Film Review: LAST EMBRACE (1979, Jonathan Demme)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.

Running Time: 102 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew:  Roy Scheider (JAWS, ALL THAT JAZZ, MARATHON MAN), Janet Margolin (ANNIE HALL, GHOSTBUSTERS II), John Glover (52 PICK-UP, BATMAN AND ROBIN, GREMLINS 2), Christopher Walken (THE DEAD ZONE, MCBAIN), Charles Napier (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), Sam Levene (SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, CROSSFIRE).  Music by Miklós Rózsa (THE KILLERS '46, BEN-HUR, SPELLBOUND).  Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE SIXTH SENSE, FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF).

Tag-line:  "It begins with an ancient warning.  It ends at the edge of Niagara Falls.  In between there are five murders.  Solve the mystery.  Or die trying."
Best one-liner:  "You gotta do better than that, Jack!  WHO SENT YA?!"

LAST EMBRACE is one of acclaimed director Jonathan Demme's (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, PHILADELPHIA, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED) first commercial efforts, and though it's reputation is nearly nonexistent (I hadn't even heard of it until this week), it ranks somewhere between "fairly okay Roy Scheider vehicle" and "lost De Palma film."

Based on the novel THE 13TH MAN by Murray Teigh Bloom, LAST EMBRACE stars Scheider as a CIA-ish secret agent who sees his wife gunned down in Mexico by a gang of dudes including MANIAC's Joe Spinell, a character actor who I've described as "Ron Jeremy meets Vincent Price."

In the wake of her death, Scheider undergoes a nervous breakdown and spends several months in a Connecticut sanitarium.  Upon his release, he finds a stranger (Janet Margolin) subletting his apartment, receives cryptic Aramaic messages, and encounters all sorts of people who are probably trying to kill him, including his own agency.  ...Or is he simply delusional?
And so that's the set-up– Scheider tries to stay alive while attempting to unravel this conspiracy which may or may not actually exist.

How is the film?  It's pretty good.  It's got a great hook, some nice Hitchcockian suspense, and in Scheider, an excellent star.  Scheider really knows how to carry a movie.  The man's one of the best actors of the 1970s.  If you haven't already– go see ALL THAT JAZZ.  Do it now.  
Anyway, the plot of LAST EMBRACE begins to degenerate around the halfway mark, and it builds to some hilariously bad melodrama that may or may not involve the white slave trade.  But Scheider never stops giving it his all, and he will in all likelihood convince you that you're watching a much better movie than you actually are, and that's okay with me. 

His intensity has rarely been matched.  In the scene pictured above, he needs to speak with Janet Margolin, who happens to be taking a shower.  He whips back the shower curtain (with Norman Batesian panache) and begins saying what he needs to say.  There's no hint of lasciviousness or peeping Tomitude– he's got the precision and matter-of-factness of a surgeon.  Scheider has played a lot of CIA and military types before (MARATHON MAN, TIME LAPSE, THE RUSSIA HOUSE, THE FOURTH WAR, etc.) and you absolutely believe him.  His acting choices are simple and understated- when he wants to indicate that ice water runs though his veins, he doesn't showboat around, he just becomes that hardened man.   Incidentally, I recently found out that Roy Scheider was a boxer, long before he was an actor.  He went 12-1 before moving on to theater.  Who knew?

In any event, a few of the signposts and highlights of LAST EMBRACE are these:

#1.  Tak Fujimoto's cinematography.  A long-time Demme crony, Fujimoto is a master craftsman whose first film was fuckin' BADLANDS.  Along the way, he slummed for Corman (DEATH RACE 2000 and others), lensed a few John Hughes classics (FERRIS BUELLER and PRETTY IN PINK), shot the MACGYVER pilot episode, and worked with Demme 17 times.  Somehow he's never even been nominated for an Academy Award.  What the hell!?

