'Angel Cop' hasn't stood the test of time

Angel Cop: The Collection (1994)
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

"Angel Cop" is a six-part animated series (presented either on a single VHS tape or DVD in the release I viewed) that is a gritty, bloody tale of cyborgs and cops in a dark near-future. It's a pretty standard tale from the cyberpunk genre, with main characters of questionable morality who are working for bosses who are corrupt and getting ready to screw everyone, and in the end, pretty much everyone dies.

It could be that "Angel Cop" hasn't weathered the passage of time well, but my main reaction to it was to wish that it had presented SOMETHING original. I'd seen everything in "Angel Cop" elsewhere, and I'd seen it done better.

This is a programme that is passable on every level--decent animation throughout, decent voice-actors, decent storyline--except when it comes to originality. And I suspect the marketeers knew this too, which is why the cover image features the female cop with her motorcycle suit zipped waaaay down to show cleavage and then some. (Sorry guys... she never gets that undressed in the show itself.)

Dolph Lundgren proves smoking pot saves lives

Command Performance (2009)
Starring: Dolph Lundgren, Melissa Smith, Hristo Shopov, Dave Legeno and Zahary Baharov
Director: Dolph Lundgren
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Bloodthirsty terrorists take the Russian Premier, his young daughters, and a are taken hostage together with the headlining Britney Spears/Christina Aguilara-like pop star at a charity rock concert. It's up to the pot-smoking drummer (Lundgren) for the opening act to save the day. Good thing he's a man with a violent past and able to pound the crap out of more than just a drum set.



Rarely have I seen one of these aging action icons from the 1980s cast so effectively as in this film. I remarked in my review of "The Russian Specialist" that Lundgren was making a successful transition into life behind the camera, and he takes a further step with this movie, even while starring in it. Although his character is an ass-kicker, it is also a character who is haggard and worn, an aging rocker who looks like someone who's spent too many late nights in too many dive bars; the sexy pop-tartlet even comments that he's not bad for "an old guy."

So, not only does Lundgren appear to realize that he is aging, but he writes/directs parts for himself that acknowledge that fact. I see him helming some good action films in the future, with younger talent doing the butt-kicking.

Speaking of good action films and butt-kicking, that's what we get in "Command Performance." Although it's a little slow in the wind-up and unfolds in a predictable "Die Hard" mold, it's a lot of fun once it gets going. Little touches that are evocative of "Die Hard" in ways that are amusing rather than just copy-catting make the film especially enjoyable if you're a lover of action films, such as the fact that Lundgren's tougher-than-tough drummer avoids getting rounded up or killed by the terrorists because he was in the bathroom smoking a joint.

There's nothing original here and the plotline gets a little muddled when one of the terrorists decide his boss is just a little too crazy to work for and tries to betray him. (Basically, the question arises that if it was as easy to sneak in and out of the auditorium as it appears, why weren't the Russian military infiltrating the place from the get-go?) However, it's good fun in a mindless sort of way, and it shows that Dolph Lundgren still has what it takes, whether he is in front of or behind the camera. He is an example that all those aging action stars laboring in the twilight of their careers should look to.

'Where Eagles Dare' is a great thriller

Nazi Germany was consigned to the ash heap of history exactly 65 years ago this year. I'm celebrating that milestone by posting reviews of movies featuring Nazis getting their asses handed to them across all my blogs for the next few weeks. Here's my take on one of the very best.

Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Starring: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, and Ingrid Pitt
Director: Brian G. Hutton
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

As the war in Europe is on the verge of being decided, an American general with detailed knowledge of Allied plans is captured and brought to an isolated mountain top fortress deep within Nazi-held territory. An American Ranger (Eastwood) joins a commando team led by one of Britain's top intelligent agents (Burton) to make the impossible possible and rescue the general before he breaks under interrogations. However, as the mission is underway, it soon becomes apparentthere is a traitor on theam... and that everyones lives are in danger until he is unmasked.


"Where Eagles Dare" is not only a nicely written spy thriller, it's also one of the very best action movies ever made. It may be over two-and-a-half hours long, but you'll never know it, because once it gets going, it barely pauses to let the viewer catch his breath.

