Smith's Verdict

Smith’s Verdict: ***

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

Why Joe Dante’s “The Hole” didn’t get a US theatrical release is totally beyond me. Let’s look at the facts: Joe Dante directed this movie, as well as “Gremlins” and “Small Soldiers,” and I’m sure he still has some mainstream status today. What these movies have in common is the fun way they bring terror with a certain whimsy to what seems like our world. Audiences like that—“Gremlins” was a box-office hit and was also received positively by critics, and “Small Soldiers” did fine too. Are we just supposed to assume that it wouldn’t work again with “The Hole” and that’s why it’s facing difficulty with US distribution?

Also, the film was shot in 3D. Studios are fearless of advertising and releasing “The Nutcracker in 3D” while “The Hole (in 3D)” is left in the shadows? That’s kind of hard to believe. I mean, give props to not releasing “The Hole” as just a 3D gimmick, but now look at this little detail: this movie got a positive reception at the Toronto Film Festival and won the “Best 3D Film” award at 2009’s Venice Film Festival, beating “Up” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.” What more is there to convince studio executives that…I don’t know, maybe “The Hole” should be released?

Well, someone was convinced and it, in fact, did get a theatrical release…in the UK. D’oh!

OK now that that’s all said, let me review “The Hole.” I didn’t see it in a cinema, and so I didn’t see it in 3D. (It was finally released to DVD in October 2012, after a short-lived limited release in select theaters.) But the 3D is not missed. The truth of the matter is that “The Hole” is a treat—a fun, appealing, and even scary family-horror film. Like most good ones of this genre, younger kids may be scared by a lot of the material on screen, but older ones will most likely be delighted and parents will most likely be entertained as well.

The hole in the title refers to a seemingly bottomless pit in the basement of a suburban house in a small town called Bensonville. The original owner was an old man who is now reclusive, lives in an abandoned factory, and is given the name “Creepy Carl” by all the kids in town. The new owners are a single mother (Teri Polo) and her two sons—seventeen-year-old Dane (Chris Massoglia, “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant”) and ten-year-old Lucas (Nathan Gamble, “The Mist”)—who move around a lot for a mysterious reason that involves the past (not giving anything away).

Dane is bummed—of course, what teenage boy isn’t bummed about moving into a new house? But there is one good thing about this move: Julie (Haley Bennett), the smokin’-hot next-door neighbor whom Dane has his eye on. But the little smart aleck Lucas humiliates him in front of her, causing Dane to chase him into the basement, where they both find a strange door in the floor with six locks keeping it shut. They open the locks and look in the hole. This hole seemingly has no end to it. The boys drop a bucket of nails into it and never hear them drop. They tie a paint can to fishing line and the whole rod unreels. And then, they tie a doll to a rope and…something inside the hole grabs hold of it. What’s going on here?

As the boys bring Julie in on their discovery, strange things start to happen: They lower a video camera into the hole and a strange eye is seen. Ghosts and monsters come out of the hole to scare the kids. A creepy jester clown puppet comes to life and attacks Lucas.

The setup of “The Hole” is fun, as the kids experiment with the “gateway to hell” in the basement. They even meet the so-called “Creepy Carl” (Bruce Dern) in a room with a dozen light bulbs surrounding him, to protect himself from the “darkness.” Later on though, the movie gets more interesting. Without giving away the secret of the hole, it causes the kids to confront their own pasts and conquer their fears. What makes “The Hole” interesting is that it’s more of a coming-of-age tale than a horror film. There are scares, but story and characters come first. There’s a sense of who these kids are and how they’ll grow in their misadventures with the hole.

The three young actors aren’t strangers to strangeness. Chris Massoglia traveled with a freak show as a half-vampire in “Cirque du Freak,” Haley Bennett was the protagonist of a much-lesser horror film called “The Haunting of Molly Hartley,” and Nathan Gamble encountered giant bugs in “The Mist.” All three are appealing here, but it’s Nathan Gamble that really stands out as the irrepressible but likable little brother.