#2.  Scheider is waiting for the MetroNorth train to take him from Connecticut to NYC.   On the platform, he's pushed from behind and nearly tumbles into the oncoming train.  He grabs the nearest guy (a young Mandy Patinkin!), puts him in a stranglehold, and begins to question him ("You gotta do better than that, Jack!  WHO SENT YA?!"), all the while poised to deliver an insane karate throat blow, or maybe even the throat-rippin' move from ROAD HOUSE.  God bless Roy Scheider.

#3.  Christopher Walken's brief appearance as a CIA handler.  As always, he's hilarious, creepy, and enunciating unexpected syllables.

He's also wearing ginormous glasses.

#4.  Junta Juleil Hall-of-Famer John Glover as a religious scholar who helps Scheider ascribe meaning to his cryptic Aramaic messages.

He's not particularly given a great deal to do here, but he still imbues his character with the amazing, eccentric energy we've come to love and expect from Glover.

#5.  Hitchockian setpieces.

There's a chase/shootout scene up a bell tower that recalls VERTIGO, and the final showdown takes place at Niagara Falls, referencing Hitchcock's propensity to end films at national landmarks (like Mount Rushmore in NORTH BY NORTHWEST or the Statue of Liberty in SABOTEUR to name a couple). 

In the end, it's a sort of lackluster thriller with some great character actors and brilliant, anchoring lead performance by Roy Scheider.  Three and a half stars.

–Sean Gill

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Film Review: THE MEN'S CLUB (1986, Peter Medak)

Stars: 2 of 5.

Running Time: 101 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Roy Scheider (JAWS, ALL THAT JAZZ), Frank Langella (FROST/NIXON, BRAINSCAN), Richard Jordan (DUNE '84, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE), Craig Wasson (BODY DOUBLE, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET III: DREAM WARRIORS), Treat Williams (HAIR, DEAD HEAT), David Dukes (RAWHEAD REX, GODS AND MONSTERS), Stockard Channing (GREASE, SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION), Jennifer Jason Leigh (SHORT CUTS, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE).

Tag-line:  "The Breakfast Club.  The Big Chill.  And now The Men's Club."
Best one-liner:  Not really.

What is THE MEN'S CLUB?  I saw the damn thing, and I'm not sure I can tell you.  It feels like a play and reads like a block-headed sleazy macho paperback for yuppie dickheads, and yet is performed like a master's class in acting.  It sure doesn't have much in common with THE BREAKFAST CLUB or THE BIG CHILL, as the tag-line promises, though all three works involve groups of people talking to one another indoors about a variety of topics.

From the talented Peter Medak, director of THE RULING CLASS, THE CHANGELING, BREAKIN' THROUGH, and many other favorites of the Junta Juleil canon, comes the story of a group of professional and semi-professional philandering dudes who deliver monologues about how difficult their lives are.  Said dudes are portrayed by some of the finest actors of their generation, from Roy Scheider to Harvey Keitel to Frank Langella to Richard Jordan.  And they're giving it their all...(especially Scheider)... they just happen to be in THE MEN'S CLUB.

I can't really begin to describe THE MEN'S CLUB, nor do I really want to, but I can tell you about the few spectacular things that happen in it.

#1.  The Lee Holdridge soundtrack, which is spit-take inducingly fabulous.  Full of slap-happy slap bass, muted trumpets, wailing saxes, and smoove, easy listening grooves, I was sort of surprised that my walls didn't spontaneously sprout green felt and transform my apartment into a seedy, smoke-filled lounge where Malibu was consumed by the gallon and impromptu soft-core pornography shoots materialized out of thin air.  In short, I'm a little upset that the soundtrack has never received an official release.

#2.  How 'bout a Madame... with a frightening ventriloquist's dummy...

 
....who's peddling a young Jennifer Jason Leigh who's dolled up to sort of look like young Melanie Griffith?  I don't know what to tell you.


#3. I swear Harvey Keitel's contracts must include nudity in them.  They have to.  It's like how Van Damme's contracts must include splits and Burt Reynolds' must include bar-fights and Bronson's must have involved dummies plummeting from great heights. 