Written by Alistair McClean (whose action-packed novels I loved to read as a kid), this WW2 thriller features twists upon twists that will keep you guessing what will happen next. More than forty years after it was made, the film is still fresh and exciting... and the visual effects even hold up. (The battle on the cable car is every bit as engrossing now as it must have been to audiences in 1968.) The film is made even better by Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood's fine performances. Burton is particuarly excellent, because he brings just enough coldness to the character to put the audience off-guard as the film goes through its various twists.

If you're a fan of action movies, you owe it to yourself to see this film, as it's one of the few true classic of the genre.

Mystery of George Reeves' death explored

Hollywoodland (2006)
Starring: Adrian Brody, Diane Lane, Ben Affleck, and Bob Hoskins
Director: Allen Coulter
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Small-time, sleazy private detective Louis Simo (Brody) gets himself hired by the mother of actor George Reeves (Affleck) to investigate her son's death. In the process, he not only discovers much about Reeves but also learns some things about himself.



"Hollywoodland" sounds like a detective movie, but it isn't. It is actually an examination of its two lead characters--the detective, Simo, and the dead actor, Reeves--who are men with similar strengths and character flaws, despite their vastly different lines of work. Both men want fame and fortune, but neither wants to work terribly hard at it and instead try to get by on their charm and wit.

Mixing fact and fiction--most of the featured characters are based on real-life people--the film tells of the last few years of Reeves' life as Simo investigates the circumstances of his death. In the process, we get to know Reeves, Simo, and the people in their lives. It's actually amazing how the actors, writers, and director managed to make us feel like we know the characters in the film--there is great depth to all but one of the characters (the slutty, younger New Yorker that Reeves trades his sugar-mamma, Toni Mannix, for), and every actor is in top form here.

Particularly great in the film are Lane and Hoskins, who play the Mannixes, a powerful Hollywood couple with a strange relationship. Their final scene together in the film is outstanding.

Also worthy of praise is Affleck... and that's a sentence I thought I would never write. His portrayal of a man with lots of charm but limited work ethic and empathy for others, and who is done in by his own flaws, is well done. He likewise gives us a spectacular final appearance in the film. (There is a scene that plays several times in the fim, a little different each time, as Simo imagines how it might have unfolded as he attempts to reconstruct the final hours of George Reeve's life, and the last time it plays is downright heartbreaking... and that emotion is due to Affleck's performance.)

I'm heaping endless praise on this film, so why am I giving it only a rating of 7? Well, two reasons.

First, the film has a POV problem, as far as the narration goes. How do Simo and the viewers learn what we do about Reeves? Simo doesn't seem to make contact with enough people to gain the sort of in depth knowledge that we are presented with. The answer is that the film is being told from the vantage point of an omniscient narrator, and the last few minutes do seem to give us a definite truth about what happened to Reeves--and if you see a review that says otherwise, know it was written by someone who wasn't paying close attention to the movie--but Simo's role in the story feels too much like he's a proxy for the audience, which means the film's narrative POV isn't omniscient. At least not consistently. This technical problem keeps me from giving the film a high rating.

Second, the film drags a bit. I understand why we need to see Simo's failed marriage and his relationship with his son, and I understand why we need to be introduced to the secretary he's having an affair with, and I also see why we need to get to know some of the agents from the detective firm he once worked with--it is part of the illustration of how Simo and Reeves are alike--but those elements feel like disruptive side-trips from the film's main narrative on a couple of occasions. I found myself getting restless, because as the film should feel like it was building toward its end, it still seemed to be meandering a bit, as Simo started to see what attentive viewers recognized at roughly the halfway mark... that he was on a life-path running parallel to that of the dead actor.

Despite its faults, this is one of the films of the past decade that should have gotten far more attention than it did. If you haven't seen it, you should.

China also made 'crazy Vietnam vet' films

The Long Goodbye (aka "The Head Hunter") (1981)
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Rosamund Kwan, Philip Chan, Chun Hsiang Ko, and Melvin Wong
Director: Shing Hon Lau
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Andy (Yun-Fat) is an ex-South Vietnamese soldier now working as a hitman for an international crime syndicate and arms-dealers who use a movie studio as its legitimate front. He is himself is marked for death after first assassinating Soviet agents in Kwoloon and then later refusing to kill his investigative reporter girlfriend, Vicky (Kwan).


