Reservoir Dogs.
Quentin Tarantino turned Hollywood on its ear in 1992 with his explosive first one. Like
Tarantino's mainstream breakthrough Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs has an
unconventional structure, cleverly shuffling back and forth in time to reveal details
about the characters, experienced criminals who know next to nothing about each other. Joe
(Lawrene Tierney) has assembled them to pull off a simple heist, and has gruffly assigned
them color-coded aliases (Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, Mr. White) to conceal their identities
from being known even to each other. But something has gone wrong, and the plan has blown
up in their faces. One by one, the surviving robbers find their way back to their
prearranged warehouse hideout. There, they try to piece together the chronology of this
bloody fiasco -and to identify the traitor among them who tipped off the police. Pressure
mounts, blood flows, accusations and bullets fly. In the combustible atmosphere these men
are forced to confront life-and-death questions of trust, loyalty, professionalism,
deception, and betrayal. As many critics have observed, it is a movie about "honor
among thieves" (just as Pulp Fiction is about redemption, and Jackie Brown
is about survival). Along with everything else, the movie provides a showcase for a
terrific ensemble of actors: HarveyKeitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen,
Christopher Penn, and Tarantino himself, offering a fervent dissection of Madonna's
"Like a Virgin" over breakfast. Reservoir Dogs is violent (though the
violence is implied rather than explicit), clever, gabby, harrowing, funny, suspenseful,
and even -in the end-unexpectedly moving. (Don't forget that "Super Sounds of the
Seventies" soundtrack, either.) Reservoir Dogs deserves just as much acclaim
and attention as its follow-up, Pulp Fiction, would receive 2 years later.
The
Silence of the Lambs
Based on Thomas Harris's novel, this terrifying film by Jonathan Demme really only
contains a couple of genuinely shocking moments (one involving an autopsy, the other a
prison break). The rest of the film is a splatter-free visual and psychological descent
into the hell of madness, redeemed astonishingly by an unlikely connection between a
monster and a haunted young woman. Anthony Hopkins is extraordinary as the cannibalistic
psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, virtually entombed in a subterranean prison for the
criminally insane. At the behest of the FBI, agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie
Foster) approaches Lecter, requesting his insights into the identity and methods of a
serial killer named Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). In exchange, Lecter demands the right to
penetrate Starling's most painful memories, creating a bizarre but palpable intimacy that
liberates them both under separate but equally horrific circumstances. Demme, a filmmaker
with a uniquely populist vision (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild), also
spent his early years making pulp for Roger Corman (Caged Heat), and he hasn't
forgotten the significance of tone, atmosphere, and the unsettling nature of a crudely
effective close-up. Much of the film, in fact, consists of actors staring straight into
the camera (usually from Clarice's point of view), making every bridge between one set of
eyes to another seem terribly dangerous.
Blue
Velvet
David Lynch peeks behind the picket fences of small-town America to reveal a corrupt
shadow world of malevolence, sadism, and madness. From the opening shots Lynch turns the
Technicolor picture postcard images of middle class homes and tree-lined lanes into a
dreamy vision on the edge of nightmare. After his father collapses in a preternaturally
eerie sequence, college boy Kyle MacLachlan returns home and stumbles across a severed
human ear in a vacant lot. With the help of sweetly innocent high school girl (Laura
Dern), he turns junior detective and uncovers a frightening yet darkly compelling world of
voyeurism and sex. Drawn deeper into the brutal world of drug dealer and blackmailer
Frank, played with raving mania by an obscenity-shouting Dennis Hopper in a
career-reviving performance, he loses his innocence and his moral bearings when confronted
with pure, unexplainable evil. Isabella Rossellini is terrifyingly desperate as Hopper's
sexual slave who becomes MacLachlan's illicit lover, and Dean Stockwell purrs through his
role as Hopper's oh-so-suave buddy. Lynch strips his surreally mundane sets to a ghostly
austerity, which composer Angelo Badalamenti encourages with the smooth, spooky strains of
a lush score.
