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Reviews
Hexed (1993)
Where, oh where are the laughs?
Maybe my expectations were too high -- but then again, all I wanted was a few laughs from a movie promising to be a send-up of all those Fatal Attraction-type thrillers. Claudia Christian and Arye Gross weren't bad, but the dialogue they were handed was just doltish, and the supporting cast was about as funny as a hearse -- what was with that ridiculous police sergeant? I just got the sense that everyone involved was either trying way too hard to make a lousy script funny, or (in the case of Norman Fell and the rest of the supporting cast) just marking time and waiting for their paychecks. 90 minutes, maybe half a dozen laughs. A waste of a great premise.
Three O'Clock High (1987)
An underrated gem that should be as revered as "The Breakfast Club"
Why is this movie not up there with 'The Breakfast Club,' 'Heathers,' and other teen rite-of-passage classics? 'Three O'Clock High' is hilarious. The cinematography is as well-executed as the script, and laughs appear at just about every turn. The mixed nuts in the cast give great deadpan performances (Jeffrey Tambor kills me every time as he heartbrokenly surveys the vandalized school supply store -- 'what kind of animals would DO this?' he almost weeps), playing up the comic absurdity of the script. A wonderful farce that hasn't lost a bit of its charm in 12 years. Why Anne Ryan, the hero's girlfriend, disappeared after this movie is a mystery to me -- she should have become another Winona Ryder. Don't pass this one up if your local video store has bothered to keep it on the shelf. You can thank me later. And if you're leery because the movie tanked at the box office, remember, Milli Vanilli's record sold seven million copies, so trusting the mainstream public is not always the best idea...
Dead Fire (1997)
Not even bad in a good way -- just BAD.
Whoo-ee! That sound you hear is the careers of C. Thomas Howell and Matt Frewer burning up on re-entry just before they smack into the ground. I hate to be a jerk, because I loved Frewer in Max Headroom, but this movie was a pile of cack. Even as a fan of cornball b-grade sci-fi flicks, I was appalled (when I was awake). Nonsensical plot twists, vein-popping overacting, and a convoluted script all add up to a big stinking plate full of 'who cares?' all around. This one's not even worth renting on cheap night -- pick up 'Cube' instead, or you may be permanently soured on all things celluloidal and Canadian.
Bone Daddy (1998)
Does Rutger Hauer need a better agent or what?
Don't get me wrong, 'Bone Daddy' is decent, in a TV-movie kind of way. I've liked Rutger Hauer since Blade Runner, and even though he just keeps churning out the b-movies, I just keep renting them (tomorrow night, I watch Redline!) But man, Rutger is looking OLD in this movie -- he's sporting an old-guy moustache and some extra pounds, and he doesn't DO anything -- he argues, and drives around, and breaks into a jog maybe once before the climax of the film. Add a lumpen, dislikable supporting cast (including a dour Barbara Williams as his inhospitable partner-in-crimesolving) and after a while, not only do you not CARE who the killer is, but you wish s/he'd start knocking off a few more people!
The gross-out factor in this movie is quite high, in a couple of scenes that arrive just when you're about to turn it off in exasperation. The 'Bone Daddy' killer's shtik is to remove the bones from the victims, while they're still alive, and (in this case at least) mail them to our hero, a former forensic pathologist who made the mistake of writing a book about 'Bone Daddy.' It really is kinda creepy, if you think about it. It's much more suspenseful if one of your dumb friends doesn't start singing 'de knee bone's connected to de leg bone, de leg bone's connected to de hip bone...' during the gory scenes, incidentally.
This one just screams 'mid-week rental.' Pick it up cheap, it's not that bad. Or maybe I should organize a boycott of this and all Hauer rentals until he finds an agent that gets him some better scripts to read...
Still Breathing (1997)
A weak attempt at a fairy tale romance
'Still Breathing' was marred by tedious pacing, forced characters (I could have lived my whole life without seeing Brendan 'Encino Man' Fraser play with marionettes), and a story so threadbare it doesn't even wash as a fairy tale. One senses that the plot got resolved when it did only because the director looked at his watch and realized how long the movie was getting. Harmless, prettily shot, and OK if you're so into the whole puppies-and-kitties moon-June-spoon romance ideal that you have NO standards whatsoever, but as a film for normal people to watch, pretty mediocre.
Max Headroom (1985)
Phenomenal future-shock sci-fi!
Like the TV show that followed it, the "Max Headroom" movie was a great grim look into a bleak, Blade-Runner-esque future ruled by corporations who keep the proletariat down by anesthetizing them with junk food and mind-numbing television pageantry. The parallels are frightening, or haven't you seen a Jerry Springer audience lately? The UK movie is, if anything, even grittier and more creepy than the eventual US pilot and TV series. It's out of print, but well worth searching out -- a dramatic, thought-provoking example of everything that's good about science fiction.