"The Long Goodbye" is a low-budget crime drama that suffers from a chaotic plot, glacial pacing, useless subplots, indifferent camera and lighting work, and a cast of actors who mostly seem like they'd rather be anywhere else but on the set of this movie.

The film shows a few glimmers of quality and real suspense at the climax, as Andy squares off his one-time boss and a crazed, machete-wielding assassin with Vicky's life at stake. Unfortunately, what's good about the ending is almost ruined by an awful, inconsistent music soundtrack that seems to get worse even as the rest of the film gets better in its closing minutes.

I think that anyone except the world's biggest fans of Chow Yun-Fat or Rosamund Kwan can safely take a pass on this movie, although it is interesting to note that the Chinese made "crazy Vietnam Vet" movies, too.

Diamonds are forever, even if Bond isn't

Another review from when James Bond movies were entertaining.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Starring: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Jimmy Dean, Charles Gray, Bruce Glover, and Putter Smith
Director: Guy Hamilton

British secret agent James Bond (Connery) impersonates an international diamond smuggler to figure out why a reclusive American business magnate (Dean) is acquiring large amount of diamonds. He soon discovers that his old nemesis Ernst Blofeld (Gray) is lurking in the background.


"Diamonds Are Forever" is another of my favorite Bond movie. It's perhaps the quirkiest of the series, with a level of flip humor that rises almost to the level of some of the later Roger Moore films,and of the series' goofiest chase scenes that sees Bond escaping a research lab in a moon buggy while being pursued by security guards in sedans and on pocket-bikes; yet, the film has a dark center, where a creepy pair of assassins stalking Bond at every turn (the flamboyantly gay couple of Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint, played with great flair by Glover and Smith) and evil mastermind Blofeld can easily commandeer the resources of a financial empire and the United States government in order to threaten the world.

The film also features one of the most likable Bond Girls ever. The almost-never fully clad Tiffany Case (St. John) brings her considerable assets to film with a twinkle of comic relief--and nothing is more amusing and fun to look at than the outfit she shows up in at one point after being told to put on some more clothes.

Much has been written about the film being homophobic, because it features a pair of pyschopathic, flamingly gay--and so polite that they are every etiquette coach's dream--characters. I think this says more about a pathological hysteria present in the ultra-PC crowd than anything that's actually on screen in "Diamonds Are Forever." Having gay villains in a film is homophobic? Does Blofeld admiring Tiffany Case's ass mean the movie-makers fear straight people, too? No, it doesn't. What it means is that some critics are idiots who probably need therapy.

Another strong element of the film its score. It doesn't have the lasting presence that the "Goldfinger" and "From Russia With Love" music had on the series--themes from which keep popping up for the next decade or more, including this one--but John Barry turns in another excellent effort. The theme song is one of the best so far in the entire series, and Barry incorporates the very hummable tune into several different sequences, and sometimes in very creative ways.

A very enjoyable entry in the Bond series that I think gets unfairly dumped on.

'Haunts' is an interesting misfire

Haunts (aka "The Veil") (1977)
Starring: May Britt, Cameron Mitchell, and Aldo Ray
Director: Herb Free
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A young woman (Britt) haunted by dark memories is stalked by a murdering rapist, or is she? The town sheriff (Aldo) thinks she's being hysterical... and just what is it her slovenly uncle (Mitchell) doing with his nights?


"Haunts" is a thriller that attempts to use a mentally unbalanced character to provide the narrative Point of View for the film. It's a clever and laudable idea, but it's not one that the director and writer (one and the same, at least with a co-writing credit on the script) were up to pulling off. The film is a bit too slow in unfolding, and what could have been a truly powerful ending (with some chilling realizations dawning on the part of the attentive viewers) is weakened by it likewise going on for a tad too long and by a last-minute attempt at throwing a possibility of something supernatural into a straight thriller. Once again, we have an ending that's ruined by filmmakers who just didn't know when to quit.

With some judicious editing, this film could actually be quite good, and it's one I wish I liked more. There's alot of misspent potential here, and all the three leads do such a good job that the void of talent embodied by some of the supporting cast is almost not noticeable. (In fact, a scene in a bar featuring two of these talentless actors could be cut almost entirely, and the film would immediately get stronger in several ways--the mystery of the killer's ID would be heightened, and we'd have lost some of the more noxious flab dangling from the work's body.