Alright it has been a while with a crazy couple of months that I had a chance to do some movie reviews/recaps. Since my sleeping pattern has been bad again, if I don't begin to nod off at this hour I'll end things with notes from Roger Waters on Monday at The Palace..

Guess I'll go in order of the movies I've seen the last several weeks. All but one are from Blockbuster.com still:

Before Sunset (2004)- This was the Richard Linklater sequel to 1995's "Before Sunrise" once again starring Ethan Hawke and the adorable Julie Delpy. It got good reviews but like the first I hated it! Again I'm all into philosophy on those types of conversations but this came across like nails on chalkboard at times. It takes place nine years after the first one. And despite official copyright years they mention in the movie that they first met in the first one in 1994. To me that is crazy as it makes me feel old. I graduated from high school that year.

It takes place in Paris, France. Hawke is an author and his book is based on his experience in the first film. He looks up and Delpy is standing there in the book store. They catch up on old times and what has changed for the better or worse over the years. She lives in the city and works for a group like Green Peace. Hawke as budding writer is married with a child. Neither seem happy and wonder if they would have been happy together. Hawke mentions he only got married because the girlfriend was pregnant. He loves the boy but can take or leave his wife. Delpy continues to float from man to man who take advantage of her.

The whole time Hawke remembers or gets reminded that he has a plane to catch. In the end he goes back to her apartment to say farwell. She makes him tea as she begins to dance to a Nina Simone CD. He keeps looking at her all turned on. The end lines are "You're going to miss your plane.".... "I know." So it makes one wonder if they give in and have sex like old times or if he decides to give up everything and stay.


Slacker (1991)- I guess this was Linklater's full feature before "Dazed and Confused". This was as indy as they get. Starring no one anybody would know. It takes place in Texas and it jumps from characters and meanless situations for the most part. A few times there were some good topics that I would have liked to hear more about but then it jumped to almost drugged out scenes and converstion. So basically there is no plot at all and I couldn't wait for it to be over.

I don't know if mentioned this before but I made a promise to myself that I would watch every movie all the way no matter how annoying. I have never stopped a movie in digust as friends have. But I knew in picking some of these "outside the box" films that some may be tough to sit through.

I recall seeing this on my cable guide way back when I lived at the old house in the early and mid 90's. Don't know the channel it was on or if I had it. But in those days I would see the description of it. Back then we didn't have an awesome on-screen guide like now. You had to watch what is now known as The TV Guide channel to see what was on and the plots if you didn't have the Comcast booklet. I remember the plot summary that simply said "A look at the modern day New Bohemian".

Survivng Desire (1991)- Another Hal Hartley short about 60 mins. long. It stars Martin Donovan as a philosophy professor who falls in love with a student played by Mary Ward. The wonderful Matt Malloy is here as Donovan's friend who tries to give him life advice. The dialogue is great and poetic like many Hartley films. He touches on the usual. Life, love, death, the possible end of the world, and work.

The DVD also includes two short films by Hartley that cover the same topics. "Ambition" and "The Theory of Achievement" each run about 15 mins.


Night Patrol (1984)- This was laugh out loud funny to me. Much talked about when I was in grade school for the humor and nudity. They haven't played it on cable in years but I remember seeing parts of it between pay cable, USA Up All Night, and the old channel 50.

Maury Langston plays a bumbling LAPD officer with his too relaxed partner played by Pat Paulsen (from The Smothers Brothers show back in the 60's/70's.) Langston is always tired out because he works at night as his famous 70's and 80's character, The Unknown Comic, with a paper bag over his head.

Linda Blair is here looking chubby as the police desk clerk who loves Langston but he's too stupid to know it. Billy Barty is the captain always chewing out his crew. A very young Andrew "Dice" Clay has a small role while Pat Morita plays a crossdresser vicitm. Blair was having a hard time getting work after The Exorcist 1&2 and this was the start of her being reduced to B comedy and horror movies. I felt bad for her over the years and wondered if she was somehow being punished by Hollywood and/or movie goers for taking the role as "the devil" when she was 12. Either that or she bombed in the wrong roles or they didn't feel she was a good enough actess. Last I heard she was happy as an animal right activist out west running a farm.

They don't make these like they used to. It is a typical 80's stoner movie with elements of Airlplane and Police Academy.


Death Wish 2 (1982)- For so many year this was the DW I never saw all of. Charles Bronson is back as Paul Kersey now living in L.A. to keep an eye on his daughter at a treatment center. She's still in shock over events of the first movie. Like just about every Bronson movie, someone close to him has to get hurt or killed. Sure enough his daughter is kidnapped and raped by a gang led by a young Lawrence Fishburne. She ends up jumping out of a window either to escape their hideout or commit suicide. It was corny and funny the way they had her do it. Almost like the window jumper in "Reefer Madness". As a result, Bronson goes on the hunt after all the bad guys when the night falls.