Anyway.

#4.  Frank Langella, reborn via midlife crisis into a suspender-wearing, post-80s New Wave makeup wearing-dude who looks like an extra from the Elton John "I'm Still Standing" music video.  I can't believe my eyes.


So there you have it– all the highlights of THE MEN'S CLUB without having to actually watch it.  Phew.

–Sean Gill

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Junta Juleil's Top 100: #60-56

60. VIDEODROME (1983, David Cronenberg)

In IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, John Carpenter nailed the H.P. Lovecraft atmosphere, possibly because he didn't attempt a direct adaptation– he was free to take what the "Lovecraft vibe" meant to him, and apply it in his own way, on his own terms. David Cronenberg does the same thing here, but with Philip K. Dick, and it's goddamned fantastic. James Woods is doin' that skeezy thing that he does, searching for cheap n' vicious cable TV thrills and engaging in a talk show-mance with Debbie Harry, who's pretty busy burning herself with cigarettes and giving herself unsanitary, impromptu body piercings. Meanwhile, cerebral cortexes are becoming infected and tainted with throbbing tele-tumors; abdomens are sprouting unexpected, vaginal VHS players; hands and guns are reshaping themselves, resculpting flesh and blood and steel; and Howard Shore's soundtrack is thrumming along in the background, threatening to drag us back into the pit, or possibly inviting us to evolve. Thankfully, it's got a (mean) streak of pitch-black hilarity, too– for otherwise we might go insane with sheer dread!– it ranges from visual puns to S&M wackiness to spit-take inducing gore to James Woods turning that Sleaze-O-Meter up to eleven and beyond. The first time I saw this was at college, alone, after hours, on a VHS player, deep in the bowels of the Audio Visual Department. Afterward, I half-expected the television to explode into a confetti of viscera; expected the tape itself to begin pulsating wetly in my hands. A powerful film; and, along with Rob Bottin's work on THE THING, Rick Baker's practical special and makeup effects here may very well be the pinnacle of "movie magic," period.

59. ALL THAT JAZZ (1979, Bob Fosse)

Bob Fosse's ALL THAT JAZZ is equal parts auto-biopic, Hollywood musical, and self-chastisement, at once both a swansong and a death rattle. Fosse didn't pass away until 1987, but eight years prior, with ALL THAT JAZZ, he submits, for our consideration, his greatest passions, achievements, nostalgias and lamentations. Roy Scheider, as Fosse's stand-in, warrants every superlative from tour-de-force to powerhouse, his performance as multi-faceted, in-the-moment, and self-reflective as Fosse's unique vision demands. The use of quotidian repetition (visually and aurally indicated in this film by contact lenses, Dexedrine, showering, and Vivaldi's "Concerto Alla Rustica") has never been more effective. Darren Aronofsky's similar stagings in PI and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM feel particularly empty . In Fosse's world, the wreckage of one's life piles on top of itself endlessly- the womanizing, the drug use, regret over familial relationships- and it can all be wiped clean by the promise of a new day ("It's showtime, folks!), everything a rehearsal for a rehearsal, a neverending series of highs and lows which one isn't forced to consider until the end of the line. Thus, Fosse sits in a cobbled-together dressing room limbo netherworld, confronted by Angelique (Jessica Lange), his interviewer, companion, and confessor, contemplating his demise and the life that led up to it. And it's all concurrent: his deathbed, his rehearsals, his family life, childhood embarrassments, in the editing room for LENNY- the comedic monologue on death alternating meanings with each iteration, budget meetings, business brunches, the final act of the last show of one's life and the ultimate send-off with one foot in the grave and one foot on the stage.
An unrivaled rumination on the life of a man who was as susceptible to flattery as he was to self-loathing, who was as much a scoundrel as he was an artist. Five stars.

