'High Anxiety' is a Mel Brooks masterpiece

High Anxiety (1977)
Starring: Mel Brooks, Madeline Khan, Harvey Korman, and Cloris Leachman
Director: Mel Brooks
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When psychiatrist Richard Thorndyke (Brooks) takes a new job as director of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, he finds that something is amiss. Before he can take action, he is framed for murder and set on the run. In order to clear his name, he must face his own neurotic condition, "high anxiety."


In "High Anxiety", one of cinema's greatest satirists takes on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, and he does so beautifully. In theory, this should be a movie that doesn't work, because making a satire of a body of work that's already rich in comedy--Hitchcock's movies mostly mix suspense and humor in near equal amounts--but Brooks manages to deliver a film that keeps viewers chuckling, giggling, and issuing full belly laughs in order to clear his name. Fans of Hitchcock will be laughing especially loudly and consistently, as Brooks not only offers spot-on spoofs of some of Hitchcock's most famous scenes, but provides affectionate mockery of many of his most-used stylistic flourishes. (And when Brooks isn't spoofing Hitchcock, he's delivering random insanity, such as Leachman's Nazi nurse character.)

And then there's the catchy tune of the theme song. Some twenty years after first seeing the film, the melody still stuck with me, and now that I've heard it again, it'll probably be in my head for days. (I find myself humming it as I type this review!) It's also nifty how it gets used in Bernard Hermann music score parodies in the film, too.

Lovers of well-done satires should get a big laugh out of this suspense movie spoof, and fans of Hitchcock's work absolutely must see this loving send-up.



For reviews of some of Hitchcock's actual films, click here for the ones I've reviewed at the Shades of Gray blog. (For ones reviewed here, click on the Alfred Hitchcock tag at the bottom of this post.)

You can read reviews of other Mel Brooks films by clicking here to Cinema Steve, the hub for all my review blogs.

'Ninja Heat' is 100% Ninja Free!

Ninja Heat (1978 (?))
Starring: Chan Sheng, Chan Wai Mang, Sze Ming, YuYang, Shan Qu, Tse Yuen, and Fong Lam
Directors: Lo Mar and Leung Siu Chang
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Released after spending six years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, a martial arts expert and his brother take revenge on the men who framed him (not to mention killed his mother, raped his girlfriend, and probably shaved all the hair off his dog).


"Ninja Heat" is a straight-forward revenge flick that follows the two brothers as they track down the men on their "Black List" and beat them to death one by one. The film is so straight forward that it doesn't even bother with the standard twists, including one that seemed so clearly telegraphed I was pleasently surprised when it never materialized.

With a cinematic style that leans heavily on Sergio Leone (of all people), well-choreographed and filmed fight and chase scenes, and more melodrama than I think I've ever experienced crammed into a single movie (EVERY bad guy had a drawn-out death scene, and most got to have flashbacks as they died... seeing their wifes or girlfriends and regretting their lives of crime in their last moments), and a nice music soundtrack with a catchy main theme that, like the look of the film, seems like it belongs in a Sergio Leone movie, I think those who like the low-tech, gritty martial arts features from the late 1970s and early 1980s will enjoy this movie.

It has one problem: There are no Ninja anywhere to be seen in this movie! Maybe "Ninja Heat" refers to the weather that makes so many of the characters in this movie sweat more profusely than a fat man chained on a runaway treadmill?

Or maybe the Ninjas are there, but they're hiding really, REALLY well! (That might make sense. There might be obscure Ninja Secrets that are hidden within this film... it would explain why it's so obscure that it doesn't even have a listing at Internet Movie Database, nor at Rotten Tomatoes. I can't even find any other reviews of the film out there! Could this be the Ninja equivalent of "The DaVinci Code"?!)

If you've seen this movie (it's included in the "Martial Arts 50-Movie Pack" and a few other multipacks) and if you have an idea of what its "aka" may be, I'd love to know. It's not a bad little little movie (even if it is 100% Ninja Free), so it's surprsing to me that it' so completely obscure as far as the Web goes.