Blue Velvet is a disturbing film that delves into the darkest reaches of
psycho-sexual brutality and simply isn't for everyone. But for a viewer who wants to see
the cinematic world rocked off its foundations, David Lynch delivers a nightmarish
masterpiece.
Naked Lunch
A no-holds-barred, graphic filming of William S. Burroughs' thoroughly unfilmable 1959
novel, weaving elements of the author's life in with the fictional material. Weller is an
aspiring writer and N. Y. C. exterminator in 1953; when his loony drug-addict wife (Davis,
who's great) dies, the real story takes off. He is immersed in an extended, drug-laced
odyssey to a Casablanca-like community that's seething with oddballs and weirdo's.
Cronenberg was undeniably the right person to direct this, but be warned: mutating, oozing
typewriter-size talking bugs fill the screen throughout. Deliberately paced movie may
become a cult item.
Wolfen
Detective Finney tracks mysterious beasts (werewolves?) that are terrorizing N. Y. C.
Surreal, allegorical mystery is satisfying--and could have been great. Hines stands out as
coroner; Gerry Fisher's ingenious cinematography is also noteworthy. Based on the novel by
Whitley Streiber.
Lost
Highway
Very bizarre Lynchian story that makes Twin Peaks seem as easy to follow as a Sesame
Street episode. Basic plot involves Pullman as a jazz musician who, believing his wife is
having an affair, suddenly finds himself the main suspect in her murder. Or is he? Or was
she? Lynch fans will have fun trying to figure it out; others will find it
incomprehensible. Blake is particularly enigmatic as a mystery man with a bad make up
job.
From Dusk
till Dawn
From a match made in heaven comes a movie spawned in hell! Young hotshot
director Robert Rodriquez (El Mariachi, Desperado) teamed up with Pulp Fiction auteur
Quentin Tarantino (offering his services as writer and co-star) to make this outrageous,
no-holds-barred hybrid of high-octane crime and gruesome horror. QT plays Richard Gecko, a
borderline psychopath who breaks his career-criminal brother, Seth (George Clooney), out
of prison, after which they rob a bank and leave a trail of dead and wounded in their
bloody wake. Then they hijack a mobile home driven by a former Baptist minister (Harvey
Keitel) who quit the church after his wife's death and hit the road with his two children
(played by Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu). Heading to Mexico with their hostages, the
infamous Gecko brothers arrive at the Titty Twister bar to rendezvous for a money drop,
but they don't realize that they've just entered the nocturnal lair of a bloodthirsty gang
of vampires! With not-so-subtle aplomb, Rodriguez and Tarantino shift into high gear with
a nonstop parade of gore, gunfire, and pointy-fanged mayhem featuring Salma Hayek as a
snake-charming dancer whose bite is much worse than her bark. If you're a fan of
Tarantino's lyrical dialogue and pop-cultural wit, you'll have fun with the road-movie
half of this supernatural horror-comedy, but if your taste runs more to exploding heads
and eyeballs, sloppy entrails and morphing monsters, the second half provides a
connoisseur's feast of gross-out excess. Bon appétit!
Repulsion
Roman Polanski was still a newcomer to the world of cinema when he unleashed this
unforgettable exercise in skin-crawling terror. Repulsion was the Polish director's
first film in English, but that hardly mattered: much of the movie is as wordless (and as
weird) as the silent Nosferatu. The young Catherine Deneuve plays a Belgian girl
stranded in '60s London, a shy beauty with no social skills. When her sister leaves their
shared flat, Deneuve goes gradually, quietly, completely mad. Her world becomes Polanski's
paintbox, as the devilish director distorts reality via a series of surrealistic touches
(grasping hands that protrude from elastic walls) and out-and-out murderous horror. Very
few films cast the kind of eerie spell that this 1965 classic achieves, and it clearly
points the way toward Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. As with most of the director's
work, what is unsettling is not the overt violence, but the terrifying sense of emptiness
and isolation, and the boiling unease inside one's own mind.
