Without A Hitch

With a film like this, a remake of a classic film, the classic is always the best version, however, I still enjoyed 1998's "Pyscho" remake. One of the main reasons I enjoyed the film was the amazing cast, which included so many of my favorite actors, such as William H. Macy as the suspicious investigator, Julianne Moore as the concerned sister and Philip Baker Hall as the police chief. All three of these actors appeared in the 1999 ensemble film "Magnolia", another film which I highly enjoyed. Vince Vaughn plays creepy well, which is something he also does as a scary stepfather in 2001's "Domestic Disturbance", but instead of looking at all like original Norman Bates Anthony Perkins, Vaughn in some scenes resembled actor Kevin James. I loved the vintage feel of the film. The original film was in black and white, but this film still resembled something from the 60s with the pastel colors and vintage outfits. Macy, as the investigator, wore a hat similar to the one his 1950s era salesman character wore in the 2003 TV movie "Door to Door".  Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963) was somewhat referenced in this film, since Norman's office and the motel rooms were covered with pictures of birds and their stuffed corpses were mounted on the walls. A man resembling Alfred Hitchcock appears in the same scene in which the man himself cameoed in the original film. This film makes Bates out to be more of a perverted peeping tom than the original film does, showing him spying on Marion through a hole in the wall and pleasuring himself as he watches her undress. This is not something that would have been seen in the original film, of course. Nor would Macy have been able to spout lines like 'if it don't gel, it ain't jello' when facts about Marion's disappearance just don't add up. One thing that bothered me about this film is that the original "Pyscho" house was not used as the house in this film. If they can use it for a memorable episode of "Murder, She Wrote" which did indeed happen, then I can't imagine why it wouldn't be used for an actual reimagining of the original film. Oh well, despite that and other flaws associated with the remake of a classic film, this one wasn't bad. Again, so many great actors were in this and I loved seeing them all. Rita Wilson as a perky office girl, Robert Forster as a psychiatrist, Viggo Mortensen as the macho boyfriend, the late Chad Everett as one of Marion's clients, and even Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers as Mortensen's coworker, all made this one fun to watch.

C'mon Join the 'Joyride'

A young Melanie Griffith, Robert Carradine and Desi Arnaz Jr. starred as carefree rebels in Joyride (1977). Quitting their blue-collar jobs and heading for Alaska to start fresh wasn't as easy as they thought it would be. While the guys got drunk in the local bar, the girl wrangled jobs for them at the local pipeline. She refused to get a job there herself, knowing she would have to go the extra mile with the supervisor if she wanted a job, so waitressing paid the bills. Struggling to make ends meet, the trio took advantage of an in-progress store robbery committed by others to load their shopping cart with various cuts of meat and to make a getaway while the police apprehended the real criminals. Crime seemed to be the best option for the trio to make extra money, although none of them were a good shot with a gun. 'It must be the wind', Griffith said. 'There isn't any wind,' Carradine explained. The group were intimidated right out of their jobs by the locals, one of whom threatened 'it's really terrible what happens to tourists.' At their lowest, they were forced to eat 88 cent dog food out of the cans while freezing in an old shed and to engage in drunken pissing contests to earn a few hundred dollars. A pretty pipeline payroll philly (say that ten times fast) caught Scott's (Arnaz Jr.) eye and ended up as the group's hostage when they robbed the place. She wasn't your typical hostage, however, engaging in fun times with the law-breaking trio. The 'joyride' continued as the group grew tired of Alaska and set its sights on Canada as their new destination. This was an interesting late-70s crime movie, complete with nudity from both the female leads and minimal violence. I didn't think what was supposed to pass for Alaska looked much like that frozen state and I'm sure it probably wasn't filmed there, but who knows? An interesting piece of trivia is that all four of the film's main stars are the offspring of legendary Hollywood stars from the past: Melanie Griffith is the daughter of 'The Birds' star Tippi Hedren, Robert Carradine is the son of veteran horror film star John Carradine, Desi Arnaz Jr. is the son of comedians Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and Anne Lockhart (the pipeline payroll hostage) is the daughter of 'Lassie' and 'Lost in Space' star June Lockhart.