(Programming Note: The lack of Ninja in this film will be made up for in November with Nine Days of the Ninja. Mark it on your calendar, and perhaps even consider posting a few reviews of Ninja movies of your own!)

'Machete' is a well-made exploitation retread

Machete (2010)
Starring: Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Cheech Marin, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan, and Steven Seagal
Directors: Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A former Mexican police officer (Trejo) is betrayed by corrupt superiors to a powerful drug kingpin (Seagal). He ultimately flees to the United States, crossing the border secretly and disappears into the semi-hidden underworld of illegal aliens. Yet, Fate draws him into conflict with the drug lord once again, when a sinister political operative on his pay-roll(Fahey) attempts to make him a patsy in a staged assassination of a state senator whose career is in trouble (Di Nero).


This seems to be the summer of throwbacks. First there was "Predators", the movie that took the "Most Dangerous Game"-hunting aliens back to their jungle roots. Then there was "The Expendables", which set out to recreate the feel of a late 1980s action flick. And now there's "Machete", a film that casts itself in the mold of a 1970s exploitation flicks. While there hasn't really been much new under the sun since circa 1965, I don't know that "hey, we have nothing original to offer!" has ever been quite such a marketing point.

Not that it's necessarily bad, at least in the specific cases of the three films mentioned above. All three succeed quite well at what they set out to do--which was to be entertaining yet not-terribly-original action films. So long as the movies are good, and the audience is warned up front that there's nothing fresh between the main title card and the end credits crawl, I have no issue with them being derivative.

And "Machete" is about as derivative as they come. It's like one of the sleazier blaxploitation flicks where small-time hoods or drug-pushers were glorified and set up as if they were heroic figures, because, in this one particular story, they were actually pitted against bigger scum-bags than they were--more evil criminals and corrupt politicians and cops. (And the only way I could fully root for The Network, the group dedicated to smuggling illegal aliens across the United States border with Mexico and find them crap jobs just one step up from slavery, so a select few might be able to work their way into a decent living, is to ignore the fact that the reason they come into conflict with Steven Seagal's drug kingpin is the detail offered in passing that The Network itself is funded by illegal drug smuggling and the money generated by it.)

As for the acting, it's also in line with what you'd expect in a movie derived from the 1970s exploitation/blaxploitation films. Almost everyone is being overly dramatic and chewing up the scenery to a degree that would have you rolling your eyes if they were doing it in any other kind of movie.

Robert Di Nero, Jeff Fahey, Michelle Rodriguez, and Danny Trejo--even if that last one goes without saying--all give over-the-top performances that are in perfect keeping with the genre. Cheech Marin, Don Johnson (even if I'm not sure I get the "introducing Don Johnson" joke in the credits), and Steven Seagal are also fun to watch, each giving performances of the kind we know they're capable based on some of their best previous work. Heck, the directors even manage to make Seagal look good, even if it's plain to the sharp observer that he isn't doing much in the way of physical activity; he was probably wise in choosing this project over Stallone's as he gets to have a big dramatic final scene. Maybe he'll be smart and trade in the acting for strictly behind-the-scenes functions... we can almost see the old Steven Seagal--the guy who was in "Marked For Death" and "Under Siege"--in the performance he gives here. It would be nice if he would let this stand as his final acting job.


Of the major featured players, only Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan disappoint.

Perhaps I can't say that Alba disappoints, because she is as good here as she was the last time I saw her, in "The Love Guru." But she's completely out of place. Alba seems to be the only performer who isn't "playing to the gallery," who isn't going way over the top. Her performance would be far better suited on an episode of "Law & Order" than this film. (Actually, as I think about it, the only time I remember really liking Alba in a part was "Into the Blue". Maybe all the bare flesh addled the brain?)

