Beneath Paul Michael Glaser’s action film where Arnold Schwarzenegger takes on gimmicky athletes and ends every bout with a silly catchphrase, beats a movie that is quick as a whip and horrifyingly prophetic. Based on the Stephen King novel, “The Running Man” is simultaneously a vehicle for Schwarzenegger that also sneaks in a lot of commentary about society that would oddly enough come to completely fruiting by the mid to late aughts. “The Running Man” is based around a very popular and deadly reality show, steeped in a world where people risk their lives for cash and vacations for entertainment, and it’s all run by a mad man running a corporation. You can pretty much point that arrow to any one of the men running the world today.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
The Wanderers (1979) [Blu-Ray]
After spending many years in a hard to find DVD version, “The Wanderers” is finally given the proper treatment on blu-ray by Kino Lorber with a beautiful 2K restoration. “The Wanderers” is one of the many films from the nostalgia boom of the late seventies and early eighties, that peeks back in to the sixties, where great change was taking shape, and the world was at war. With films like “American Graffiti” making waves, “The Wanderers” is another of those defining era dramas that is shockingly overlooked and not often appreciated. “The Wanderers” is very much a gangland picture but more so a coming of age drama about a young boy growing up in a world filled with allegiances, dividing loyalties, and uneasy questions about where he stands in a gradually shifting society.
Check Please (2017)
The premise for “Check Please” is less a slice of life and more something you’d find in a normal sitcom. That’s not a slight, but it does hinder what is a fine comedy, that could have been great. “Check Please” involves a massive misunderstanding that snowballs in to chaos, as young Ben is preparing to propose to Laura, his girlfriend of many years. She seems like a girl who has put up with a lot and has spent a while trying to convince Ben to marry her, and he’s opted to propose by sneaking her ring in to a piece of pie.
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997)
Around 1996 and in to 1997, the “Power Rangers” pop culture phenomenon had just about died down and Saban entertainment were looking to re-invent the series for a new wave of toy buying tween boys. I was a big “Power Rangers” fan for many years and, like most people my age, I checked out once “Turbo” was introduced. It just felt so tired once they devolved from mystical giant dinosaur robots to… cool cars! Forget a giant dragon that can smash buildings, you have a red car that goes vroom! Of course, I opted out of seeing “Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie” for a very long time, and for good reason. “Turbo” is a movie apparently made on half of the budget of the 1995 movie, and with none of the ambition. You can say whatever you want about the “Mighty Morphin” movie, but it was at least ambitious and tried to take the series in to a bigger scope.
Black Girl (La Noire de…) (1966): The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
Director Ousmane Sembéne’s drama is less an art house film and more of an observational drama that explores how one woman’s idyllic views of French life traps her in to a life of indentured servitude. Actress M’Bissine Thérese Diop is great as Diouana, a young woman stuck in an African village who finds that her options there are limited. She’s not very capable of doing much but servant work and longs to see the world. When she gets a job with a wealthy couple, she’s taken to the French Riviera for the season and asked to live with them to work as their live in nanny. Diouana comes to France expecting luxury, shopping, amazing adventures, and exploration of the beaches.
The Ottoman Lieutenant (2016)
Following a lecture by a handsome missionary doctor, a frustrated young American nurse decides to go to Turkey to deliver much needed supplies and her late brother’s truck. As war looms and dangers abound, she is assigned an Ottoman Lieutenant to protect her on her journey to the faraway hospital. During their journey, friendship blooms and once at the hospital, romance is in the air.
45 Years (2015): The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
It’s stunning how subtle and delicate “45 Years” introduces itself, only to end on such a heavy and gut wrenching final scene that leaves you with the weight of questions and uneasy answers. From beginning to end, director Andrew Haigh confronts many of life’s very difficult problems, including how easy it is for a relationship approaching a century, can be dismantled in only a week. Haigh almost seems to count down to the final day where couple Kate and Geoff celebrates their four and a half decades together as a married couple. Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling are stellar as a seemingly mundane husband and wife whose life is changed one day with a letter that arrives for Geoff.