Wild
Things
Wild Things is the kind of lurid, trashy thriller that you'll either dive into with
unabashed pleasure or turn away from in prudish disgust; it's entirely your choice, but we
suggest the former option since it's obviously much more fun. The plot's so convoluted
it's hardly worth describing, except to say that it's set in humid Florida and involves a
respected high school teacher (Matt Dillon--yes, Matt Dillon as a teacher!) who is faced
with accusations of rape by a student (Denise Richards, from Starship Troopers) who
had been giving him the kind of attention most people would consider improper for such a
"nice" young lady. Another student (Neve Campbell) raises a similar charge
against the teacher, and that's when a police officer (Kevin Bacon) begins to investigate
the allegations. Just when you think the movie's gone overboard with its shameless sex and
absurdly twisted plot, in drops Bill Murray as an unscrupulous lawyer (of course) to spice
things up with insurance scams and welcomed comic relief. As directed by John McNaughton
(who has a way of making just the right moves with this kind of film noir
melodrama), Wild Things is a bona fide guilty pleasure--the kind of movie you may
be ashamed to enjoy, but what the heck, you'll enjoy it anyway.
Disturbing
Behavior
This paranoia-fueled thriller, more intelligent and imaginative than you would have
reason to believe, owes a huge debt to The Stepford Wives with its premise of a goody-good
high school clique programmed by an evil doctor to be wholesome, academically driven, and
shining examples of clean living. Unlike its predecessor, though, David Nutter's film opts
to open up its premise for everyone to see, diluting the scares but amplifying the creepy
atmosphere. There's never any question of what's happening to the students of Cradle Bay
High, who go from being druggies and sex fiends to the academically excellent Blue
Ribbons, but it's a lot of fun to see these programmed teens run amok--and start killing
people--when their hormones kick in. And considering they're all horny teenagers, this
happens, oh, at least a few times a day. Model-perfect James Marsden, with stunning
cheekbones and piercing blue eyes, is the new kid in town who stumbles on the plot with a
little help from metalhead Nick Stahl. Moody Marsden stirs up trouble when he refuses to
join up with the Blue Ribbons, prompting his concerned parents to consider signing him up
for the program, especially after it turns Stahl into a vest-wearing, pep-rallying
brainiac. The satire isn't entirely fulfilled (the evil kids hang out at the yogurt shop
and spout inspirational platitudes), but once the action kicks in it's quite an enjoyable
ride, thanks primarily to Bruce Greenwood (of The Sweet Hereafter) as the mad scientist
behind it all and Katie Holmes (Go) as Marsden's love interest. Refusing the advances of
the star football player and fighting gamely alongside Marsden, Holmes manages to deck a
few bad guys with a fervor that squarely puts her in Linda Hamilton and Jamie Lee Curtis
territory. With Steve Railsback as the colluding chief of police and Dan Zudovic as a
janitor with a penchant for getting rid of "rats," rodent and otherwise.
The
Shining
Reclusive perfectionist Stanley Kubrick may not have been prolific (he directed only
three films between 1975 and 1999), but his movies have a way of penetrating the public
consciousness. In the case of 1980's The Shining, it's obvious that Kubrick's movie has
achieved greater cultural resonance than the Stephen King bestseller it's based on. The
image of Jack Nicholson axing through a splintered door and snarling "Heeeeere's
Johnny!" is an all-time highlight of cinematic horror. A 1997 TV miniseries followed
King's book more closely, but it pales in comparison to the chilling effect of Kubrick's
interpretation. It's a grandiose haunted-house tale in which Nicholson takes his wife
(Shelley Duvall) and young son to the secluded Overlook Hotel to serve as off-season
caretaker, and proceeds to suffer a psychological breakdown that can't be attributed to
cabin fever alone. The Overlook has a violent past that echoes throughout the building,
and while young Danny (Danny Lloyd) senses this frightening legacy through the prescient
gift of "the shining," his father deteriorates into a state of homicidal
psychosis. Defying the cheap-shock traditions of 1980's horror, Kubrick chooses instead to
emphasize a study of mental decay and the timeless homicidal impulse; the film's technical
innovation (through astonishing set design and pioneering use of the Steadicam) serves an
increasingly unsettling collision of past and present horrors. It's more of an
intellectual horror film than a conventional fright-fest, but it's still effectively
creepy, and as he turns into a sneering killer, smilin' Jack makes a fine addition to
Kubrick's rogue's gallery of memorable movie psychos.