As for Lohan, she serves no purpose in the film other than to appear as a slutty character that seems to fit right in with the image she's developed over the past few years. It's the sort of part the likes of John Carradine took during the 1970s at the end of his career, parts that were little more than glorified cameos, parts that didn't add anything to the film but merely traded on Carradine's name. The film would have been better without Lohan's character, because it adds nothing except the opportunity for everyone to chuckle at Lohan and perhaps reflect on wasted potential.

The only other problem with the film is uneven, choppy pacing. There are times, usually during or leading up to unimpressive scenes with Lohan and Alba, where the film drags. Sometimes these slow points arise from badly conceived comic relief (such as the two security guards exchanging sage views on Mexican gardeners), and other times they are pointless scenes of expository dialogue that I'm sure the writers and directors believed were "character development" (such as when Alba's I.C.E. agent character finds The Network's headquarters) but whenever they occur, you will start to be very bored and wish that the film would get back to the shootings and stabbings.

Speaking of shooting and stabbings, this is ANOTHER movie that features computer-generated blood-splatter. It even features computer generated bullet impacts--and badly matched bullet impacts at that, as we're shown the top of a church pew get riddled with bullets in one shot, yet no pews are damaged in later ones. The effects are a little less obvious than they were in the low-budget films that pioneered this technique (or in recent big-budget ones like "The Expendables" or "MacGruber"), but you can still tell cartoon gore from old-fashioned syrup-spray.

Bottom line, this is not a perfect movie. Then again, neither were the films it is trying to emulate... even if those old timers could probably have made 20 movies on the budget of this single film. It's worth checking out if you enjoy blaxploitation flicks--because that's what this is exactly like, only with Mexican illegal aliens and others of Mexican descent standing in for the black characters.





Fun Fact: Exactly 20 years ago, Steven Seagal's character beat the hell out of Danny Trejo's character in the opening scene of "Marked For Death". This has been a rematch long in the making.

Why does that 'one last job' never goes well?

The Squeeze (aka "Diamond Thieves", "Gretchko", "The Rip-Off" and "The Heist") (1978)
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Karen Black, Edward Albert, and Lionel Stander
Director: Antonio Margheriti (or Anthony M. Dawson, depending on source)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Chris Gretchko (Van Cleef), legendary but long-retired safe cracker comes out of retirement to help the son of an old friend (Albert) who needs to steal some diamonds for German gangsters to extract himself from trouble. He's barely arrived in New York City before the crossing and double-crossing begins and "the simple job" starts spinning out of control.

"The Squeeze" is a pretty straight-forward crime drama, with a couple of surprising twists--surprising because most of the movie is so by the numbers that what might seem like a mild twist in other movies is quite surprising in this one. Still, the script is well-paced, the complications arising on cue, and the revelations of the various double-crosses, lies, and deceptions undertaken by the various characters are all handled well.

The cast are all good, with Van Cleef (cool-beyond-cool, as usual, but in a role that fit his age... he was obviously a sensible actor who didn't try to hang onto the youthful tough guy parts past the due date) and Black (as a studiously ditzy New Yorker who ends up as Van Cleef's helper) being particularly excellent. The film, however, is severely crippled by a soundtrack that is so 1979 and low-budget Italian that it's painful. (There are also, if comments on www.imdb.com can be believed, some really badly edited pan-and-scan prints of this one floating around; the version I saw was in excellent shape, and can be found in the Brentwood DVD four-pack "Perfect Heists", along with three other classic heist movies.)

If you can be sure you're not getting a chopped-up print, I think this is a fairly enjoyable film... it's not great, but it's good enough.

When Harry Met Affirmative Action

The Enforcer (1976)
Starring: Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly
Director: James Fargo
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When a terrorist group attempts to blackmail San Francisco with bombings, murders, and ultimately by kidnapping the mayor, even the unorthodox methods of Police Inspector Harry Callahan (Eastwood) might not be enough to overcome both the bad guys and the touchy-feely approach of the "new" San-Fran city government.


