There's a moment early on in "Dolemite Is My Name," where Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) explains how he ran away from his backwards unapologetic father to get to Hollywood. Moore explains that his father would always tell him that he'd never be as good as him and that he'd never amount to anything and should just settle on falling in line. This is a man who has been told to settle his entire life, to fall in line and accept that he isn't destined for greatness, if not by his father than by those trying to put him down. And yet, being surrounded by all these great artists that Moore looks up to, it is impossible for him to understand why he can't have that same greatness. Even if he's been told "no" his entire life, he refuses to let one word get in his way.
This is the emotional core of "Dolemite Is My Name," and a brilliant one at that. Whether trying (and failing) to invent himself as a singer, a shake dancer, or a comedian, Moore takes each step in stride and with a positive spin on each career attempt. He is so intoxicated by the hope of Hollywood that he refuses to let a little thing like failure get in his way. And as Moore's career finally starts to take off with his own unique persona of Dolemite, something he can claim as his own, people start to finally notice him to the point that he goes on tour and even plans to make a movie, even if he has to do everything himself.
Some might describe "Dolemite Is My Name" as a black "Ed Wood," and that would be an apt description. Both films have a love for cinema and its worldwide appeal, and feature an optimistic protagonist that wants nothing more than share his love with others. But what separates "Dolemite Is My Name" from "Ed Wood" is that search for an identity near the beginning of the film, something that turns Rudy Ray Moore into Dolemite that gives this film an even greater punch. Moore doesn't just believe in the magic of cinema, but in the magic of creation. In his eyes, that is a gift that only few people ever get, and its a gift that must be shared.
"Dolemite Is My Name" is the most uplifting movie of the year, giving everyone who has ever been silenced a voice. Eddie Murphy is brilliant and honest in every scene, nailing every comedic moment as well as the dramatic with just enough ego to be charming. Despite being as much of a blaxploitation film as the original "Dolemite," this is one that transcends the cultural barriers with its comedy, honesty and hunt for identity in a difficult world.
Final Grade: A+
Much like "Rashomon" opened the world to Japanese cinema, "Pather Panchali" introduced the rest of the world to Indian cinema, showing a vastly different and unforgiving look at the world from the innocent perspective of a child that would otherwise probably go unlooked. Films like "Pather Panchali" are the reason to watch foreign movies, the entire world is filled with as much wonder as there is tragedy. Every type of people has a story to tell, and film offers quite possibly the most human way to experience those stories.
The film follows the Roy family, who lives in a run down shack of a home, where the father (Kanu Banerjee) is not making ends-meet and only has a slim hope of success as a writer, but only if he leaves his family for several months. This leaves the mother (Karuna Banerjee) to fend for her children, Durga (Uma Dasgupta) and Apu (Subir Banerjee), with nothing but her wits and will, all while the rest of the village is convinced that Durga is thief and her aunt (Chunibala Devi) leeches off her very little food and supplies.
Yet under all of this, there is a honest sense of hope and optimism that permeates throughout the movie. The children take ever opportunity to savor every moment of innocence, while the parents seem to genuinely enjoy watching their children grow and enjoy themselves despite their less than ideal home. This is certainly helped due to most of the actors being a real family who live in similar squalor when the cameras aren't rolling. It paints a harsh but uplifting view of India that was daring and bold for 1955. Hell, it would still be bold if it was filmed today.
"Pather Panchali" is certainly the most important Indian film of all time. Its honest depiction of the impoverished is striking and soulful. It is one of the rare films that transcends cultural and language barriers and speaks to anyone on a loving, passionate level.
Final Grade: A
The Terminator franchise really should have died after the second film. Not because they could never top "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (even though they haven't yet), but because they haven't can't come up with anything new and end up redoing the same things again and again, only getting worse with each entry.
If you've seen or even heard of a Terminator film, you can guess the plot and most of the twists - in the future, mankind is fighting a war against an A.I. that became self-aware, who sends an unstoppable killing machine back to our time to kill an important member of the human resistance, while mankind sends someone else back to protect this important person from the Terminator. That idea hasn't changed at all since the first film, only a new person, a young Mexican woman, Dani (Natalia Reyes), and her protector Grace (Mackenzie Davis). And despite the inclusion of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) to give her hardened, unwelcomed advice, she offers nothing to the plot, nor does she offer any real fan service and comes across as a forced, useless character, much like Arnold Schwarzenegger's part in the movie as a old T-800 who joins their fight.
