Tag: US

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Ridley, Ripley,
Thelma & Louise

Alien

Director – Ridley Scott – 1979 – US – X – 116 mins 35 secs

*****

Blade Runner

Director – Ridley Scott – 1982 – US – AA – 117 mins 04 secs

*****

Thelma & Louise

Director – Ridley Scott – 1991 – US – 15 – 129 mins 22 secs

*****

At the end of Alien, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), having defeated the monster, strips down to her underwear only to discover that she hasn’t defeated it at all and it’s still in the space shuttle with her in the archetypal Hollywood false ending of recent years. It begged the question, why did Ripley remove her clothing at this point if not for the obvious gratification of the male members of the audience (and, one should add, the accompanying box office returns)?

At the end of Thelma & Louise, the eponymous heroines (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon respectively), on the run after the former’s rapist has been murdered after the event by the latter, find themselves trapped between the Grand Canyon’s gaping precipice on one side of them and massed hordes of police marksmen, ready to open fire if they don’t surrender, on the other. No pandering to male voyeurism here.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Witness

UK PAL laserdisc review.

Originally published on London Calling Internet.

Distributor Pioneer LDCE

£19.99

BBFC Certificate 15

Director Peter Weir (1985)

Starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas, Danny Glover

Running Time 108 min

Dolby Surround

Widescreen: 1.85:1

Chaptered? Yes

CLV

2 Sides

First American movie by Australian director Weir was also Ford’s first attempt at serious acting (for all those who think the star didn’t have his work cut out on the Indiana Jones or Star Wars films which previously made his name). The piece shifts constantly between a generally unremarkable gun-laden, American cop thriller on the one hand and an utterly unique portrait of Amish life on the other – so unique, in fact, that most people who have heard of the Amish have done so through this film.

The simple respect afforded the Amish – an extreme post-Anabaptist, post-Mennonite Christian tradition that abhors post-industrial material in favour of a pre-industrial community lifestyle – is quite extraordinary given Hollywood’s usual smack-in-the-face / pat-on-the-head attitude towards Christianity. Here, Weir just notes and observes, making no judgements one way or the other, leaving us rather to make up our own minds.

What Weir does do, though – and to remarkable effect – is juxtapose this clean and idealistic world with a foul-mouthed, urban universe of corrupt cops.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Black Rain

Director – Ridley Scott – 1989 – US – 15 – 120

**

UK Release date: January 26th 1990.

On paper, Ridley Scott’s Black Rain reads like a winner: a police action thriller with Michael Douglas and sidekick Andy Garcia (then a little known star in the ascendant) as an NYPD cop hunting a villain in Japan. Where the film scores heavily is on the visual style level; this is Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) imagery without the superficial Sci-Fi mega-budget special effects overlay. Or plot. The film looks startling throughout, due in part to Scott’s collaboration with Dutch cinematographer Jan de Bont (later director of Twister, 1996, not to mention Speed, 1994, and its sequel); every frame is a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately, Scott is not shooting a Hovis commercial here, and we need a rather more substantial screenplay – such as Alien (1979) or the extraordinary Thelma & Louise (1991) – than the flimsy sketch on which Scott hangs his current images. Generally, though, Michael Douglas – and the rest of the cast including the versatile Kate Capshaw (Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, Steven Spielberg, 1984) – are wasted.

Things start off well enough with a leather-jacketed Michael Douglas racing his cycle against a fellow biker along a New York quayside.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Batman
(1989)

Director – Tim Burton – 1989 – US – 12 – 126 mins

****

Batman amalgamates Blade Runner, Brazil, Star Wars and Vertigo while giving more screen time to its villain than its title character – UK release: August 11th, 1989

“What kind of a world is this where a man in a bat costume gets all my press?”, a confused Joker (Jack Nicholson) asks his aides. A fair question since Batman gives more screen time to its villain than its title character. Actually, it’s a movie that looks not unlike Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985), although it lacks that movie’s depth, with elements of Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), three scenes from Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) and one from Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) thrown in for good measure. The screenplay compresses an incredible volume of action and about the right amount of necessary plot into its two hours, ensuring the audience gets its money’s worth.

Curiously, Batman (Michael Keaton) himself is simultaneously a peripheral, shadowy character in the background and the film’s main protagonist; this leaves much scope for further character development. Visually, he’s a vigilante Devil who drops in on unsuspecting criminals to mete out justice – an image at odds with the script’s paradoxical portrayal of him as a hi-tech policeman or James Bond figure.… Read the rest