Vincent Gardenia is back for no real good reason aside from the fact he must have wanted to be paid for a sequel. He is sent by NYPD to L.A. to check out if it is Kersey doing the killings. The NYPD didn't want it to get out that he was let go in the first one.

Anthony Fransica has a real small role here despite last billing as the legendary star. I think he is only in one small scene.

Bronson's real life wife at the time, Jill Ireland, is in it too. They were in tons of movies together. She plays his love interest and to my surprise nothing bad happens to her. She finds out his secert and leaves him over it but doesn't turn him in.

To me this is the slowest and most boring of the DW series. Even the unintentional comedy bits are few and far between.


The Boost (1988)- I remember seeing this as a kid on cable and thought it was a sad and powerful drama. Boy was I wrong! It stars James Woods and Sean Young. They are a NYC married couple living off of Woods' real estate work. They are barely making it but Woods wants more out of life and to live what was then the "80's High Life". He gets an offer from an older rich man to do work out in L.A. The guy looks at him as a son.

Out in Beverly Hills he becomes a top salesperson with all sorts of money rolling in. But soon the company he works for gets into political and finacial trouble. Woods has racked up a bunch of debt thinking the money would go on forever.

One day at a party he does some coke with friends of his just do relax. He gets Young hooked on it too. Things get worse and he is rushed to the hospital with a bad dose. Young lies to the doctor and says someone slipped him it at a party. Right in the hospital parking lot he snorts again showing how hooked he is. Young announces to him that she is expecting a baby. They decide to get clean.

They move to upstate California and things are going good. He works at a surf shop and she does office work. One day old friends from L.A. come to visit. Woods is late trying to rescue a dog. In the meantime Young goes back to old habits of coke with these people and she ends up falling down steps losing the baby. This was real laughable as she is the worst actress! She had a rep. back in the day of sleeping to the top and doing sex scenes others wouldn't do. Could explain her top roles. Woods is always good but here he is way over the top.

Anyway the movie ends with him beating her up when she tried to take his coke away. She leaves him. He is shown talking to an old friend from NYC while chopping lines of coke looking real drugged out. He keeps lying to himself and others around saying he'll come up with a good idea to get rich again then he will "get her back."


The Event (2003)- This was a disappointment. I love Canada but they can't do films very well or they don't translate well here in the U.S. It is shot and takes place in NYC. Parker Posey is a D.A. worker who is investigating the death of a gay man at a party. He had AIDS and she didn't know if death was from natural causes.

Olympia Dukakis plays the man's mom. Sarah Polley plays his youngest sister. Jane Leeves from Frasier has a pointless role here as a lesbian therapist.

The movie is all over the place. It may have worked if it stayed to either a drama, comedy, or suspense. Instead it has all the elements along with pointless flashback scenes and the quirky NYC gay characters.

Turns out, which is no secert from the start, that the party was a suicide party.


Dead End Drive In (1986)- This was another let down again from the year of bad movies. It takes place in Australia directed by the same guy that did BMX Bandits which is still out of print. A group of teens considered troublemakers of society get locked into a drive-in which is being used as a prision camp.

Nothing exciting at all happens in this film! You'd think there would be clashing groups of teens trying to take over or escape with all sorts of horrors that go along with prision. Nope! It is also ran by an older man with no secruity or bars on his office. No one bothers him until the hero at the end.

Everyone gets along for the most part. They are able to eat movie food while movies play for them all day and night. Of course they have to sleep and live in their cars.

Funny that the story takes place in 1991. At the start,words across the screen tell us that society has gotten so bad especially among the youth that this was the choice to curb crime. I thought things were bad back in 91 when I was a sopomore but I'd take those days back anytime compared to now.

The hero is the only one who wants to leave and he keeps trying to escape. The rest including his hot girlfriend want to stay behind bars. They think they are a family and have fun together. One guy even says to our hero that in there they get three meals a day where on the outside some are lucky to eat once.

There is a rumor going around on the net that this will be remade and former WWE Diva hopeful and Playmate Carmella may be in it! If she plays the hero's girlfriend that will mean nudity if those scenes are like the original here.


The Hidden 2 (1993)- I was so happy to see this playing on the HBO's this month since it's not on DVD. As posted here, I loved the first one so much. But I can see why this isn't on DVD. It was terrible. The female star was Kate Hodge who I thought was cute growing up. She didn't end up doing much outside Texas Chainsaw 3 and one of Brandon Lee's first films.

The plot didn't make sense. Things jumped around too much. It was shot in the dark where you could hardly see. And the acting was just terrible.

I think this was another Canadian sequel like a lot of films are. I remember The Arrival 2 and Final Destination 2 being like this. The main guy here was the worst actor and had the accent. It was so bad that I was actually mad that they even bothered to do another one as it doesn't do the first movie ANY justice.


Well I guess that's all for now. I started this after 5am or so now it's a little after 7am. The concert notes will have to wait.