Everything about "Terminator: Dark Fate" feels forced and repetitive, like they had to use the same plot points of saving the messiah or a good Terminator or else the movie wouldn't work. Even though we have a new protagonist, she has the exact same message about the how the future isn't written in stone that John Connor had. For a film franchise so fascinated with the future, it really has been stuck in the past since 1991. There are endless possibilities with a self-aware A.I. sending machines back into the past, like sending one back to protect a founding member of the A.I. while the humans send someone to kill him, but producers are so focused on the one idea of killing one person to stop the future that it has officially lost its luster.
Anything that could have been new or original about "Terminator: Dark Fate" is left vague or unexplored. Despite having all three main characters be female, it never does anything with that. They attempt to get Dani from Mexico City to America, and yet there are little to no comments about immigration and any scenes of Dani leaving her family behind are pushed aside when you realize her family is already dead. What could have been a better concept to explore was what the T-800 did after it fulfilled its purpose, but instead that's summarized in a couple lines about "adopting" a family that has no clue that he's a robot. Even the comedy is uninspired and lackluster, most of the jokes being so predictable or cringe worthy that it makes me wonder why they tried to be funny in the first place.
"Terminator: Dark Fate" is not worth anyone's time or money. It is a sad attempt to cash in on nostalgia and shows that the franchise hasn't changed in nearly thirty years and certainly hasn't improved either. It is predictable, boring and even questionable at times with decisions regarding the T-800's inclusion and the Terminator hunting down these women. Save yourself the effort and just watch "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" again - despite what "Dark Fate" tried to do, that film is a timeless sci-fi action masterpiece.
Final Grade: D
"The Fog" was John Carpenter's first big budget release following his smash hit, "Halloween." Many of Carpenter's staples are on display, a seemingly unstoppable slasher, the past haunting the innocent, and Jamie Lee Curtis. But the larger budget helps to create an even greater atmosphere and lore as the town of Antonio Bay is haunted by the ghosts of hundred-year old shipwreck, seeking vengeance on those who wronged them, using the haunting fog as a means to get what they want. Now the citizens must piece together what is happening to the town and how they can save everyone from a grizzly fate.
Carpenter takes what he started with in "Halloween" and presents it on a much grander scale, with a whole town caught in the middle of a supernatural curse, and multiple characters working in their own ways to fight it. This includes a radio DJ (Adrienne Barbeau) who reports where the fog is headed, a fisherman (Tom Atkins) and his new girlfriend (Lee Curtis) using what they've learned from a boating incident to help the town, and the local priest (Hal Holbrook) learning why this happening to the town and realizing their doom. Most of these groups rarely meet up or have little communication with one another, so it does often feel like a whole town of people working together.
Still, the intimacy of "Halloween" is gone and so is most of the fear. The ghosts are more mysterious than terrifying, since we never really get to see most of their carnage. Outside of killing some people who step into the fog, the worst they do is mess with some appliances and windows, something that the gremlins would be doing. This doesn't diminish "The Fog," but it does make it more atmospheric and creepy instead of a horror movie, where the mystery of how they'll solve this is more interesting than what the ghosts are doing.
Final Grade: B-
I love Roger Ebert more than any other film critic. But "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" proves he made the right choice by picking film criticism over screenwriting.
Let's be honest, the only reason "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" is still remembered today is because it was written by Roger Ebert. It wasn't the only musical about sex, drugs or Hollywood at the time, and beyond those elements, this film has more in common with a porno than a Hollywood production. The whole thing is supposed to be a satire of Hollywood and its superficiality and the dirty side they only talk about at parties, but its all so over the top goofy that the satire loses its meaning. One minute our three main female leads are having a blast as the next big musical hit, and then the next minute one of them is sleeping with her uncle, another has her boyfriend get beat up by a boxer, the other is sleeping with her friends boyfriend, while that same boyfriend tries to kill himself in front of both of his former lovers.
