting for six of its seven seasons, with the seventh (following the departure of breakout star Andre Braugher) being only very good. The middle seasons depicting the mammoth “Luther Mahoney Saga” are essential viewing for any cop show fan.

The equally mammoth 35-disc collection includes all 122 episodes, three crossover Law & Order episodes, and the 2001 telepic Homicide: Life Everlasting, which served as coda and elegy and for the series.

The Hunger: The Complete Second Season ($39.98) Possibly the closest thing Generation X’ers might ever get to their own Twilight outside of the Whedonverse (True Blood arguably notwithstanding), the second and final season of this British anthology series featured demons, vampires, and smart erotica mixed into a potent swirl and hosted by David Bowie, who at 62 years old still has more erotic cool than the somnambulant hipsters of Twilight likely ever will.

The four disc set includes all 22 episodes, produced by Tony and Ridley Scott and featuring appearances by Anthony Michael Hall, Giovanni Ribisi, Eric Roberts, Brad Dourif, Jennifer Beals, and many others. The first season, hosted by Terrence Stamp, is also available.

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

This morning I spent five or six hours browsing various forums in the hope that some ideas would miraculously come to me, but things have been quiet all over. Jeez, where is everyone? Some forums have become ghost towns these days, and I’m not just referring to small and underpopulated ones. In an effort to distract myself from the forthcoming apocalypse month of writing ahead of me, I decided it might be a good idea to watch a film.

There are plenty of DVDs to choose from, amongst a rapidly expanding collection of pretty much anything and everything, but I decided to stick with a couple of films I had remembered loving when I first bought them. Unfortunately I soon realized that my brain had filled in gaps and added scenes that weren’t in the films, polishing them up a bit and making them into classics of the low-budget bargain bin. Jeez, I should have known better than to trust my memories of them.

The Exterminator, a schlocky revenge movie with a very miscast Christopher George, seemed to be even cheaper than an Ass-ylum flick. I wanted to enjoy the ludicrous violence and stupid plot, but I simply couldn’t muster the energy to accept the obvious deficiencies. It was painful to watch the film, as I know that revenge movies can transcend the ghetto of low budget filmmaking. Maybe it was just because I wasn’t in the mood, maybe it was the poor transfer, but there is nothing to bring me back to the film again…

Though I kinda enjoyed Spontaneous Combustion, Tobe Hooper’s dumb pyrokinetic horror flick, I felt there was something missing. Brad Dourif, an actor who is no stranger to low budget films, is always watchable, but somehow looked like he wasn’t on top form. I’ve heard a lot of real hostility to the film expressed, and while I acknowledge that Hooper isn’t exactly the greatest director, the negativity people have for this film seems overkill. It isn’t bad. It isn’t great either, and that is the problem.

I’ve wasted most of the day on these films, and I still haven’t kicked off any ideas that might be of use for my NaNo.

Damn…

I even tried (re-)reading the awful-yet-hilarious Vittorio, yet Anne Rice’s most overblown and melodramatic novel is still to ridiculous to contemplate reading in the mood I’m in. Sixty pages is the most I have ever managed, but today I barely got past page twenty, which probably says more about my patience than it does about the book.

There isn’t even any decent television shows to keep me occupied while I try to tick away the days until I can begin to put words down for my New Idea… Though it would be kinda neat if I actually had a decent idea to go with the title of New Idea. Watching DVDs and (failing to) read books isn’t helping in the slightest, though I do have plenty of ideas as to what I’m gonna avoid like an ebola-infected chimpanzee. Today might not have been completely wasted, as there are still things to learn from bad stories.

There’s no point in playing with pseudoscience when I’m trying to make things easier on myself. Telekinesis (and the variations thereof) has a lot of problems that would need twisty-turny dialogue to explain. The revenge threads that have run through some of my previous stories is feeling rather used up, and I don’t think I have much more to say about that, so I’m now stumped as to the driving force which will propel a character (who hasn’t presented him or herself) through a world (which has yet to solidify) with some semblance of logic.

I’ll keep thinking on stories, and hopefully won’t have to resort to a collection of short stories for my NaNo.