58. METROPOLITAN (1990, Whit Stillman)

"Is our language so impoverished that we have to use acronyms of French phrases to make ourselves understood?" "-Yes." Like some fragile, carefully festooned porcelain ornament long misplaced, METROPOLITAN emerged in 1990, not with a roar, but rather with an eloquent whisper and an arched eyebrow. Whit Stillman's talent, initially misdiagnosed as Woody Allen-esque, was truly, autobiographically, anachronistically (think F. Scott Fitzgerald unstuck in time with a light dose of John Hughes) original, and it paved the way for such wordy American indie auteurs as Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson. METROPOLITAN also heralded the arrival of one of the great underappreciated actors of our time, Christopher Eigeman (BARCELONA, KICKING AND SCREAMING). The craftsmanship and hilarity of this script cannot be exaggerated. Endlessly quotable, I find myself held rapt by the exquisite dialogue as one might marvel over a ship-in-a-bottle. Needless to say, it's not for everyone, and if a line like "Girls that have been degraded by you don't need the further humiliation of having their names bandied about non-exclusive Park Avenue after-parties!" doesn't appeal to you, then you probably shouldn't be watching this. The plot is simple, and it unfolds with subtlety and grace: one Christmas vacation, not so long ago, proletarian Fourierist Tom (Edward Clements) is immersed by chance in Manhattan's upper-crust deb world. Gentle, nuanced comedy ensues as he meets the snarky Nick (Eigeman), the tragically naive Charlie (Taylor Nichols), the titled aristocratic tool Von Sloneker (Will Kempe), the melancholy Molly Ringwald-type Audrey (Carolyn Farina), and many others. The film finds true, wry emotive power, however, in its last act, which finds Tom and Charlie cast adrift without their 'id,' Nick, and caught amid a sea of varying premature ideas of failure. An excellent film, and a true silver-tongued jewel in the crown of American independent cinema.

57. BARFLY (1987, Barbet Schroeder)

"And as my hands drop the last desperate pen, in some cheap room, they will find me there and never know my name, my meaning, nor the treasure of my escape." BARFLY is not a pitiful, kitchen sink drama about down-on-their-luck losers. It's not sappy award-season fodder, manipulatively constructed for tugging upon heartstrings and emptying tear-wells. And it's not some slacker ode, designed as a pat on the back for white-bred goof-offs who occasionally daydream about what it'd be like to take a week off work to go on a bender. BARFLY is sincerely dangerous and dangerously sincere, and it is because BARFLY is a philosophy. BARFLY is about winnin' one for the bums, even if that means yankin' the pillars of civilization down on all our heads. It's about taking one's intellect- a genius that could surely have moved mountains– and applying it instead to more expedient techniques for fucking with the night bartender at the local saloon (played with knuckleheaded élan by Frank Stallone).
Its dipsomaniacal protagonist, Henry Chinaski (a recurring Bukowski alter-ego– well, let's just be honest and say 'a Bukowski with a different name'), is played by Mickey Rourke with lunatic gusto which ever threatens to escape the mere confines of the cinema-frame. He lurches about like a movie-monster, dragging his feet like Frankenstein, teetering on his haunches like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, leering like Dwight Frye. He is a gutter-poet, an amateur street-fighter, and a professional drunk. His entire life is a war waged against the status quo, the skirmishes and campaigns of which take place in stagnant, lonely flophouses; noxious, grotty gin-joints; and desolate street corners at 3:00 in the morning. His many victories against society are private ones- they are not sung from the rooftops or celebrated annually by giggling schoolchildren– they're for himself, and for himself only. A wry, split-lip smile reflected back by cracked, dirty mirror.
I did a lengthy write-up on this flick (and the accompanying Q&A) last fall, and after nearly a year of reflection, I must say that BARFLY is King of the Cannon Canon– one of those rare adaptations of a writer's body of work which really captures the spirit of the artist, and in Bukowski's case, it's like white-hot lightning in a 40 oz. bottle.

56. BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956, Nicholas Ray)

"Childhood is a congenital disease - and the purpose of education is to cure it. We're breeding a race of moral midgets." Ostensibly a tale about addiction to prescription drugs, BIGGER THAN LIFE is really about an addiction to values; even going so far as to prove the collective insanity which is our society's bedrock, simply by upholding its more respected tenets... TO THE DEATH! James Mason takes the moral code of the LEAVE IT TO BEAVER-generation and amplifies it, distorts it, makes it 'bigger than life,' makes it a grotesque. His performance is terrifying and absolutely inspired, it's one of the most impressive acting achievements of the 50s. All of this is draped across an expressionistic CinemaScope frame, bursting with bold shadows and Technicolor insanity courtesy of ex-noir standby Joe MacDonald (PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, PANIC IN THE STREETS, CALL NORTHSIDE 777). I don't wish to give too much more away along with my whole-hearted recommendation, but it's certainly one of the bleakest, blackest films of the 50s, and, if I'm not mistaken, is surely the inspiration for All-American dad Leland Palmer in David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS. (Also, a whirlwind shopping trip whereupon James Mason forces his wife to try on fancy frock after frock after frock ad nauseum is well worth the price of admission alone.) It's astounding that this was even allowed to be made. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cower in fear. What more do you want?

Coming up next... Clint Eastwood times two, the rockin' tunes of Goblin, and some Frenchie neo-noir!

Previously on the countdown:
#65-61
#70-66
#75-71
#80-76
#85-81
#90-86
#95-91
#100-96
Runners-up Part 1
Runners-up Part 2

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I can't tell you how happy I am to live in a world where this is not an April Fool's Day Prank...PART 2!

Last year on April Fool's I examined some VHS covers that seemed almost too good to be true– heartfelt TV-movie dramas with Jamie Lee Curtis and Bette Davis, a Boglin hurling a pentagram in the direction of Fred Ward's balls, a film where Powers Boothe and Rutger Hauer battle for Kathleen Turner's love and for endangered birds, etc., etc.

So today in tribute to a bygone era, let us peruse these dusty shelves once more in search of that elusive 49¢ rental that could change your life forever... or at least give you an excuse to order up a couple of pizzas and a sixer of Schlitz.


Is Peter O'Toole supposed to be God? Is he pouring himself a drink or conducting an experiment? And what sort of furry critter has died whilst reclining upon Mariel Hemingway's head?


I like you, BLOODY NEW YEAR Ghoul. I salute your Crypt-Keeper-y sense of fun, your wobbly eyes, and your insistence on purchasing alllll the trimmings from the Party-o-rama outlet store. But above all... I salute your eyebrows.


Co-starring Lillian Gish, Candy Clark, and O.J. Simpson. No, REALLY.


How have I not heard of this? Durning... standing alone? "The story of a real American hero?" Is this a Durning auto-biopic?! Co-starring Pam Grier and Stacey Keach's brother? I don't think that I can go another minute without seeing this film. And finally- does Dom DeLuise make an appearance?


The pros:
•Bruce Glover.
•Skeletons with guns.

The cons:
•I kind of don't like how the skeleton is wearing chaps. It makes it look as if it's got shapely legs and child-bearing hips. That makes everyone uncomfortable.
•The $79.95 price tag.


"It all started out as a joke..." It all started out as a joke... IT ALL ...STARTED OUT...AS A JOKE!...


Did Oliver Reed realize that he was in a movie? Hard to say. Look at his glazed over, rum-soaked stare. Chilling. And on the other end of the spectrum, look at what care they've taken with the captive- making sure her hair has that ultra-conditioned sheen and even loosening her gag so that it doesn't interfere with her carefully positioned, backlit tresses.


Certainly in the running for having the most generic title of all time, DELTA HEAT boldly opines that "sometimes the truth can be murder." But what have we here? Anthony Edwards rocking out a peroxided coiffure and Lance Henriksen creeping up behind him, holding a gun at an unusual angle. Does Edwards know that he's there? Let's check out the IMDb synopsis: "An L.A. cop investigates the death of his partner in the swamps of Louisiana. Enlisting the help of an ex-cop who lost his hand to an alligator many years before." Yes...yes...and YES! Is that the disembodied hand that Henriksen lost, floating behind Edwards' shoulder? I need to see this as soon as possible.