“The Hole” isn’t a great horror film. Some of the choices the kids make are kind of dumb, like Dane and Lucas not telling their mother about the strange happenings. And also, the ending is not the right one—it’s supposed to resolve all that happened before, but it just feels like an anticlimax. But for the most part, “The Hole” is an entertaining movie with an intriguing story and some good scares along with likable characters to root for. And it still makes me wonder what it takes to get this film a US distribution, and how long it ultimately took.

NOTE: The MPAA rated this movie a PG-13 rating. After the PG-rated “Monster House” and “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” the MPAA is starting to understand that certain family-horror movies are likely to frighten younger kids—this one included.

ANOTHER NOTE: Or maybe they just rated it a PG-13 rating due to certain profanities like the “s” word.

THIRD AND FINAL NOTE: Every film directed by Joe Dante features an appearance by Dick Miller. Watch out for him as a pizza delivery guy in this movie.

Smith’s Verdict: ***

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“If I ever say these are the best years of my life…remind me to kill myself.”

Those are surprisingly revelatory words spoken by high school senior Randy “Pink” Floyd (Jason London) to his stoned friends on their first night after high school. After a night of partying, drinking, smoking joints, and hanging with friends, Pink—a football jock—finds himself hanging with who the school coach dubs the “wrong crowd,” smoking marijuana on the 50-yard line at the school’s football field. He says these words and it’s possibly the one time any of the teenagers in this movie notice that they feel like something is missing.

But that’s not unlike teenagers. We were caught in states of confusion. We ignore them by simply hanging out and talking about other stuff without having to get too serious, just to have a good time. Only occasionally did we acknowledge what problems we had. As time goes by and we get older, we block out the pain and just remember the nostalgia.

This is probably why Richard Linklater, writer and director of “Dazed and Confused,” decided to set this film in the 1970s instead of the 1990s, when it was made. He’s recalling his own nostalgia and it comes through in this film, which is essentially plotless—it’s just chronicling these small-town teens on the night of the last day of school. They hang out. They party. They drink. They smoke marijuana. They talk. That’s it. That’s the movie. It doesn’t matter if the hero gets the girl, the nerd gets his moment, the bully gets his comeuppance, and whatever high-school-movie cliché you can mention. It has truthful elements to it.

Linklater introduces us to one set of characters and we hang around with them as they hang out with each other. Then we move to another set, stay with them. Then another. We get plenty of time to watch them develop, although I have to admit I think there were too many people to keep track of. Most notable are the aforementioned Pink, who is troubled that the coach insists that he sign a paper that keeps him off drugs and alcohol (and away from the “wrong crowd”), and thus invading his independence; Slater (Rory Cochrane), a stoned-out-of-his-mind party animal; Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey), a graduate from years back, still hanging around high school kids because they remind him of his best moments in life (which causes Pink to say the aforementioned quote); and Mitch (Wiley Wiggins), a freshman who is one of many to be harassed by the seniors as a cruel, time-honored initiation tradition (requiring wooden paddles to smack them on the rear), but ends up lingering with Pink and the guys.

“Dazed and Confused” gives us a lot of characters in the mix, although admittedly, only a few of them are likable (Mitch, in particular, is possibly the most identifiable and his tale is engaging, while a lot of the other teenagers grow kind of annoying with their mean-spirited talk). Linklater, however, apparently cares about each of them.

I don’t expect anybody who went to high school in the 1970s to enjoy this film at their next high school reunion. Or maybe they will, as the film does capture the nostalgia of that time as well (the rock-n-roll soundtrack makes perfectly clear of that). I was born in the early ‘90s, went to high school in the late 2000s, and what I got out of this movie was a miniscule but effective legacy of these “cool” high-schoolers.

NOTE: I have to wonder—if the ‘70s looked back on the ‘50s in “American Graffiti,” and the ‘90s looked back on the ‘70s in “Dazed and Confused,” should I expect the 2010s (would that be the ‘10s, the teens) to look back on the ‘90s?

Smith’s Verdict: ***

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

If you can get past the strange concept that allows the possibility of time travel in “Somewhere in Time,” you’d be watching an admittedly cute movie about how one man falls in love…but only 68 years in the past.