It all screams of a desperate, almost laughable, soap opera that can't make up its mind about being a drama or a comedy and doesn't so either very well. What should be funny is murdered by all the sudden drastic shifts in tone, especially near the climax, while the serious moments are so poorly performed that you'd think it was done by a comedy troupe, or porn stars who can't emote to save their lives. Any attempt at subtlety is ruined by the ending, when a narrator we've never heard before gives us the moral each character was supposed to learn (including the dead ones), though the film never indicates if those characters learned these lessons (especially the dead ones).
"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" is everything ridiculous about the 1960s and early 70s rolled up into one movie - drugs, hippie music, sex, struggles for individuality, sending a message to "the man." Except that everything is dialed up to its most extreme that it all comes across as obnoxious, making it impossible to take any of this seriously. In that regard, this is certainly a porno comedy that speaks to its time. Beyond that, just be glad Roger Ebert didn't write more movies like this one.
Final Grade: C-
Robert Eggers has certainly established that he is a master of establishing creepy moods. Moods that are engrossed in their mysterious style that they're almost inviting, like you want to know why this world is as weirdly fascinating as it is. I had no clue what was happening during Eggers' "The Witch," but its world was so unique in its old fashion archaic style that I didn't really care about the plot and wanted to explore more of this subtly haunting world supposedly filled with witches.
Eggers newest film, "The Lighthouse," works much in the same way, but is certainly bolstered by a pair of strong, raw performances from Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. The mood is palpable, set on a small island surrounded by a restless ocean and fog with only a worn-out lighthouse and a fog horn that sounds for sailors that never come, all photographed in beautiful black-and-white cinematography with an aspect ratio that makes everything feel a little more cramped. What follows is a slow descent into madness, where Pattinson and Dafoe exchange old timey sailor yarns and attempt to show their authority over the other, often leading to disastrous results where the other lashes out like a frightened sea creature caught in their lobster trap.
Eggers' mood remains the driving force though, as if the fog and blinding light of the lamp is playing some sort of spell on these two men, bringing out the worst in them. What starts out as simple attempts to not give in to loneliness turns into a power struggle, the two fighting over who does the chores and who gets to watch the lighthouse at night, the thing both of them were sent here to do. This transition is slow but not without its own rewards along the way, as hallucinations and possibly powers beyond their mortal control start to plague their minds, as if we're going mad along with these men. That maddening mood of repetitiveness and isolation on this rock, serving no real purpose, is brilliantly captured by Eggers.
Overall, "The Lighthouse" is a beautifully and uniquely captured look at madness and paranoia. The cinematography is like nothing I've seen before, the chemistry between Pattinson and Dafoe is volatile in all the best ways and Eggers' world is so perfectly sculpted that it drives the whole picture, answering all the necessary questions while still making you question reality and fantasy.
Final Grade: A
"Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell" intrigues me more than it entertains me. The film follows the survivors of a commercial plane crash (after a supposed bomb threat). As we learn more about the survivors, including one of the passengers being the assassin of a recent deceased politician, they learn they were followed by an alien spaceship, helmed by blob-like goo who possesses the assassin and goes on a rampage, trying to suck the blood of all the survivors.
But what's more fascinating is "Goke"'s view on the world - political assassinations, the Vietnam War, pollution at an all time high, greed and ignorance causing men to turn a blind eye to all the horrors being committed. In the filmmaker's eyes, the world is hell and we're probably better off by having aliens come to end our suffering.
"Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell" is a Japanese horror film released in 1968, during the height of Japan's special effects boom, in particular the daikajiu genre and the Godzilla films. While I wouldn't describe this as a kaiju movie, it does seem like a direct response to Ishiro Honda's uplifting, positive Godzilla films. In those movies, mankind often puts their problems and differences aside to help solve a much bigger crisis, and emphasizes that we're all one people and should identify by that rather than our nations. But "Goke" almost seems insulted by that philosophy, and instead shows that mankind will never truly be at peace, as long as we remain prejudice and fearful of others, as shown by our numerous characters and their own pride or paranoia getting the best of them. And rather than mankind triumphing over evil aliens in Honda's movies, the aliens take advantage of evil mankind to conquer our world.
As someone who worships the Honda Godzilla films, I'm intrigued to see such a dramatically opposing view point. More than anything else, at least "Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell" makes for a fascinating companion piece to the Godzilla films at the time.
Final Grade: C+
