Movie Review: One From The Heart (1982)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Francis Ford Coppola  

Starring: Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Nastassja Kinski, Raul Julia, Harry Dean Stanton  

Running Time: 107 minutes  

Synopsis: In Las Vegas, mechanic Hank and travel agent Frannie (Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr) are a bickering couple in a stagnant relationship. After one argument too many, they go their separate ways for one night, seeking romantic flings. Accompanied by his friend Moe (Harry Dean Stanton), Hank is infatuated by alluring circus acrobat Leila (Nastassja Kinski), while Frannie is pursued by performing pianist and waiter Ray (Raul Julia). The couple's promising affairs may have unexpected consequences.

What Works Well: Director Francis Ford Coppola's passion project reimagines Las Vegas on a studio lot as a pristine, vividly dreamy, and neon-drenched test ground for romantic commitments. Hank and Frannie's adventures over one night are narrated by the music of Tom Waites and Crystal Gale, with an emphasis on surrealistic visuals often superimposing the couple's emotionally attached but physically separated movements. Thematically, the narrative contrasts the thrill of novelty with the unheralded joys of a long-term commitment.

What Does Not Work As Well: The triumphant and audacious style is undermined by minimal content, flat characterizations, and flimsy emotions. The over-reliance on music to tell the story relegates the script to bullet points, exposing Hank and Frannie as uninteresting characters floundering in misguided expectations of change to salvage the relationship. Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia fare worse as empty impressions of fantasy lovers. 

Key Quote:

Leila (to Hank): If you wanna get rid of a circus girl, all you've gotta do is close your eyes.

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Movie Review: The Addams Family (1991)

Genre: Comedy  

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld  

Starring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Dan Hedaya  

Running Time: 99 minutes  

Synopsis: Macabre couple Gomez and Morticia Addams (Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston) live in a gothic mansion, where their children Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley are always up to no good. Gomez misses his long-estranged brother Fester, a sadness that is exploited by cash-strapped lawyer Tully (Dan Hedaya) and his loan shark client Abigail (Elizabeth Wilson). They attempt to pass off Abigail's son Gordon (Christopher Lloyd) as Fester, in order to uncover the location of the Addams treasure.

What Works Well: A perfectly-cast cartoon adaptation, the adventures of the Addams family benefit from an unwavering weird-is-good ethos and a perfectly conceived dark visual theme of cobwebs, graves, and secret chambers. Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston play up the bizarre but unmistakable passion between Gomez and Morticia, while young Christina Ricci steals every scene she's in, always attempting to inflict a new version of harm on her eager brother, both of them earning mom's admiration in the process. Elsewhere Christopher Lloyd projects startling mime-like emotions from under layers of make-up, while the disembodied hand Thing somehow conveys personality and adds frantic comic relief. First time director Barry Sonnenfeld sustains a wicked brand of humour across the episodic quirkiness.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is no more than a flimsy excuse to justify the aesthetics, mood, quips, pranks, and set-pieces. 

Key Quote:

Morticia: Don't torture yourself, Gomez. That's my job.



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Movie Review: Tempest (1982)

A midlife crisis drama, Tempest explores a painful transition from the vigour of youth to the wisdom of experience. The film enjoys a stellar cast and some excellent highlights, but is also both overlong and emotionally truncated.

New York architect Phillip Dimitrius (John Cassavetes) is experiencing a severe middle age crisis. His work designing casinos for his boss Alonzo (Vittorio Gassman), a semi-respectable mobster, is now a boring chore, and Phillip has lost interest in his wife Antonia (Gena Rowlands), a retired actress attempting a comeback. He also finds his teenaged daughter Miranda (Molly Ringwald) irritating.

When he stumbles upon Antonia seeking intimacy outside their marriage, Phillip packs up his life and heads to Greece with Miranda, desperate to rediscover his passion. In Athens they meet nightclub singer Aretha (Susan Sarandon), and she quickly becomes Phillip's lover. In search of a rustic lifestyle Philip, Aretha and Miranda relocate to a rugged and isolated island, where the only other resident is goat farmer Kalibanos (Raul Julia).

Inspired by Shakespeare's play, Tempest is directed, co-written and co-produced by Paul Mazursky. At a meandering 142 minutes, the signs of bloat are obvious, particularly when the third act loses all focus and falls well short of capping the preceding profundity.

Philip's story is presented in two timelines. On the Greek island, he desperately tries to reinvent himself as a happy recluse, satisfied without all of modernity's luxuries. Aretha and Miranda are less impressed and quite tired of the isolation. In  multiple flashbacks, Philip circulates among New York's elites, living in an elegant condominium of his own design, married to Antonia and working for Alonzo. He has all the ingredients for happiness but is imprisoned by the eternal is-this-all-there-is question.