Christopher Reeve, the likable star of the “Superman” movies, plays the man, named Richard Collier. He’s a playwright who is celebrating his first play when he’s approached by an elderly woman who hands him a gold pocket watch and simply says, “Come back to me” before leaving. Who is this woman? Richard finds that out eight years later as he stays at the Grand Hotel, after getting over a breakup and while suffering writer’s block. He sees a picture of a beautiful young actress, becomes enthralled, looks up her biography, and finds the latest picture of her, revealing herself to be the woman who gave him the pocket watch, which he still carries around with him.

Richard becomes obsessed with the idea of traveling backward through time, after discovering that the woman has read a book about the subject of time travel. The book was written by one of Richard’s old college professors, so he asks him how he can go back to the year 1912 and see that actress, named Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour).

And so, because this method of self-hypnosis could work for him, and because the movie doesn’t want any past/present misunderstandings, Richard buys an early 20^th century suit, cuts his hair for the appropriate time setting, and rids himself of any modern conveniences. He goes to sleep, forcing himself to actually believe he’s no longer in his own time—he’s in the year 1912. It works, and he’s well dressed for the period. Now it’s time to find Elisa and win her affections.

So I guess the idea of this time travel method is that you have to record yourself saying that you’re where you want to be and if you have to keep anything modern out of sight (so you keep the recorder under your bed), or it won’t work. That may sound ridiculous, even confusing (for example, if it’s a dream, then how is there an effect in Richard’s present? Apparently, it’s not a dream, in that case), but getting down to it, it’s more noble than creating a time machine. It’s power of the mind, to say the least.

Eventually, Richard does meet Elisa and they fall in love, as Richard decides to stay in a time not his own just to stay with her. The developing relationship between these two is nicely done, especially considering the possibility that she’s been waiting for him to come along. The chemistry is there between these two actors—Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour—and you root for their characters to be together. Both actors are good. In particular, Christopher Reeve shows more range here than in “Superman,” and he’s still as likable.

There is a villain in this movie—Elisa’s manager William Robinson (Christopher Plummer). He’s been keeping track of Elisa’s career since she was a teenager and keeps her isolated in order to keep her career going. He resents the arrival of Richard from the moment he sees him, believing that he’ll be the one to take her away from stardom to love. What doesn’t work about his character is that there are hints are to whether or not he knew about Richard’s real presence, but are never addressed. He’s either a time lord or a man obsessed with his managing job.

I should also credit the set and costume design by Jean-Pierre Dorleac for creating the feeling that we have indeed traveled back to 1912.

“Somewhere in Time” isn’t a great movie—aside from somewhat confusing time travel elements and a too-mysterious villain, I didn’t buy the ending very well—but it’s intriguing and sweet enough to win me over.

Smith’s Verdict: ***

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“Red Eye” is a psychological thriller that handles such elements of the genre the right way, while also admiring Rachel McAdams. She has turned so well into a movie star and as the Woman in Peril in “Red Eye,” the camera and script never let us stray away from seeing how plausible, convincing, and (let’s face it) beautiful she is. The Woman in Peril is a hard character to pull off in a movie like this. The wrong actress could easily overact to the terror happening to her character. But not Rachel McAdams—she remains convincing all the way through. Her weapons against a terrorist who made her red-eye flight miserable are a pen, a cane, and a hockey stick. Well of course, those are common weapons of choice.

McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a hotel desk manager who catches a red-eye flight to Florida after bad weather cancels out her regular flight. Taking over her job temporarily at the hotel is her friend, who is not exactly qualified to handle situations that require…well, much thinking. At the bar in the airport, she meets a charming young man named Jack Rippner (get it?) and strikes up a conversation with him. And then they wind up sitting next to each other on the plane.

This sounds like the opening for a romantic drama. But Jack is definitely NOT the charming young man she met at the airport. Once the plane takes off and the two sit together, his personality transforms into something quite sinister. Jack is a terrorist and he tells her (softly) that her father is taken hostage and will be let go when she makes a call to the hotel to schedule a government agent to be booked in a different room than he already was. Then he will be assassinated. Lisa tries to find a way out of this nasty situation and goes through many threatening confrontations and conversations. It’s almost a wonder why these go unnoticed by the stewardesses, but then again this is a busy flight. The airplane scenes are handled in a plausible way.