The
Bad Seed
"A basket full of kisses for a basket full of hugs." Those are chilling
words, at least when uttered by that ice princess, Patty McCormack. As Christine Penmark,
she is as pretty as a porcelain doll but drips venom with each curtsey and polite
response. Little Christine's mother is terrified she has passed on her own mother's
corruption. Oops, turns out she's right. This passes the test of time, as it still gets
under your skin. The character development is tight and the story very involving. Not even
Freddy Krueger had the ability to scare like tiny McCormack, looking just like a little
adult while she literally beats out the competition for a penmanship award. However,
director Mervyn LeRoy's hands were tied over the ending, which was changed from the source
material--Maxwell Anderson's hit Broadway play. A supposedly more appropriate, and moral,
ending was demanded by the studio. This was remade (badly) in 1985.
Freaks
Tod Browning, who directed Bela Lugosi in the original Dracula, stepped into even
eerier territory with this 1932 story of betrayal and retribution in the circus. Evil
trapeze artist Olga Baclanova seduces and marries a midget in the circus sideshow, hoping
to inherit his wealth. But in doing so, she has crossed the wrong folks: the tightly knit
group of nature's aberrations, who stick together like family--and who set out to avenge
their little pal. Browning brought in some of the most famous sideshow attractions of the
era, include Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton and Johnny Eck the Legless Boy, as well
as Zip and Pip, microcephalics whose appearance in this film inspired cartoonist Bill
Griffith to create his comic strip, "Zippy the Pinhead." So disturbing that it
was banned for 30 years in Great Britain.
Indecency
Still unstable after a breakdown, a woman takes a job at a high-pressure ad agency.
When her boss commits suicide, she turns to drugs and embezzlement as she spirals into
madness and murder.
Nosferatu
Werner Herzog's remake of F.W. Murnau's original vampire
classic is at once a generous tribute to the great German director and a distinctly
unique vision by one of cinema's most idiosyncratic filmmakers. Though Murnau's Nosferatu
was actually an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Herzog based his film
largely on Murnau's conceptions--at times directly quoting Murnau's images--but manages to
slip in a few references to Tod Browning's famous version
(at one point the vampire comments on the howling wolves: "Listen, the children of
the night make their music."). Longtime Herzog star Klaus Kinski is both hideous and
melancholy as Nosferatu (renamed Count Dracula in the English language version). As in
Murnau's film, he's a veritable gargoyle with his bald pate and sunken eyes, and his
talon-like fingernails and two snaggly fangs give him a distinctly feral quality. But
Kinski's haunting eyes also communicate a gloomy loneliness--the curse of his undead
immortality--and his yearning for Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) becomes a melancholy desire for
love. Bruno Ganz's sincere but foolish Jonathan is doomed to the vampire's will and his
wife, Lucy, a holy innocent whose deathly pallor and nocturnal visions link her with the
ghoulish Nosferatu, becomes the only hope against the monster's plague-like curse.
Herzog's dreamy, delicate images and languid pacing create a stunningly beautiful film of
otherworldly mood, a faithful reinterpretation that by the conclusion has been shaped into
a quintessentially Herzog vision.
The Fifth
Element
Ancient curses, all-powerful monsters, shape-changing assassins, scantily-clad
stewardesses, laser battles, huge explosions, a perfect woman, a malcontent hero--what
more can you ask of a big-budget science fiction movie? Luc Besson's high-octane film
incorporates presidents, rock stars, and cab drivers into its peculiar plot, traversing
worlds and encountering some pretty wild aliens. Bruce Willis stars as a down-and-out
cabbie who must win the love of Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) to save Earth from destruction by
Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman) and a dark, unearthly force that makes Darth
Vader look like an Ewok.
