Mortuary

With so many names who grew up on B-movies end up making movies themselves, it's little surprise that such titles would inspire their own work. Be it cheeky homages or full-on dedications, what were initially written off as cheap productions have had a more lasting impression than intended. And none more so than horror pictures.

Howard Avedis' Mortuary certainly plays up the various elements found in B-movies. It's admittedly self-aware in its cheapness, which is more than can be said about other titles from the same time. That said, it's clear that said belt-tightening affected the quality of the overall script. (Honestly, a student film is better written than this.)

Being released in the shadow of titles like Suspiria and Halloween (ironically, both of which were blatantly cribbed here), Mortuary feels completely lackluster in comparison. It's not just about depicting decent scares; it's about building suspense for the scares. That's key to horror.

If there's one redeeming aspect of Mortuary, it's that it features Bill Paxton early in his career. Being one of the few actors who elevated a movie's quality from his presence, it's clear that Paxton approached the script differently than his co-stars. Regardless, movies lost something when he died in 2017.

Mortuary is very much lacking in its many moving parts. With a barely cohesive script, it's the kind of picture that a new-on-the-scene actor typically does so they can make rent. Still, Paxton just barely saves it from complete unwatchability. Faint praise, yes, but it's all it earns.

My Rating: ***

At Close Range

Fact is often stranger than fiction. It's why people are so drawn to true crime, and why Hollywood practically drools over the potential money it'll make. And it shows how the most unexpected people will do the most unexpected things.

Take, for instance, one Bruce Johnston, Sr. He and his gang of thieves -- some were his own family members -- terrorized Chester and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania for years before his criminal empire crumbled. A few years after Johnston and his crew were sent up the river, James Foley's At Close Range was released. Naturally, names were changed, but that doesn't make it any less unsettling.

What makes At Close Range stand out is that it's not set in some thriving metropolis (as most neo-noirs are) but rather the rural outskirts of it. The sweeping farmlands and small storefronts provide a stark contrast to the neon lights and tall buildings. After all, more secrets can be hidden when you know your neighbors.

But in watching At Close Range, it becomes bittersweet in seeing what became of Foley's career. Between the success of this and Glengarry Glen Ross six years later, it looked like everything would be in his favor. But as is the case with any promising career in Hollywood, it didn't pan out that way. (Sure, he had success with television but his more recent film entries are...eesh.)

At Close Range is an understated work on the strength of family ties. With strong work from Sean Penn and Christopher Walken, it depicts the poisonous grasp sometimes found within a family. Blood may be thicker than water but in this instance, it spills just as easily.

My Rating: ****1/2

Spontaneous Combustion

Tobe Hooper has always been something of an anomaly within Hollywood. After hitting it big with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he never seemed to reach the same heights afterward. (Even the success of Poltergeist continues to be overshadowed by rumors that Steven Spielberg actually directed it.) Though he shifted to television soon after, that's not to discredit his film work completely.

Now Spontaneous Combustion is hardly top-tier material from Hooper (or from anyone involved in this, really), but it still gets the job done. But boy, even then it's tough to get through at times. (Oh, the plights of late '80s-early '90s horror flicks.)

That's not to say Spontaneous Combustion is completely terrible, far from it. Hooper had a good idea for his picture, make no mistake; the problem is that everything around it stumbles at the starting gate. (Honestly, most of the actors oversell the half-hearted dialogue.)

Of course, there is one shining grace to Spontaneous Combustion: its star, Brad Dourif. Being the kind of actor who knows how to work with what he's given, he elevates the otherwise lackluster title. Though one has to wonder how much of a role Child's Play had on his casting here...

Spontaneous Combustion is by no means a masterpiece both Hooper and Dourif make it mostly tolerable. Though in watching this, it makes one think a retrospective on Hooper is due. Sure, there were some following his death in 2017, but there could stand to be a few more...even if a lot of his output fell flat.

My Rating: ***

BOOK VS MOVIE: Housekeeping

As one goes through life, very rarely is it in their favor. Close connections crumble, hopes and dreams don't come to fruition, and happiness and disappointment often go hand in hand. That all being said, that doesn't generally mean life is boring and predictable.

If anything, life is what you make of it. And the people you encounter are the ones who help shape it (for better or for worse). Be it family and friends or complete strangers, how they interact with you and make you see the world around you leave a lasting impact, good or bad. But this always depends on the person in question.

Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping follows such a scenario. Under the care of their eccentric aunt, two girls grow up differently in a remote town. Robinson weaves a tale of loneliness amid family ties, how your own blood can be a complete stranger. But she also shows how one has a hunger for individuality, that drive for independence. (Everybody wants to be somebody.)

Bill Forsyth's adaptation follows Robinson's novel practically to the letter. (Forsyth said he made the film to get people to read the book.) Similar to his earlier film Local Hero, Forsyth depicts a lingering pathos within its frames. Even something so open can feel so lonely.

So which is worth checking out? Robinson has a poetry in her words while Forsyth sings with his images. Both tell the story in their own way but very similarly as well. It's a simple tale, yes, but they convey it beautifully.

What's worth checking out?: Both.

Blue Sky

The opening credits of Tony Richardson's Blue Sky depict an assortment of magazines, all advertising glamor and sophistication. Photos of Hollywood starlets strewn about amid promises of beauty if use this product. All the things Carly Marshall (Jessica Lange) yearns for but are just out of her reach.

As the wife of Major Hank Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones), she is expected to be a dutiful housewife and mother. But there's something not quite right with Carly, a fact Hank and their daughters are all too acutely aware of. But as the Mitchells settle in on a new army base, things get more complicated.

There are elements in Blue Sky that are reminiscent of Richardson's films during the British New Wave all those years ago. Co-writer Rama Stagner based Carly and Hank's marriage on her own parents' relationship, and strained connections are no stranger to Richardson. The problem is that it doesn't feel as fraught as, say, Look Back in Anger or The Entertainer.

Indeed, Blue Sky feels incomplete as a story, with many parts that don't always interlock. Granted, Richardson wasn't in the best of health during production (he died of AIDS complications sometime after; the film then sat on the shelf for nearly three years), but even then, he still made the most of it. It's a decent swan song for the director.

Blue Sky mainly relies on Lange (who ended up winning an Oscar) and Jones' work to carry it through but they succeed in doing that. Overall, however, it has good ideas but they are clumsily put together in certain scenes. Still, it's enough for it to be watchable.

My Rating: ****

Hopscotch

Ronald Neame's Hopscotch opens with CIA field agent Miles Kendig (Walter Matthau) photographing a microfilm transfer being foiled. Upon his return to the States, Kendig gets demoted for not arresting Mikhail Yaskov (Herbert Lom), the European head of the KGB. Frustrated, he heads to Salzburg.

Reuniting with his former lover Isobel (Glenda Jackson), Kendig decides to write his memoirs -- well, more accurately, expose the dirty dealings of G.P. Myerson (Ned Beatty), his boss at the CIA. As such, Kendig is now on the run from people who very much do not want that information getting out. But will Kendig succeed?

Taking Brian Garfield's original novel (he also co-wrote the script) and making it more comedic in tone (both Neame and Matthau insisted on that), Hopscotch eschews the flashier elements of the spy genre in favor of sheer cunning and scheming. After all, that's what it takes to be a spy: being one step ahead of everyone else. (Take note, James Bond.)

Admittedly this is not the kind of role one would normally associate with Matthau. But it's his working-class charm that makes his role as effective as it is. You certainly don't expect someone like Matthau to take on the CIA, do you?

Hopscotch is the kind of picture seldom seen nowadays, the kind with sharp writing. (Nowadays everything's dumbed down for an audience not paying attention in the first place.) It also vindicates that spies aren't always looking like they stepped off a movie set; they usually look like your next-door neighbor.

My Rating: ****1/2

What's Love Got to Do with It

Brian Gibson's What's Love Got to Do with It opens with a young Anna Mae Bullock getting kicked out of choir practice for jazzing up the gospel. Years later, an older Anna Mae (Angela Bassett) gets a proper chance to perform for Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne) -- an opportunity that has its many ups and downs.

Admittedly, What's Love Got to Do with It isn't much different from other music biopics (or any biopics, really), in that the actual facts get fudged for dramatic license's sake. (Indeed, both Tina and Ike voiced their displeasure over that.) That said, even with that in mind, Kate Lanier's script is unflinching at times.

There's no doubt that the Turners' marriage was an ugly one at the worst of times but What's Love Got to Do with It makes it absolutely brutal. (Lanier actually omitted most of the brutality Tina mentioned in her autobiography.) The scenes of domestic abuse between them are very hard to watch, especially if you've been in that situation. Certainly not for the faint of heart.