####

If anyone is wondering what the worst film ever made is, and many people have valid suggestions as to that particular answer, I’ll give you five of what I consider the worst…

1. Batman & Robin
2. Transformers: Rise Of The Fallen
3. Tank Girl
4. Fantastic Four (Roger Corman)
5. Howard The Duck

Feel free to argue amongst yourselves. I’m off to brainstorm…

Sinopse:

Aos 10 anos, Michael Myers é um garoto problemático, excluído por todos. Sua mãe é uma stripper  e vive brigando com o namorado. Para descontar sua raiva do mundo, Michael tem o hábito de maltratar animais, até que um dia o diretor da escola descobre e informa à sua mãe que o garoto possuem tendências psicopatas. Numa noite de Halloween, fantasiado com uma de suas máscaras preferidas, ele perde totalmente o controle, assassina todos na casa e vai parar num reformatório. Depois de ficar recluso por 17 anos, ele foge da instituição e retorna à cidade em busca de vingança.

- Vi muito comentário de que o filme era uma merda e tal. Eu gostei! Curto os filmes do Rob Zombie.

- Assistido em 16/10/2009

Bride of Chucky (also known as Child’s Play 4: Bride of Chucky, Child’s Play 4 or BOC) is a 1998 American comedy horror film directed by Chinese director Ronny Yu, who also directed Freddy vs. Jason and The 51st State. It is the fourth entry in the Child’s Play series. The film stars Jennifer Tilly (who plays and voices the titular character the Bride of Chucky or Tiffany) and Brad Dourif (who voices Chucky). This movie co-stars John Ritter, Katherine Heigl and Nick Stabile. The music score is by Graeme Revell (who previously did the music for Child’s Play 2).

Child's Play 4: Bride of Chucky (1998)

Bride of Chucky marks the point where the series takes a more humorous turn, often into self-referential parody. Thus the change from the Child’s Play in the title. Contrary to the previous three films, the violence in Bride of Chucky is punctuated by humor to deflate the macabre visuals. The film follows the events of the previous films continuity-wise, but not tonally or in a continuation of those film’s overall plot (where Chucky pursued the character Andy Barclay). This film also marks Chucky’s new permanent look, a more frightening appearance in which he was covered in scars.

 Trivia:

• The film’s promotional poster is a parody of the Scream 2 promo poster.

• In the film’s opening scene, Michael Myers’ mask (from the Halloween films), Jason Voorhees’s mask (from the Friday the 13th films), Leatherface’s chainsaw (from the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films), and Freddy Krueger’s glove (from the Nightmare on Elm Street films) are visible in the evidence locker.

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• Andy Barclay is not mentioned, nor does he appear, in this film, except in the opening credits where a newspaper headline reads: Boy Claims Doll Possessed By Killer’s Soul. In a deleted scene, Chucky argues with Tiffany about getting his revenge on him for causing him trouble in the past.
• In the scene before Tiffany is electrocuted and she was watching the 1935 movie Bride of Frankenstein (the movie that inspired Bride of Chucky), when Frankenstein says, “We belong dead.” In the scene at the cemetery, after Tiffany stabs Chucky in the back and he asks “Why?” and Tiffany says the exact same line, paying homage to the earlier film.
• Chucky’s death scene at the end (when he was shot to death by Jade) was a 10-year anniversary homage to Chucky’s death at the end of Child’s Play.
• The date on Tiffany’s newspaper clippings at the beginning of the movie and the date of death on Charles Lee Ray’s tombstone is 9 November 1988, the release date of the first Child’s Play movie.
• There is a character in the film named Damien Baylock. In The Omen, the satanic child is named Damien, while his evil nanny is named Mrs. Baylock.
• When John Ritter’s character is seemingly killed, his face looks much like Pinhead from Hellraiser. Chucky exclaims, “Why does that look so familiar?” Andrew Robinson, who played Sgt. Botnick in Child’s Play 3, played Larry Cotton in Hellraiser.
• According to the DVD’s director commentary, Chucky was originally supposed to say to Chief Warren (John Ritter), “Sorry, Jack, but three’s a crowd,” after killing him – referring to Ritter’s starring role in the hit television sitcom Three’s Company. (At the last minute, the director deleted the line from the script because he found it too corny. The joke may have also referred to the series’ short-lived spinoff, Three’s a Crowd).
• When Jesse (Nick Stabile) asks Chucky and Tiffany how they became dolls, Tiffany replies “it is a long story,”. and Chucky says “Let me put it this way,if this were a movie it would take 3 to 4 sequels to do it justice,”. (A humorous reference to the length of the “Child’s Play” series).
• Police Officer Robert Bailey, who is killed in the opening sequence of Bride of Chucky, is referenced in the sequel Seed of Chucky. Tiffany is trying to end her killing fetish and decides to atone for her killings. She phones Bailey’s widow to apologize for slitting her husband’s throat, causing the woman to sob and Tiffany to feel a sense of closure.
• When Chucky decides to kill Chief Kincaid, he first picks up a ball-peen hammer, only to put it down when Tiffany remarks, “Predictable.” In the original Child’s Play, Chucky kills his first victim by hitting her in the head with a ball-peen hammer and sending her flying out a window.
• Tiffany asks Chucky if he was born with a knife superglued to hand. This is a reference to the second film when Chucky loses his hand in the climax and replaced it with a knife.