Mazursky plays lightly on many themes. Phillip's tortured state of mind is represented by electric storms, conjured up as bookends to his crisis. His attempt at island celibacy, leaving Aretha quite hot and bothered, is the product of a disoriented psyche still partially loyal to Antonia. Philip's inability to come to terms with Miranda blooming into a young adult is a further demonstration of his creeping shortcomings. And joyous singing interludes punctuate the drama, often helping to boost spirits threatened by the eccentricities of a futile battle with the advancing years.

With Raul Julia unconstrained, Kalibanos' buffoonish pursuit of Miranda occupies too much screen time, although his lecherous quest affords Molly Ringwald plenty of scene-stealing opportunities. The rest of the cast members find depth within their characters, Cassavetes allowing the weight of unmet expectations to etch his face, Rowlands matching him as a resilient wife who will find alternatives to an inattentive, distracted and self-obsessed husband.

Phillip's old and new lives are on an inevitable collision course, but whilst the Tempest build-up is spasmodically turbulent, the resolution is simplistically tepid. 



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Movie Review: The Morning After (1986)

A frivolous murder mystery and romance, The Morning After attempts an awkward mishmash of genres and never finds its footing.

Washed-up alcoholic actress Alex Sternbergen (Jane Fonda) wakes up in a stranger's bed and finds a dead man next to her, stabbed with a dagger. She phones her estranged husband Jackie Manero (Raul Julia) then flees the apartment in a panic. After a misadventure at the airport Alex bumps into retired and divorced police officer Turner Kendall (Jeff Bridges). A romance develops between the two lonely people, and he tries to help her out of the mess she finds herself in.

Part Hitchcock light, part half-hearted exploration of alcoholism, loneliness and second chances, part ungainly romance with misplaced wisecracks, The Morning After is a full-on mess. Writer James Hicks switches tones with clumsy, aimless transitions, then allows his characters to meander through long stretches of nothingness interrupted by thickets of bland dialogue. Director Sidney Lumet infuses bursts of colour found in the less frilly Los Angeles neighbourhoods, but is otherwise far from rescuing the material.

The opening scene is promising enough, Alex confronted by a bloody bed and an expired creep. But very quickly the pacing unravels. Bad romantic comedy vibes take over as Alex demonstrates her limited acting skills at the airport, then initiates a curbside bumper car routine, before hopping into Turner's car in an it-only-happens-in-the-movies meet-cute. The tension of the opening mystery is lost and never recovered.

Jane Fonda overcompensates with a histrionics masterclass alternating between flimsy displays of frantic victim and depressed drunk. Alex's backstory of a never-made-it actress carries appeal, but Fonda cannot wrestle down the ditzy script and find a sympathetic person within. Jeff Bridges as Turner is more of a steady presence on the receiving end of Alex's gyrating moods, but he does precious little except tag along.

With the script only bothering to introduce three characters it is never difficult to guess who is up to no good, but wait! A fourth character makes an entrance in the final 10 minutes, with about one spoken line of dialogue, in a spectacularly fumbled attempt at a twist. 

Insipid beyond salvation, The Morning After should have just stayed in bed.



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Movie Review: The Rookie (1990)

A routine police actioner stuck in the 1970s, The Rookie is not Clint Eastwood's finest moment. Overflowing with cliches, mindless chases, posturing, and hissing through clenched teeth, The Rookie would have been condemned by Inspector Harry Callahan and shot full of holes for lacking any style or originality.

Cigar chomping veteran police Sergeant Nick Pulovski (Eastwood) is on the trail of a violent gang of high-end car thieves, masterminded by the brutally cold Strom (Raul Julia) and the simply crazed Liesl (Sonia Braga). Pulovski's partner is killed by Strom, and young rookie officer David Ackerman (Charlie Sheen) is assigned as his new sidekick. Ackerman has issues of his own, including feeling guilty and responsible for his brother's accidental death when they were both kids, and a strained relationship with his tycoon dad Eugene (Tom Skerritt). Ackerman regularly disrupts the sleep of his wife Sarah (Lara Flynn Boyle) by waking up in the kind of cold sweat seen only in desperate movies.

The search for Strom takes Pulovski and Ackerman on a tour of all the usual hangouts, including the prototypical biker bar. Ackerman gets a beating and a shooting before finally deciding that enough is enough: he finds his inner Rambo and goes on a destructive rampage to clean up the streets, including saving Pulovski but only after he experiences the lusty thigh grip of Liesl in a woman on man rape scene.

Although there is enough talent in on the screen and behind the camera to prevent a total flop, neither Eastwood the director nor Eastwood the actor get any kind of traction, both tripped up by a doomed insistence on recreating a Dirty Harry vibe. It's 15 years past the best-before date, and the script offers nothing to modernize the concept. Many one-liners are thrown at the screen, all hoping for immortality, none coming close although a couple do manage some zing.