The Haunting
Certain to remain one of the greatest haunted-house movies ever made, Robert Wise's The
Haunting (1963) is antithetical to all the gory horror films of subsequent decades,
because its considerable frights remain implicitly rooted in the viewer's sensitivity to
abject fear. A classic spook-fest based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of
Hill House (which also inspired the 1999 remake directed by Jan de Bont), the film
begins with a prologue that concisely establishes the dark history of Hill House, a
massive New England mansion (actually filmed in England) that will play host to four
daring guests determined to investigate--and hopefully debunk--the legacy of death and
ghostly possession that has given the mansion its terrifying reputation.
Dust Devil
In Africa's Namibia Desert, evil spirit Burke, trapped in human form, must kill to
enter a spiritual realm; he meets Field, fleeing an unhappy marriage, and is pursued by
policeman Mokae. Interesting premise, good acting partly offset lethargic pace,
pretentious approach.
The Stand
After a government-spawned
"superflu" wipes out more than 90 percent of the earth's population, the
devastated survivors must decide whether to support or resist the advances of a mysterious
stranger from way down South (heh-heh) who wishes to claim this new world order for
himself. Although the six-hour length makes it nigh-impossible to digest in one sitting,
this well-paced adaptation of Stephen King's apocalyptic magnum opus ranks among the best
adaptations of the author's work, with strong performances from Gary Sinise, Miguel
Ferrer, and especially Jamey Sheridan as a good-old-boy version of Old Scratch. The
opening scene, set to the strains of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper,"
is one of the most chilling things ever shot for television. Director Mick Garris is no
stranger to King's world, having also helmed Sleepwalkers, the recent television
remake of The Shining, and the upcoming Desperation.
Scream
With the smash hit Scream, novice
screenwriter Kevin Williamson and veteran horror director Wes Craven (A Nightmare on
Elm Street) revived the moldering corpse of the teen horror picture, both creatively
and commercially, by playfully acknowledging the exhausted clichés and then turning them
inside out. Scream is a postmodern slasher movie, a horror film that cleverly
deconstructs horror films, then reassembles the dead tissue, and (like Frankenstein's
monster) creates new life. When a serial killer starts hacking up their fellow teens, the
media-savvy youngsters of Scream realize that the smartest way of sticking around
for the sequel is to avoid the terminal behaviors that inevitably doom supporting players
in the movies. They've seen all the movies, and the rules of the genre are like second
nature to them. One of the scariest and funniest setups features a kid watching John
Carpenter's seminal Halloween on video. As Jamie Lee Curtis is shadowed by Michael
Meyers and the kid on the couch yells at her to turn around, Craven reverses his camera
and we see that the kid should be taking his own advice. The fresh-faced young cast
(including Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette)
is fun to watch, and their tart dialogue is sprinkled with enough archly self-conscious
pop-culture references to make Quentin Tarantino blush.
Scream2
Fully aware of its status as the sequel to the
surprise hit thriller of 1996, this lively follow-up trades freshness for familiarity,
playing on our affection for returning characters while obeying--and then subverting--the
"rules" of sequels. Once again, movie references are cleverly employed to draw
us into the story, which takes place two years after the events of Scream, at a
small Ohio college, where the Scream survivors reunite when another series of
mysterious killings begins. Capitalizing on the guesswork involving a host of potential
suspects, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson have crafted a thriller
that's more of a Scream clone than a genuinely inventive new story. But the shocks
are just as effective, and escalating tension leads to a tautly staged climax that's
simultaneously logical and giddily over the top. Background information for trivia buffs:
to preserve the secrecy of plot twists, copies of the screenplay were heavily guarded
during production and restricted to only the most crucial personnel. When an early draft
was circulated on the Internet, screenwriter Kevin Williamson did rewrites, and subsequent
drafts were printed with red ink on brown paper, eliminating the threat of photocopying.
None of the cast members knew who the killer was until the final scenes were filmed!
The Crazies
Biological plague hits small Pennsylvania
town. The Army is called in to contain it; towns people rebel, defy soldiers. Gory but
exciting.
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