A 'Current' Event

Joseph Fiennes ("Shakespeare In Love" (1998)) found himself "Against the Current" (2009) in this great independent film I just watched tonight. He played Paul, a man grieving the sudden death of his wife and unborn daughter five years earlier who decides to swim the length of the Hudson River to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. At the end of the trip, he planned to end his life, not feeling that his pain was ever going to go away. As he made his way through the cold waters, he was accompanied by boat by his sarcastic friend Jeff (Justin Kirk) and Liz, a lonely female friend from their local bar. They tried to make him see that he had a lot to live for and with more time, he would heal. Despite his sudden closeness to Liz, he felt he had nothing left to live for because his family (whom he thought of as his wife and daughter, but whom Liz thought of as his parents when they talked about 'family') were all gone. A discussion was had about whether donuts existed in Heaven or whether people who took their own lives even ended up there. Paul managed to have enthusiasm for life's little pleasures even when he knew he wouldn't, by choice, be around much longer. Jeff, acting on Paul's sudden craving, said to some local fisherman in one scene, "We're looking for hot dogs." The older fisherman said "I don't have any" and Jeff replied "Fair enough." This cracked me up. There was a lot of funny dialogue and moments in this movie, and some of that came from the great Mary Tyler Moore, in a nice cameo as Liz's eccentric and nosy mother. She babbled on about the large, grand houses in her neighborhood and the scandalous histories of the previous owners. She encouraged her single daughter to remain that way and not to be held down by marriage or a family, much like her own most well-known character, Mary Richards, on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." She pushed Paul to reveal his plans post-swimming victory, saying "People don't just do nothing. You have to do something." She also believed Paul was "gooing" on her when joking with her until her more aware daughter explained the word is "goofing." Not since 1996's "Flirting With Disaster" has Mary Tyler Moore been so amusing as a clueless mother. This was a great 'current' movie.

Only A Couple of (Unshaved) Pits in 'Cherry'

Cherry (2010) is about a college freshman named Aaron (Kyle Gallner, a young actor I've enjoyed in "Red" (2008), "A Haunting In Connecticut (2009) and in several TV appearances) who meets a colorful cast of characters upon breaking free from the grasp of his cold, aloof mother and timid father. Aaron's roommate is a typical, horny guy who is always busy behind closed doors. Aaron is polite, educated and preppy. He keeps busy in an engineering class by working out an equation and a project that shows how man can 'walk on water.' He keeps even busier juggling the various women he meets on campus. A quiet coed seems like a good match, but her non-interest in shaving her body hair drives him away. He finds himself involved in a tug-of-war between an older woman, a lady in her mid-30s returning to school, and her feisty, angsty daughter. Both women are drawn to the former Boy Scout (he's polite and preppy after all), but one is too old and one is too young. He can't commit to either one, but he knows he cares about them. Issues are complicated by Aaron's mother's reaction to his relationship with this woman and her daughter and also by the presence of the older woman's volatile cop boyfriend (Esai Morales, "La Bamba"), whom the daughter despises. Things work themselves out as the boy navigates through them, attempting to literally walk on water, waiting for his teacher's approval. I enjoyed this movie, although some of the characters and situations seemed cliched, especially for a movie like this, about a naive freshman entering school and a whole new world for the first time. I haven't yet seen "The Perks of Being A Wallflower", but I would imagine that movie and this one might share some similar themes. As tied up as the cherry stem in anyone else's mouth but his own (since he lacks the talent for tying them), that's how tangled Aaron's freshman year is and how tangled it becomes.

De Plane!! De Plane!! De Pain!! De Pain!!

Cheryl Ladd played a strong female character that seemed like one out of a Lifetime movie in Aftermath (1990), an airplane disaster movie that dealt more with, you guessed it the aftermath, then with the disaster itself. The film touched on topics like "crib death" ("go ahead, you can say it", Ladd says to a friend afraid to bring up the subject) and "pilot error". The latter term was thrown around a lot due to the fact that her husband, one of the pilots and one of the few survivors of the crash, was due to take the fall for that very reason. As any good wife would do, Ladd fought to prove her husband's innocence by insisting there was a fire on board which brought the plane down. There were obstacles, of course, along the way, including a driven and determined reporter (played by Jim Metzler, also a star in a 1998 airline disaster film called "A Wing and a Prayer") asking tough questions about her husband's past. I'll admit I enjoy these 'women-in-peril' films that often appear on Lifetime now and Cheryl Ladd has filled her resume with plenty of them. This one is very good and also very touching in some scenes, especially the ones involving an elderly survivor of the crash who is mourning the loss of his wife. This movie was also more believable than most airplane disaster movies because it involved real drama and the very real ramifications and consequences of the pilot's flying of the plane.