Cillian Murphy plays Jack. He’s handsome, but his looks come with a warning. The way he handles Lisa in many moments in which she tries sneakily to get out of this situation is so sinister, it too is convincing. Cillian Murphy does a good job of switching tones in his personality. First he’s pleasant and polite. Then he’s…how many times do I have to use the word “sinister?” You get the point, I hope.

Now the final half of the film is your standard killer-in-the-house climax. I would’ve wanted something a bit more original. Who knows what you could do in an airport terminal? But still, McAdams remains plausible and convincing. I loved that her character was not dumb but a woman who is bright and thinks of what she would do; we feel for her. She has presence and credibility—she’s not one of those thriller victims are simply running around and screaming. She’s given something very specific to do and her scenes with Murphy are very effective. These two are great together.

Craven’s previous work included slasher films such as “Nightmare on Elm Street” and the “Scream” movies. Here, he gives us as little blood as possible and moves on to psychological tensions. The final half of the film may be a bit too conventional but for the most part of “Red Eye,” he succeeds in making a psychological thriller that works.

Smith’s Verdict: ***

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

John Carpenter’s “Christine” is a nicely-crafted horror film about a teenage boy and his car. The boy is a high school nerd named Arnie who wears thick glasses, is very insecure, and is constantly picked on by the school thugs. The car is a ‘50s Plymouth dubbed “Christine” that Arnie finds rusting in a junkyard. He doesn’t care that its original owner killed himself in the car or that some folks around it have died tragically back in the day—he’s just entranced by the car. He buys it, rebuilds it, and develops a certain bond with it.

Of course, teenagers develop a bond with their first car. It becomes a part of them—they look out for their cars, they make sure not one part of it is scratched, and they even talk to their cars at times. But in Arnie’s case, it’s different. Not only does having this new car affect his social life (in that he actually develops one, finally) and boost his self-esteem (like talking back to people, including his overbearing parents), but it also turns out that Christine—the car—has a mind of its own. It moves on its own and even repairs itself after the bullies trash it to junk.

And so, Christine uses its willpower, without a driver, to chase after Arnie’s enemies and run them down—there’s a great scene in which it forces its way through a narrow alley to get to one of the bullies, and another in which another bully is desperately running down the street trying to outrun the car (set ablaze this time—the guy doesn’t have a prayer). But there’s a bigger issue in its “mind,” I should say—Arnie is dating the prettiest girl in school, which makes Christine so jealous that it takes many measures to try and run her down as well. Arnie himself develops into a real scuzzy personality, letting Christine’s power over him take what’s left of his meekness and replace it with a blend of super-coolness and madness.

It’s a nice work of fantasy and horror—the idea of a guy getting his first car that turns out to be alive is an exciting one. That it goes after its owner’s girlfriend may make the movie sound ridiculous, and it is. But I enjoyed it because with John Carpenter’s direction, the movie wants to play how it would occur if it were plausible. Carpenter also does a good job with the three central young actors—Keith Gordon as Arnie, Alexandra Paul as Arnie’s girlfriend, and John Stockwell as Arnie’s best friend, a likable jock that tries to pull Arnie out of Christine’s spell.

I also liked the use of old songs in the score. When someone tries to break into the garage where Christine is kept, its radio plays “Keep-a Knockin’ But You Can’t Come In” as a warning. And whenever Arnie is alone in the car, the radio plays old love songs. See, the radio only plays songs from the 1950s, since that’s when it was created and uses these songs to speak its mind. That’s a clever idea.

“Christine” is an ambitious, well-acted, well-executed horror movie that takes teenage fantasy as a deal with the devil. Yeah, the story is out there, and there are some things that don’t work (see NOTE), but there are many other moments that had me grinning and invested, right down to the final climax where it’s the ‘50s Plymouth Fury “Christine” versus a bulldozer.