And there's no denying that What's Love Got to Do with It is Bassett's show. Learning to walk and talk like Tina (the singing was lip-synced), she's as electric as the woman she's portraying. It's little wonder how Bassett got an Oscar nomination for her work.

What's Love Got to Do with It -- as stated earlier -- follows the standard biopic format but it's Bassett and Fishburne who keep it afloat. Tina (who passed away in 2023) later said that she didn't like how the film depicted her as a victim. It's true in some scenes but that's far from the actual case. Tina Turner wasn't a victim -- she was a survivor.

My Rating: ****

The Assassination Bureau

Basil Dearden's The Assassination Bureau opens with a montage of public muders. Sonia Winter (Diana Rigg) quickly figures out they're all connected, and she's determined to dismantle the very organization responsible for the killings. How? By ordering the death of its chairman Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed).

Dragomiloff is intrigued by Miss Winter's commission so he issues a challenge to his organization of assassins: kill him or he'll kill them. What ensues is a mad dash across Europe as Dragomiloff and Miss Winter try to beat out the other killers. But what else awaits them?

Based on an unfinished Jack London novel (it was finished decades later by another writer), The Assassination Bureau was made amid the public interest for espionage and intrigue courtesy of James Bond. (Amusingly, three actors in this would go on to have major roles in the franchise.) But as is the cases with imitators, they seldom match up with the original.

It's clear that Dearden is trying to emulate the Bond movies with The Asassination Bureau. The problem is that when one adapts an unfinished work that was completed by someone else, it'll still feel incomplete. And that's one of several flaws on display here.

The Assassination Bureau tries too hard in both being its own thing and tackling various elements at once. And as such, it feels longer than it actually is to get through. Yes, Reed and Rigg do have solid chemistry (even if they very much didn't behind the scenes) but even then that just barely keeps the film afloat. All in all, it's not a complete write-off but it isn't something worth recommending either.

My Rating: ***1/2

Party Girl

Daisy von Scherler Mayer's Party Girl opens with Mary (Parker Posey) being arrested for organizing an underground rave. To pay back the bail, she gets a job at the library where her godmother works. But Mary soon finds it hard to balance her nightlife with her day job.

As with many independent productions of the time, Party Girl depicts the struggle of becoming a responsible adult. Everyone when they're younger expects adulthood to be a breeze. Then the reality of employment and paying smacks you upside the head, and it's not as appealing.

Also on display in Party Girl is, well, the party scene of '90s New York City. With a vibrant soundtrack backing it, the film captures that drive for escape from the mundanity of reality. But like everything, it can only sustain you for so long.

Speaking of, Party Girl portrays the anxiety that comes with getting older. You don't have someone besides yourself figuring out what you want to do with your life. Sure, friends and family can encourage (or discourage) you about your goals but your life is yours -- you have to have to figure out what to do with your finite time.

Party Girl is a little slow to start off but once it does, it kicks off. Made between the yuppie era and the new millennium, it has a free spirit both in its lead and its storytelling. Frankly, it's the kind of film that shows life doesn't have to be boring and uptight; you just need to find a good balance of work and pleasure.

My Rating: ****

Road House

You know how some movies just scream the decade they were made in? Sometimes it's benign (fashion, how much things cost), other times not so much (social attitudes) but hey, movies are time capsules, after all. The times, they are a-changin'.

And no observation can be better applied to Rowdy Herrington's Road House. Boasting nearly every element found in mid-budget late '80s movies, it has gratuitousness seeping out of every frame. And weirdly, it sort of works. (Hey, one man's trash is another man's treasure.)

The story itself is thin -- a bouncer (Patrick Swayze) tries to save a small town from a corrupt crime lord's (Ben Gazzara) control -- but even then Road House has a certain charm to it (having a post-Dirty Dancing Swayze as the lead helps). It may not be awards material but boy, the actors (especially Gazzara) are giving it their all.

And for what would be an otherwise forgettable picture, Road House didn't need to go the extra mile with the technical aspects. You've got Dean Cundey shooting it like he's gunning for an Oscar (not long after being nominated for Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and Michael Kamen ripping off his score for Die Hard. Sometimes those are what make a movie from not stinking completely.

Road House is the epitome of bloated '80s picture but man, does it know how to fill in the minutes. It's exactly the kind of movie one watches to distract themself from everyday life (which as of late is a necessity). All in all, it's worth a look.

My Rating: ****