The Rookie fails to bother with even the most rudimentary back story for Pulovski, and offers nothing to explain the actions of Strom and Liesl. Raul Julia and Sonia Braga are left to ooze overcooked evil oil through smarmy smiles and depraved eyes, but for no understandable cause. The guilt trip and father issues provided for Ackerman are straight out of the stereotype catalogue, ordered past midnight by very tired minds surrendering to devoid creativity.

Unfortunately in this case, The Rookie is a good description for the amateurish actions of a veteran who should have known better.

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Movie Review: Eyes Of Laura Mars (1978)

A muddled film that tries to conceal its banal script with fluffy pseudo-psychology and chic sexuality, Eyes Of Laura Mars is a lot less clever than it thinks it is.

New York-based Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) is an artistic photographer with a career on a rocket-fuelled upward trajectory: her vivid, glamorous in-your-face photos depicting scenes of violence and sex are all the rage in the art scene. But Laura's world begins to unravel when people around her start to get murdered, usually with a sharp object through the eyes. Much worse for Laura, she finds herself witnessing the murders while they occur, through the eyes of the killer.

John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) is the police lieutenant in charge of solving the murders. As the body count rises, instead of finding clues and interviewing witnesses he gets busy seducing Laura, and before long they are lovers, apparently not bothered too much that a lot people are getting their eyes poked out with scissors and other assorted sharp objects. The suspects include Laura's haughty agent (Rene Auberjonois), her ex-con driver (Brad Dourif), and her broke alcoholic ex-husband (Raul Julia). As suspects start to appear on the list of murder victims, it gets easier to spot the culprit.

The script by John Carpenter and David Zelag Goodman introduces several unconventional elements: Laura Mars can see murders in progress through the eyes of the killer; her artistic photography appears to recreate old murder scenes that she has never laid eyes on; and late in the proceedings, a key character is revealed to have a complex split personality. Director Irvin Kershner is left high and dry, because the script fails miserably to explain any of these complexities, leaving a movie that is desperately attempting to be dangerous and relevant in a modern context floating instead in an easily dismissed supernatural realm.

The movie does occasionally boast a slick look, and is at its best in creating the glamorous photo-shoot scenes. But the acting is surprisingly at the B level, Faye Dunaway able to do little beyond opening her eyes wide, staring into the distance, and running around in almost mock terror. Meanwhile, Tommy Lee Jones' wooden performance serves as a reminder why it took him almost another 15 years to mature into a respected actor.

Eyes Of Laura Mars is a routine slasher flick trying to dress up in silky lingerie, but unfortunately incapable of escaping the smell of cheap perfume.

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Movie Review: Presumed Innocent (1990)

A courtroom drama that creaks under the weight of a ridiculous story, Presumed Innocent is a surprise disappointment despite a star-heavy cast.

Prosecuting Attorney Raymond Horgan (Brian Dennehy) assigns his top prosecutor Rusty Sabich (Harrison Ford) to investigate the brutal murder of fellow prosecutor Carolyn Polhemus (Greta Scacchi). But Sabich himself is soon a prime suspect: he had an affair with Polhemus, she broke it off, and he is still obsessed with her. Meanwhile, it emerges that Horgan was also having an affair with Polhemus; he had secretly assigned her a bribery file to investigate; and the bribery case just so happens to involve the judge who just so happens to be assigned to Sabich's murder trial.

Raul Julia, with a smile perpetually plastered onto his face, shows up as lawyer Sandy Stern, defending Sabich and using smarm as his main weapon. He quickly destroys the case against Sabich by doing no more the exposing the doctor who performed the autopsy as an incompetent fool.

There are investigators hiding evidence, prosecutors with political agendas, and a murderer who is perfectly careful in every detail -- but places the murder weapon, soaked with blood and with the victim's hair still attached to it, back in the tool box.

This may or may not be a case of a poor film utterly failing to capture the essence of the book, but the script certainly casts doubt on the quality of the Scott Turow novel.

Still, any movie with Ford, Dennehy, Julia, Bonnie Bedelia as Sabich's wife, and Scacchi, is worth watching, and the strength of the cast keeps the movie from sinking into a complete farce as the ultra-convoluted reality-free plot ties itself into a pretzel. It is evident, however, that Scacchi 's beauty is as captivating as her acting ability is atrocious. Appropriately, her role in flashbacks is mostly reduced to gazing into the camera...deeply.

Alan J. Pakula has much better films than this on his resume. He directs here with the main intention of keeping everyone and everything deadly serious. Only Julia is allowed to smile, but Presumed Innocent is a good recipe for general hilarity.

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