27 x 40 Movie Poster

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27 x 40 Movie Poster

 

 

Critters 4 is a 1992 sci-fi comedy horror film starring Don Keith Opper, Terrence Mann, Angela Bassett and Brad Dourif. It was directed by Rupert Harvey and written by David J. Schow, Brad Dourif, and Rupert Harvey. It is part of the Critters series.

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Tagline: In space, they love to hear you scream!

Trivia:

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When Werner Herzog’s remake/sequel of Abel Ferrera’s Bad Lieutenant was announced, it gave Internet cynics fodder for an endless stream of articles chuckling over how absurd the whole project was. Was this ridicule triggered by the potential folly of recreating a project as uncompromising as Ferrera’s original? Was it the standard cineaste’s resistance to recycling older movies, or the thought of recycling something made so recently? Or was it that Herzog had cast Nicolas Cage? Without a frame being shot it was already being heralded as a disaster, as if Herzog’s legendary take-no-prisoners attitude had suddenly metamorphosed into some kind of dementia. When the trailer arrived the derisory laughter increased. Cage’s reputation as the bad movie actor du jour has become so entrenched in popular thinking that the obviously intentional humour of the trailer was treated as evidence that Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was another Wicker-Man-style disaster waiting to happen. The reality is that Herzog’s crime drama will more than likely disappoint those who were hoping for a failure, but thrill everyone else.

Cage portrays Terrence McDonagh, a police detective who inherits the mantle of Bad Lieutenant after injuring himself during a post-Katrina rescue. After this quick origin story we see McDonagh in the grip of an addiction to painkillers and coke, deep in debt and stealing drugs from criminals. The only thing that separates him from the perps he chases is his dedication to the job, especially his determination to bring to justice the drug kingpin Big Fate (Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner) who he suspects is responsible for the murder of an immigrant family. So far, so Keitel. McDonagh, however, is lucky enough to have a girlfriend (Frankie, played by Cage’s Ghost Rider co-star Eva Mendes) who just so happens to be a prostitute on a downward spiral of her own. Though neither of them are particularly admirable people, they seem to care for each other. As they become more absorbed into a depraved world, this connection seems to be the one thing that might save them.

The similarity to Ferrera’s original is obvious, but whereas that movie was harrowing and dark, Herzog brings an unexpected sense of possibility and even joy to this tale. Avoiding the tortured and oppressive air of Catholic guilt that made the original so distinctive, Herzog gives McDonagh a chance at redemption that doesn’t revolve around appeasing an indifferent God, and thus generates a sense of unexpected uplift. Additionally, while Ferrera set his movie in a decaying New York, Herzog takes metaphorical advantage of New Orleans’ recent history and the attempts of the citizens to rebuild their city, efforts that echo McDonagh’s own. Even at its darkest Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is filmed in almost constant brightness, and it helps that Herzog has filled the supporting cast with amusing eccentrics played by terrific character actors like Vondie Curtis Hall, Jennifer Coolidge, Fairuza Balk, Michael Shannon, and Brad Dourif. Also included is a subdued and underused Val Kilmer as a cop lacking even McDonagh’s vanishing moral core.

All act as amusing foils for Cage, but special mention must be made of Shea Whigham as abusive mob goon Justin who appears midway through the film to abuse Frankie. His dopey attitude and woozily delivered threats are sure-fire crowd-pleasers. Perhaps that’s the most surprising thing about Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Even though the trailer featured a number of amusing moments, the refreshingly breezy tone of the movie is a surprise, even though it features murder, sexual abuse, drug-taking, and old-lady-menacing. While Ferrera was determined to send the viewer to hell with Keitel, Herzog takes a cue from William Finkelstein’s script and makes a movie that does all it can to send the audience home with a smile on its face. The lackadaisical approach does come at the cost of narrative momentum: several scenes in the movie meander without purpose, which is something you wouldn’t expect from a seasoned TV writer who has worked on L.A. Law, NYPD Blue and Murder One, though the demented elements of the movie seem to tally with his work on lost TV classic Cop Rock:

It’s possible Finkelstein was partly responsible for the unconventional plotting, but even so, Herzog has little interest in the usual rhythms of crime dramas, happily chasing diversions or playing genre conventions for absurd laughs. He’s smart enough to keep an eye on the needs of the plot — especially the question of how out of control McDonagh actually is, which leads to some satisfying surprises in the final act — and to make sure we see the depressed human behind the outrageous bad behaviour of our protagonist, but he also has a need to drop in random instances of The Weird, often involving animals. A crocodile gets a memorable cameo, but it’s the iguanas that will stay with you when you leave the cinema. Nothing can prepare you for the already legendary Iguana-Cam. Herzog will be pleased to know that this scene brought the house down at the London Film Festival screening we attended. It is a completely deranged moment, a perfectly timed comedic aside, and impossible to forget. (If you wish to experience this scene in its proper context, avoid this clip until you’ve seen the movie.)

Herzog’s unpredictable take on the genre would not work without a strong performance at the core of it, and he is lucky to have Cage on his side. Herzog has found an actor of almost Kinski-esque intensity to guide his movie, someone who understands exactly what he wants and can collaborate as an equal, if this interview is to be believed. It often feels as if each of these imaginative artists has goaded the other on to greater weirdness. Nevertheless, even when the movie threatens to disappear into a cloud of peculiarity, their intelligence brings us back from the brink. Even the most formally or narratively daring moments in the film feel right, as if the movie couldn’t have been made any other way; eccentricity without the desperate quirkiness of a lesser filmmaker like, say, Richard Kelly. Without Herzog the movie would probably have stayed on a familiar genre path, and without Cage Herzog would have been forced to work with someone lacking in the ability to fuse madness with sincerity. Their collaboration is truly fortuitous.

Much has been made of Cage’s manic scenes, which range in tone from darkly funny to troubling, and sometimes both simultaneously. (Again, skip this if you wish to remain unspoiled.)

Less has been said about the humanity of Cage’s performance. While never having a scene as memorable and cathartic as Keitel’s astonishing breakdown in church from the original movie, Cage litters the movie with panicky moments where we get a glimpse of a man who knows he has gone astray. While Harvey Keitel’s lieutenant seems barely aware of his soul’s need for salvation until he collapses in church, McDonagh seems to know things have gone wrong and tries to correct this. Fans of Ferrera’s movie might complain that the remake loses focus by showing a man consciously scrambling to get back to a state of virtue, but what would Herzog gain from replicating Keitel’s downward trajectory? McDonagh’s desire for absolution generates a tension between his goals and his actions that powers what would otherwise be a fragmented and unsatisfying movie.

Cage brilliantly portrays McDonagh’s regression into a state of adolescent impulsiveness. His colleagues and acquaintances seem baffled or annoyed by his delinquent behaviour — both his unintentional outbursts and the rare moments when he harnesses his weird energy to do good –and only Frankie seems to want to help him. Casting Eva Mendes — a naturally charming actress capable of more than she is usually given to do — is another of Herzog’s masterstrokes. Her chemistry with Cage was one of the few truly great things to come out of Mark Steven Johnson’s terrible Ghost Rider.

This is easily the most layered and entertaining work Cage has done since Adaptation — not to mention his most likeable performance — and is enough to trigger hope of a new great Age of Cage. Even some of his more eccentric choices — such as suddenly imitating Ed Sullivan for about twenty minutes and then stopping with no explanation — make a weird kind of sense by the end of the film. His work here runs the risk of being little more than a series of gimmicky outbursts, but it often transcends mere flash to become something more profound, both comedic and tragic. McDonagh has become possessed by something alien and primal — something so destructive it’s almost a form of demonic possession — and it is thrilling to see him battle against it to reclaim his soul. The final, unexpected image will warm even the hardest heart.

But hey, if that’s not enough to convince you to see the movie, just go for the iguanas. You’ll thank me.

In Werner Herzog’s new film ‘The Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans,’ Nicolas Cage plays a rogue detective who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs — while playing fast and loose with the law. He wields his badge as often as he wields his gun in order to get his way. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he becomes a high-functioning addict who is a deeply intuitive, fearless detective reigning over the beautiful ruins of New Orleans with authority and abandon. Complicating his tumultuous life is the prostitute he loves (played by Eva Mendes). Together they descend into their own world marked by desire, compulsion, and conscience. The result is a singular masterpiece of filmmaking: equally sad and manically humorous.