The Parallax Review - Columns

"Murphy's Law" by D. B. Bates

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:06:02 -0600

Bronson plays Jack Murphy, an alcoholic robbery-homicide detective whose wife has just left him. In a bizarre twist, Jan (Angel Tompkins) has left Murphy in order to live out her dream of stripping (she calls it “dancing”). Murphy has a habit of sitting in the back of her club, getting hammered, taunting Jan, and then following her back to her apartment to peep while she makes love with other men. Seriously.

"The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley" by D. B. Bates

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:25:21 -0600

The film’s writer, executive producer, and longtime champion, A. Martin Zweiback, took me up on that. As you may have seen, he sent me a videotape of the “writer’s cut,” which filled me simultaneously with fear and hope. Hope, because I believed a good film could come from the botched version I saw; fear, because, based on what I had seen, I didn’t know what could be done with the existing footage to substantially improve it.

To my great pleasure, The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley — Zweiback’s cut — is, indeed, the great film I wished Grace Quigley could have been.

"Broken Lizard's Club Dread" by Matt Wedge

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The result was a film that was funny without going for the obvious jokes that the Scary Movie franchise had already poached numerous times over. But critics bashed its straight-faced approach to comedy and audiences stayed away in droves, turned off by bad word-of-mouth that the film was just as much a horror film as it was a comedy.

"Mystic River" by Matt Wedge

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

That’s why I was so shocked when I first saw Mystic River. It struck me as a stunning misfire from a usually reliable director with a good cast overacting like they were in a high school production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Even worse, Eastwood showcased bizarre flourishes and an over-the-top score, which he helped compose, that only further pushed the film into overbearing territory.

"RoboGeisha" by Matt Wedge

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Whether I would have ended up watching the film on my own is debatable. Knowing my love for a good exploitation film, I probably wouldn’t have been able to avoid that title for very long. But if this film is an accurate example of what the genre offers, I may be able to avoid the other slickly titled options that I keep seeing on Netflix.

"Single White Female 2: The Psycho" by D. B. Bates

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

I admit recommending Single White Female 2: The Psycho is a tough sell. A direct-to-video sequel whose biggest name (Brooke Burns) went from Baywatch to reality game-show host doesn’t seem like the sort of movie any rational person would want to watch. It has the aesthetic, soundtrack, and acting caliber of softcore porn, although without the rampant nudity. It’s less a sequel than a knockoff that may have become a sequel either to avoid litigation or to capitalize on its very derivativeness. In short, it’s not really a good movie. However, the film’s story suffers from the same sort of schizophrenia as its chief villain, which makes it one of the most purely entertaining direct-to-video sequels I’ve ever seen. (Again, don’t misconstrue narrative craziness as high quality — you should know what you’re getting into and whether or not you’ll want to endure it.)

"The Vampire's Assistant" by D. B. Bates

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

If you’ve never heard of Darren Shan’s series of Cirque du Freak books, you’re probably not alone. When I got the script, it simply had a title and Brian Helgeland’s name. I didn’t know it was an adaptation and a potential franchise-starter until long after I read it. I only knew that the script was the longest first act I’d ever read — all setup, no payoff.

"King Lear" by D. B. Bates

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

I’ve seen many, many, many bad movies over the years, but this is the first one I’ve seen that seemed intentional. Usually, bad movies happen on accident — even the notoriously reviled Manos, the Hands of Fate started its production with the hope of making a good movie. Here, Godard simply does whatever the hell he wants, whatever pops into his head at any given time, and trust me when I say the things popping into his head during its production couldn’t fill up a haiku, much less a feature film.

"The Badge" by Matt Wedge

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

I’ve always felt that the true test of an actor is how well they hold up in a bad film. In a good film, with a solid script and capable direction, an actor can coast and let the material carry them. I’m not saying that actors do that; I just feel an accomplished director and a skilled editor can mask a lot of the faults of a weak performance and make an actor look better than he or she actually is. When an actor can single-handedly save a film from a bad script and an incompetent director and make it, if not good, at least watchable, that speaks volumes to me about their ability. Such is the case with Billy Bob Thornton and The Badge.

"The Cell 2" by Matt Wedge

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

This is just one of the many lapses in logic presented by the film’s four (!) writers and director Tim Iacofano. While The Cell also had severe plot gaps, director Tarsem Singh was able to use the script as a jumping off point to indulge in some truly breathtaking visuals that coupled with his skill at buiding suspense to create a film that was more than the sum of its parts. The filmmakers behind The Cell 2 have no such bold plans, settling for a dreadfully dull serial killer thriller with a perfunctory supernatural twist.

"Rampage" by Matt Wedge

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Rampage boasts solid, if unspectacular, credentials. On IMDb, it currently sits at a 6.4 out of ten rating. On Netflix, it has a surprisingly high 3.3 out of five rating. The cast is peppered with recognizable grade-B actors (Matt Frewer, Michael Paré) and some personal favorite Canadian character actors (Brendan Fletcher, Katharine Isabelle). Armed with this information, I crossed my fingers and made my first dive into the infamous world of Uwe Boll. I wish I hadn’t.

"Missing in Action 2: The Beginning" by D. B. Bates

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

But this film’s problems run deeper than a lack of strong characters. Plenty of action movies — especially those made by the Cannon Group — work with stereotypes more than actual characters, and they can still be fun and entertaining. Like the wave of torture porn currently infesting multiplexes, the film lingers on tawdry shock moments (up to and including a slow-motion closeup of a character getting shot in the head) that don’t add up to anything more meaningful. The film tries to use these moments to show Yin as a vile monster and illustrate the risk involved in Braddock escaping, but there are simply too many of them and they’re all too grim and exploitative to have any real artistic merit.

"The Winning Season" by D. B. Bates

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 00:00:01 -0600

Try as I might, I can’t see the logic in The Winning Season heading to DVD after a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it “theatrical run” for awards consideration. A funny, dark-edged sports comedy featuring Sam Rockwell as a cantankerous alcoholic coach and a plethora of rising stars (Emma Roberts, Emily Rios, Rooney Mara, Shareeka Epps) and comedy ringers (Rob Corddry, Margo Martindale). In a world where trailers frequently mislead audiences into thinking they’re seeing one thing (a good movie) when they’re seeing another (a shitty movie), how could they not cut a trailer making this look like an innocuous teen comedy along the lines of the execrable Easy A? There’s nothing wrong with tricking people into seeing a better movie than the one they think they’re seeing. That’s what Whip It did. Although nobody saw it — but that’s different. People actually like basketball.

"Lifeforce" by Matt Wedge

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Lifeforce is one of the first films that the Cannon Group rolled the dice on with a big budget. As with most of their grasping attempts to hit it big, their roll came up snake eyes. With a budget reported in excess of twenty-five million dollars, Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of Colin Wilson’s novel The Space Vampires is a sprawling, messy epic with moments of startling horror interspersed with silly plot twists, and characters acting in bizarre ways that somehow make sense when filtered through Hooper’s oddball view of the world.

"Missing in Action" by D. B. Bates

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Despite the film’s simplicity, I find myself on the cusp of recommending it. It lacks the campy appeal of more mindlessly entertaining Cannon fodder, though it contains the typical displays of raw, testosterone-fueled machismo often mischaracterized as homoeroticism (and with good reason — in particular, Braddock’s attempts to wrench a knife from the hands of a potential assassin could easily be mistaken for a completely different act that would have warranted an X rating). Really, it’s a sterling example of how much goodwill an effective opening can have on a film.