NOTE: I’ve read a few posts on “Christine’s” IMDb message board and one of which, not caring much for the movie, said that there could be a remake that was closer to the original Stephen King novel it was based on. I’ve never read the novel, so I don’t know how close this movie adapts it. However, there are certain clichés that can be found in Stephen King stories and they are found here. One main clichéd element—everyone except for the main characters is a one-dimensional jackass. The bullies are the knife-wielding bores, the parents don’t listen (the mother, in particular, is over the top in authority), and the man who runs the body shop (played by Robert Prosky) is a suspicious old fart (though to his credit, he has a good reason to be suspicious of Arnie and his car). So I don’t know—maybe certain parts of the story were left out of the movie.

Smith’s Verdict: ***

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“Spaceballs” is a comedy by Mel Brooks which has a lot of jokes that are hit-and-miss, but also has just about the same amount of jokes that are hits in the way that I laughed. This is not one of Mel Brooks’ best films—it doesn’t rank up there with “Young Frankenstein.” Or rather, it’s not one of Mel Brooks’ best scripts. There are so many lame puns and juvenile humor. What had me laughing, however, were the visual gags and the behavior of some of the characters, especially the villains. So there are enough funny moments in “Spaceballs” that I’m giving it a mild recommendation.

The whole movie is a parody of the “Star Wars” movies. We have almost everything from the famous George Lucas saga spoofed here. We have Luke Skywalker/Han Solo type Lone Starr, the beautiful but stuck-up Princess Druidia (a “Druish” princess), a droid named Dot Matrix (oh yeah, and voiced by Joan Rivers), a half-man/half-dog Chewbacca replacement named Barf (“I’m my own best friend”), the short wise alien named Yogurt, and of course, the villain Dark Helmet. There are other characters, but I’ll get to them later.

The film begins with those “Star Wars” opening texts that scroll into space, explaining the back story of “Spaceballs” and ending with a fade-in saying, “If you can read this, you don’t need glasses.” That’s funny. But—and maybe I missed something here—there’s a long, tedious shot of the villain’s spaceship that goes on for a minute and a half and doesn’t seem to show anything…well, funny. But then we’re introduced to the villain Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis), who has a large dark helmet that brings his voice to a James Earl Jones baritone type. How do we know it’s Rick Moranis, though? Because Dark Helmet can’t keep the helmet on all the time (he can’t breathe, he can’t see straight, he has to drink a cappuccino, you name it). And he’s a nerd. One of the joys about “Spaceballs” is that Dark Helmet, his second-in-command Sandurz (George Wyner), and President Skroob of Spaceball City (Mel Brooks)—the three villains of the movie—are so dumb, you can’t believe that they’d lead any army. It’s very funny when they plan any evil plot in this movie.

The heroes are the rebellious Lone Starr (a very bland Bill Pullman) and his partner Barf (a very likable John Candy), who as I said is half-man/half-dog (with paws and a tail). They fly through outer space into a flighty Winnebago (nice visual gag) on the run from Pizza the Hutt, a Jabba the Hutt type except he’s a mountain of cheese and pepperoni. Pizza the Hutt is just as disgusting as Jabba the Hutt, but also the funniest gag in the whole movie.

Lone Starr and Barf are called upon by King Roland of Planet Druidia, which is in danger of being destroyed by the Spaceballs of Planet Spaceball—run by President Skroob (Dark Helmet is in charge of the spaceship Spaceball One). King Roland (Dick van Patten) needs the heroes to rescue Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga, “The Sure Thing”) and Dot Matrix from capture by Dark Helmet. They succeed, but find themselves lost on a desert planet, where Lone Starr and Princess Vespa argue as Barf and Dot Matrix look on and spew one-liners, and they meet a Yoda type named Yogurt (also played by Mel Brooks) who gives Lone Starr a special ring and gives them the phrase, “May the Schwartz be with you.” This constant repeating of the phrase is so hoping for memorable payoff that it isn’t funny.

As I said, “Spaceballs” has many jokes that are hit-and-miss. The script has a lot of puns and juvenile humor (there’s a difference here). But there are other jokes that do work in the way that I laughed joyfully and recommending the movie. I loved the Pizza the Hutt gag, I liked John Candy and Rick Moranis, Mel Brooks gives two wacky performances, I liked the gag where the villains  try to watch the movie itself to find the heroes, I liked the satire on stunt doubles, and uh…I think there are a couple more if I can think of them.