AWN Blogs

The original DAWN OF THE DEAD is one of my favorite horror films. I was quite dismayed when I heard Hollywood was going to remake it. In the end, the new film is more of a re-envisioning of the original, because very little of the original plot remains.

Ana (Sarah Polley, THE SWEET HEREAFTER) is a nurse, who wakes up one day to a crisis where the world is turning into zombies. And like the zombies in 28 DAYS LATER, these walking dead can book. Ana ends up barricaded in the mall with police officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames, PULP FICTION), level-headed Best Buy employee Michael (Jake Weber, MEET JOE BLACK), thug Andre (Mekhi Phifer, 8 MILE), Andre’s pregnant Russian wife Luda (Inna Korobkina, THE LADIES MAN) and jerky security guard CJ (Michael Kelly, UNBREAKABLE).

This film has been playing the festival circuit since last year and won the Grand Prix from the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Based on a Korean manga, the story begins with Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi, PAINTED FIRE) at a police station after getting into a drunken fight, which makes him miss his three-year-old’s birthday. Then suddenly, Oh finds himself in a one-room prison with no reason for being there. His only company is a television set, through which he learns that he has been accused of killing his wife. Over the years, he also falls in love with a TV chef named Mido (Hye-jeong Kang, THE BUTTERFLY).

After 15 years of imprisonment, Oh is days away from tunneling himself to freedom, when his captors let him go. He has a long list of more than 200 people he thinks could have done this to him and he sets out to find answers. The film serves as a revenge flick, as well as a mystery. He meets up with Mido who falls in love with him as well. She is the kind of innocent girl who takes in stray puppies no matter how haggard they look. The deeper he gets into the mystery the stranger things become and he's certain that the wealthy Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu, WONDERFUL DAYS) was involved.

Director Milos Forman had already started this film when it was announced that Stephen Frears would be doing DANGEROUS LIASONS based on the same novel by Choderlos de Laclos. Frears’ film had a smaller budget and more stars and was eventually released before Forman’s film, going on to garner several Oscar nominations and wins. A year later few people were interested in seeing the same story again. Subjecting VALMONT to a dismal box office gross of barely over a million dollars. And for a film that cost $35 million that’s not good. These facts are not a comment on the quality of the two films, only an explanation of why you may have never heard of VALMONT.

The main difference between the two films is that VALMONT is based more on the original book while DANGEROUS LIASONS is based more on the stage play that was popular on Broadway at the time. As well, DANGEROUS LIASONS takes a more American view of love and sex where VALMONT is more European.

Based on a stage play titled FRONT PAGE that had been filmed before this and then after, HIS GIRL FRIDAY changes the sex of the news reporter trying to get married to great success. I’ve seen parts of the later FRONT PAGE that starred Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, and surprisingly, this film doesn’t even change the character’s name, leaving it Hildegaard “Hildy” Johnson.

In this film, the character is played by Rosalind Russell (PICNIC), but the other twist is that she was once married to her publisher Walter Burns (Cary Grant, NORTH BY NORTHWEST). Hildy comes to the paper to tell Walter that she is getting married to straight-laced insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy, TRADING PLACES). Walter doesn’t like the idea and does everything to persuade her to stay on as a reporter and not marry Bruce.

Westerns, as well as sci-fi, often serve as iconic genres that allow filmmakers to make social comments they would be unable to make in a straight-forward fashion. HIGH NOON was about the Red Scare and THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS was about communism.

ULZANA’S RAID tells the story of a renegade Apache named Ulzana (Joaquin Martinez, DIE ANOTHER DAY) and the military party, led by Lt. Harry Garnett DeBuin (Bruce Davison, X-MEN), that are set out to capture or kill him. Aiding DeBuin on his first mission are white Indian expert McIntosh (Burt Lancaster, ATLANTIC CITY) and Indian tracker Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER).

DeBuin is a minister’s son who doesn’t understand the savageness of what the Apache are doing. However, the young soldier is hard pressed to admit what the white man does to the Indians. At one point McIntosh says “To be mad with the Apache’s for what they do is like being made at the desert for not having water.” Sharing screen time with the emotional story is also the intelligent action, which drives the tale. McIntosh and Ke-Ni-Tay’s planning and strategy on what Ulzana will do next is fascinating.

It’s surprising that this film is so defined as a comedy, because it’s the dramatic moments that work best. Cameron Crowe, director of ALMOST FAMOUS and SAY ANYTHING…, started his career in film as the screenwriter of this film, which was based on his book.

Directed by Amy Heckerling (CLUELESS), the film follows several groups of characters. The main character would be Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh, HUDSUCKER PROXY), a 15-year-old girl who is desperate to have sex and have a boyfriend… specifically in that order. Encouraging Stacy’s plans is her beautiful best friend Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates, GREMLINS), who constantly talks about her older boyfriend who lives in Chicago.