Okay- how could they NOT name the movie 'DIRTY HARRIET?'


"We need a title for this flick?"
–"How about SLITHIS?"
"Surely we can come up with something better than that."
–"What, you've got something better?"
"Well not right now– come on, I'm supposed to just think of something off the top of my head? I haven't even had my coffee yet."
–"You can't come up with anything better than SLITHIS either."
"That's not true."
–"Well, okay. But until you do, let's put SLITHIS on the temp artwork."
"Fine. But only until I come up with something better."
–"Yeah, we'll see about that."


Golan and Globus present: FOUR CREEPY DUDES HIDING IN A BUSH TRYING TO SPY ON THE POOR MAN'S GOLDIE HAWN.


"JOE DON BAKER IS LOOKING FOR TROUBLE." Trouble always seems to find Joe Don Baker, from JOYSTICKS to WACKO to the infamous MITCHELL. Well, count me in, JDB. Count me in.


"Okay are you ready...let me lay somthin' on ya: DETECTIVE SCHOOL."
–"Is that all?"
"...DROP OUTS!"
–"Is that all?"
"...A Golan and Globus production."
–"Alright, I'm not gonna lie– you had me at DETECTIVE SCHOOL. But does it have that guy, the guy with the voice...the guy from the POLICE ACADEMYs...what's his name again? I can't get enough of that guy."


–"Alright, that might be a little too much Goldthwait."


It came...it saw...and it burned...a Rutger Hauer-lookalike.


The title and the font are telling me that this is a movie about an inspirational inner-city basketball coach, and yet I'm seeing an image of Peter O'Toole riding around on a tank.


So rule #1 is, predictably, that there are no rules. Fair enough. But is that a stain or the ghost of a buzz saw? And did I mention that this is Chuck Norris' son?


This might be my favorite title since THUNDERGROUND.


So is the GLOVE wanted dead, not alive? How does one kill the glove? Conversely, how does one take the glove alive? Or is the glove worn by the person who is wanted dead, not alive? Or is the glove worn by the person hunting the person who is wanted dead, not alive? Is this somehow related to ROLLERBALL?


"The race that drove Africa wild." I never expected to see Stockard Channing in hot pants bringing an entire continent to its knees. Even the monkey on her back is getting in on the ogling. Grinning David Carradine is still somehow riding the wave of DEATH RACE 2000. And Christopher Lee fits into this somehow as well?


So that wave subsided at some point- Carradine in old lady drag á la THE UNHOLY THREE? Apparently this flick has a devoted cult following and I hope one day to join its ranks.


Gotta love the Barbarian Brothers. Straddling that big truck with masculine intensity, untied shoes, and a slashed-front tee-shirt? And you know the other brother has got cut-offs on (just outside the frame). And who hasn't wanted to see Martin Mull and Richard Moll in the same flick? Plus, more Carradine! That's thinkin' big indeed!


Combine a Xander Berkeley lookalike, a feathered mane, a power drill, and a supporting role by Robert Davi, and what do you get? ...Nothin' but TRAXX!


I'll say no more beyond the fact that...this is a documentary!


I like to think of myself as a well-informed individual, particularly when Harry Dean Stanton movies are concerned. The fact that this one has slipped through the cracks of my awareness leads me to believe I should probably committ HDS seppuku. But maybe forty Hail Marys and a viewing of WISE BLOOD could atone for my sin.


I mean..what can I say? (Besides "I'd like to buy your album.")


Is this the eponymous "return" depicted here on the VHS cover art? Has the big payoff been ruined? Why even rent it now? "Oh, by the way, the finale is just Jan-Michael Vincent embracing a brown-silk-poncho-wearing Cybill Shepherd. THE END."


There have been some pretty enjoyable MAD MAX rip-offs. Everything from THE NEW BARBARIANS to STEEL DAWN to HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN. So was "OSA" really the best title they could come up with? And the best picture was this possible stock photo of desert bikers?