Not A Weak 'Weeks'

One of my favorite actresses, Sally Field, played the matriarch of a family of adult children, who is dying of cancer in "Two Weeks" (2006). Seeing her in this role reminded me a lot of her role on TV's "Brothers and Sisters", which is one of my favorite shows and which also premiered in 2006. On that show, as in this film, she is the mother of very different, very independent adult children. I also saw similarities between this film and "Steel Magnolias" (1989), which also starred Sally Field. In that film, her daughter is dying of cancer, while in this film it is she who is dying from the disease. In this film, she is not alone, receiving love and care from her children and less of that from her second husband. Her friends make tuna casseroles that most of her kids hate and come to comfort her and remember old times. My favorite moments were when Field answers questions asked by her documentary filmmaker son as he films her with his camera. He asks questions like who is her favorite of her four children and does she have regrets? It was nice to see her smile and be happy talking about her life while the more grim scenes showed her fighting so bravely to cling to life.  Field's children didn't even grieve or emote while she was dying, but only after she was gone which I found interesting. This was a sad movie with great dialogue that was very meaningful, but I didn't cry watching this as I thought I would as I often do watching these kinds of movies. It was a comedy as much as it was a drama, though, and the movie did make me laugh on a few occasions. I remember wanting to buy this for my own mom for her birthday or Christmas, but I never did. I'm glad I finally got the chance to see it, though.

Within 'Reach'

"Reach for Me" (2008) starred Seymour Cassel, an Oscar-nominated actor who I've seen in a handful of films such as "Dick Tracy" (1990) and "Trees Lounge" (1996), as a cranky, dying old man sharing a hospice room with a not so cranky, also dying younger man. That really is the movie right there. LeVar Burton ("Roots", "Reading Rainbow") directed this movie and also costars as a gay male nurse, who in one scene paints his toenails what appeared to be a dark shade of green. Lacey Chabert ("Mean Girls") starred as the girlfriend of the dying younger man and even gets the chance to sing what I would say is the film's theme song (remember when movies had those?). She sings it quite well, too. Adrienne Barbeau (TV's "Maude") played another patient in the hospice who tickles Cassel's fancy when he starts going for walks around the place instead of staying in bed. Barbeau looked older with gray hair in this film, but that seemed to be something she did only for the film. As far as I know, she hasn't gone gray yet. One scene featuring Barbeau that might have been a turn-on twenty years ago was heartbreaking as she entered the tub room, revealing the top half of her body and also the reason she was at the hospice in the first place. Alfre Woodward ("Scrooged"-I love that one), who is always entertaining, played Cassel's nurse and one of her best lines directed at her cranky patient was 'Alvin, aren't you a little long in the tooth for a booty call?' I enjoyed this movie and although it was supposed to be a bit of tearjerker in some scenes, especially at the end, I didn't tear up like I usually do.

'Room' With A (Very Dangerous) View

Neil Patrick Harris, post-"Doogie Howser M.D." and pre-"How I Met Your Mother" starred as a loner outcast who is tormented by a sadistic bully at an alternative school for troubled kids in "Animal Room" (1995). It's interesting to see Harris as anything but the hip, popular character he plays now in movies, tv shows, awards shows and on and on. A pre-"Scream" Matthew Lillard played the bully and sported a hairdo very similar to Demi Moore's in the movie "Ghost" (1990). When he had his head turned down in some scenes, I kept thinking he would lift it up and I'd be staring at Demi Moore instead of Matthew Lillard. "7th Heaven's" wholesome mom Catherine Hicks played Harris' alcoholic one in this movie and Amanda Peet appeared as the girlfriend of one of the kids at the alternative school. I read that the movie was somewhat modeled after "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) and although I've not seen that movie in its entirety, there is a scene in "Animal Room" that was very reminiscent of a scene I did see in "A Clockwork Orange." One thing I liked about the movie is that it took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey. There were several scenes of the boardwalk, although they didn't play a major role in the film. It was still nice to see them. And it was nice to see this movie, too. I had never heard of it before.

This One Was Kind of 'Corny' But I Liked It

I watched 1996's "Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering" tonight for the first time and just in time for Halloween, too. I've only seen the original "Children of the Corn" (1984) and none of the sequels up to this point. My main reason for wanting to see this film was to see the supporting roles of two of my favorite actors, quirky cult actress Karen Black, playing another hysterical wacko in this movie (in this case, an agoraphobe with gory premonitions), and the late, great Willliam Windom, once again playing a doctor, after his stint of many years as Dr. Seth Hazlitt on one of my favorite tv shows, "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). Future Oscar nominee Naomi Watts ("Mulholland Drive", "21 Grams") is the star of this movie and she looks beautiful and gives a good performance, when you consider what she has to work with. She also uses an American accent in this one, as she has done several times since, even though she's Australian. The movie certainly has that whole hot, sticky Southern atmosphere down well. I enjoyed this one.