This film from John Carpenter is a cult hit, but its really just average sci-fi action fare. One of its main problems is the completely implausible premise. The film proposes that crime rises in the U.S. 400% in 1988 and that by 1997 the isle of Manhattan has been turned into a prison. The U.S. gives up on New York City? Come on. The premise could work if the story and characters were solid, but that’s not the case here.

A rebel from the Liberation Front of America hijacks Airforce One and plans to crash it into New York. The President (Donald Pleasence, HALLOWEEN) ejects himself from the plane and ends up being kidnapped by The Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes, SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT). Because the police have been kicked out by the inmates, the police chief Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY) enlists inmate and former special forces soldier Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell, BACKDRAFT) to find and rescue the President within 22 hours or die. Along his journey, Snake hooks up with dimwitted Cabbie (Ernest Borgnine, MARTY), Brain (Harry Dean Stanton, PARIS, TEXAS) and Brain’s buxom girlfriend Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau, TV’s CARNIVALE).

I’ve reviewed this film before, but this review is based on the new DVD release of the film. What struck me this, my zillionth or so, viewing of the film is director George Lucas’ brilliant attention to detail. Sci-fi before STAR WARS never had a lived in feel. Before STAR WARS, the buildings and vehicle were shiny and perfect like they were just put into use right before the film took place. The world of STAR WARS sucks you in because you instantly and subconsciously sense a history that is new and original. Lucas truly created a new world.

He makes the characters iconic without being ironic. The characters are strong types, but human enough that we care about what they care about. Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO are all household names. And the actors who played them, whether they like it or not, are synonymous with those roles.

Spike Lee’s first feature was shot in black and white and cost $175,000 to make. It went onto make $7 million at the box office and launched Lee’s career. It also served as one of the key independent films of the 1980s that helped launch the explosion of indie cinema in the early '90s. For black cinema, it also helped move portrayals of African-Americans on the screen away from the stereotypes of the blaxploitation era.

Set in a thriving Brooklyn, the film chronicles the love life of Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Jones, NEW JACK CITY), who is dating reserved “nice guy” Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks, THE FIVE HEARTBEATS), conceited model Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell, BOOMERANG) and out-of-work jokester Mars Blackmon (Lee). The main focus of the movie is Nola and Jamie’s relationship. All three of the men have a tough time with Nola sleeping with other men. This film was about female sex in the city before there was a SEX IN THE CITY.

Actor/director/writer Harold Ramis (GHOSTBUSTERS) made his directing debut with this comedy. Centering on the shenanigans that occur on a country club golf course the film is filmed with laughs and anchored by several good comedic performances.

The film is pretty typical of the ‘80s sex comedy. Caddy Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe, THE SLUGGER’S WIFE) is kissing as much butt as possible to secure himself the club’s caddy scholarship. The chief recipient of his butt kissing is conservative judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight, TV’s MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW). Serving as Danny’s mentor is the free-spirited heir Ty Webb (Chevy Chase, FUNNY FARM), who is wooing Smails niece Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan, TRON). Hanging around the clubhouse to the chagrin of Judge Smails is millionaire land developer Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield, LADYBUGS). In addition, assistant groundskeeper Carl Spackler (Bill Murray, GROUNDHOG DAY) is on a mission to rid the golf course of one pesky gopher.

If there were ever a filmmaker that could truly be called a “man’s director,” Sam Peckinpah would be that director. This film starts out with the pregnant Theresa (Janine Maldonado, only film performance) sitting by a river. Her father El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez, WILD BUNCH) is furious that she is pregnant and calls for the head of her lover Alfredo Garcia.

Two of El Jefe’s hitmen Sappensly (Robert Webber, 10) and Quill (Gig Young, THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY?) turn up in a brothel looking for Alfredo and meet piano player Bennie (Warren Oates, 1941), who knows how to find Alfredo and wants to get paid for it. Bennie learns that Alfredo has hooked up with his favorite prostitute Elita (Isela Vega, THE STREETS OF L.A.), which upsets him. He then discovers that Alfredo is already dead, but the hitmen want proof (i.e. Alfredo’s head). So Bennie and Elita head out on a road trip to find Alfredo.

This is a Lifetime movie for men. Friendship + Disease = Box of Kleenex. So why is this famous TV movie good, because stars James Caan and Billy Dee Williams are great.

The story chronicles the real life friendship of Chicago Bears football players Brian Piccolo (Caan, THE GODFATHER) and Gale Sayers (Williams, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). Their friendship broke color barriers. They were the first black and white players to room together on the road. Piccolo is a hard-working, positive attitude kind of guy with an aw-shucks sense of humor. Sayers is reserved, quiet and doesn’t like the spotlight on himself. They feed off each other -- Piccolo brought Sayers out of his shell and Sayers drove Piccolo to become a better ball player.