"STRIKE ONE - there's a killer on the loose... STRIKE TWO - you never know where he'll strike next... STRIKE THREE - too late." Look at how mortified Roy Scheider is. The poor guy is one of the finest actors of his generation, and he's starring in NIGHT GAME. My completely uninformed prediction of what the plot is: a psychopathic 'Nam vet baseball player slices n' dices sports commentators, stuffs their remains inside of baseballs and then plays with them. A player smacks a foul ball into the stands which lands on the lap of washed-up private eye Roy Scheider who discovers that...THE BASEBALL IS BLEEDING!


"An insane Hollywood makeup man kidnaps a woman, keeps her prisoner in his warehouse full of props. " Co-starring Keenan Wynn. I must say that I'm a little unnerved by how much psycho-Rooney resembles the elderly Richard Dreyfuss.


I've actually seen this movie. It has nothing to with a shirtless white man punching you in the face and everything to do with a shabby, middle-aged Leo Fong bopping dudes in the Bazzinis. I feel like your average viewer would be more inclined to see this if it were accurately advertised.


"I don't want to see that new movie, INTERFACE. It just looks like 'another fantasy game movie.'"
–"Ohhhh-ho-ho... that's where you're wrong."
"Whaddya mean?"
–"It's not just another fantasy game. These players are serious... dead serious."
"Well...."
–"Did I mention it's also got Lou Diamond Philips playing Punk #1?"
"Alright...fair enough."


"People are funny– and the 'Big Gag' proves it!" In that case, let's hope that space aliens don't get their hands on this looking for proof that human beings possess some kind of innate, uh, humanity, because I'm willing to bet that not only does the 'Big Gag' NOT prove that people are funny, but in fact proves that we are sickening degenerates, possibly beyond all help. (On the other hand, a New World Picture has never let me down yet.)


MASTER CLASS with Sho Kosugi?! But damn– He was gonna be live in person at the IVE Booth at the VSDA show!? I have no idea what that means, but I'm forced to believe that I've already missed the boat on this one.

But I don't feel too bad, because I now know that the disparate worlds of RETURN OF THE NINJA and WOLFEN once did collide...and the Word was called WOLFEN NINJA, and the Word was good.


In the name of all that is holy– John Huston plays God on judgment day, raining hellfire, brimstone, and wing-flapping slo-mo doves onto the populace, flanked by Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, Shelley Winters, and Sam Peckinpah... ...WHAT?!!? "HE CAME TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM THE DEMON CHILD!"


This movie is so uninspired that it names its main character The Rider and his enemy The Omega Force. And he's not even The Rider, he's "The Rider." He's already, pre-emptively been put into scare quotes by the marketing team. That's how little respect they have for "The Rider." Oh, and you know Donald Pleasence? No? Not ringing any bells? How about Donald 'Halloween' Pleasence? Oh, you know that guy, right? What about Persis Khambatta? No? Oh, sorry, what about Persis 'Star Trek' Khambatta? Oh, you still don't know who that is? Fair enough.


I don't know where the Brothers Grimm are buried, but I can pretty much guarantee that they were spinning pretty hard in their graves until they heard that Brad Dourif was gonna be in this. It co-stars James Earl Jones and William Atherton, the full title is actually GRIM PRAIRIE TALES: HIT THE TRAIL TO TERROR, and IMDb reviewer Lee Kelly calls Dourif and Jones "a 'buddy' pairing to rival Riggs and Murtaugh. Give them their own series!" Alright, I'm sold.


Anyway, enjoy your April Fool's, everyone–may all your Brads be Dourifs, all your Lances be Henriksens, all your Ollie Reeds be drunk, all your dogs be named Hambone; and whenever there's a Cannon pointed in your direction, pray that it's operated by a couple of whacky cousins named Golan and Globus, and is easily procurable on Betamax, Laserdisc, and VHS! Amen.

–Sean Gill

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