In "The Enforcer", the real-world San Francisco finally seems to catch up with Dirty Harry, as he spends as much time fighting against style-over-substance politics as he does tracking down the villains. Although the bad guys here are not up to the standards set by the first two movies--they may be more violent, but they're no where near as sinister--this movie is a vast improvement over "Magnum Force", not only because it actually has a well-focused storyline, but also because the character of Harry comes off as multi-faceted... and, for that matter, a true believer in justice and equality. From his interactions with black militants to his approach to his new female partner (Daly) who has been foisted on him in the name of women's-lib, Harry shows a constant willingness to accept anyone who proves themselves worthy of his trust and respect.

Like previous "Dirty Harry" movies, this film is blessed with excellent camera work and a great cast. In addition, the script is excellent, with the rookie homicide detective who gets promoted just because she's a woman, but who shows she definitely has the chops, being a great character (as well as a source of some of the film's more humorous moments.) What's more, out of all the films in the series, this is the one where Harry Callahan comes across the strongest and most likable. This is why the film has one of the saddest endings I think I've ever seen to a cop drama.

So, despite somewhat weakly realized foes for our gun-toting, morally unbendable homicide detective, "The Enforcer" stands as the second-best film in the "Dirty Harry" series.

The first great 'Rizzoli and Isles' episode

Rizolli and Isles 1.7: Born to Run (2010)
Starring: Angie Harmon, Sasha Alexander, Bruce McGill, Lee Thompson Young, and Jordan Bridges
Director: Matthew Penn
Rating: Eight of Ten Star

Seven episodes in, TNT's new detective show "Rizzoli and Isles" finally delivers something new and unpredictable with "Born to Run," the episode that aired on August 23. They've come closest to excellence previously with "The Boston Strangler Redux" on July 19, but the series debut episode--which started in an odd sort of in medias res place with Rizzoli being haunted by a serial killer who almost cost her life and who scarred her both physically and mentally--and the other ones so far have all had a been-there, seen-that feel to them. Which is a shame, because this show has a great cast.


"Rizzoli and Isles" centers on a tomboyish, tough-as-nails homicide detective from a working-class Italian background (Harmon) and an overly bookish, somewhat socially maladjusted coroner of an upper-crust, Boston First Family background (Alexander), co-workers and best friends despite their different personalities. They are supported by a great collection of actors with been-around-forever Bruce McGill being particularly fun as a gruff veteran detective and Rizzoli's ex-partner who's caused so much trouble that he's on permanent desk assignment.

For the most part, the show plays as an inferior copy of Fox's long-running "Bones," with the odd couple of Rizzoli and Isles being an almost direct rip-off of Boothe and Bones from the other show. The main difference here is that the focus is mostly on the police work, with Isle's lab activities being about as central as Quincy's lab work as on that show. However, the way Rizzoli's family plays into the story lines adds a slightly different flavor to the show... not quite enough to bring it out of the shadow of "Bones," but enough to make it somewhat distinct.

Perhaps if I were familiar with the Jane Rizzoli-starring novels the series is based upon, the differences between this show and "Bones" would be more evident. But a good adaptation means I should be able to come to the series with no prior knowledge whatsoever. And coming to it cold, the show mostly feels like a run-of-the-mill detective show that's copying "Bones" and trying to sell itself on the fact it's got two women as its main characters. For the most part, this hasn't been enough for me. And I was about to give up on the show.


With episode #7, however, the writers finally delivered an episode that wasn't predictable and that didn't make me think of "Bones" every five minutes. In "Born to Run," Rizzoli is badgered by Isles into signing up for the Boston Marathon, so the two can something together as friends. This being a cop show, a couple of runners get shot, and Rizzoli must solve the mystery while trying to keep the shootings secret in order to prevent a mass panic. The story was unpredictable, the setting was unusual, and the way the various characters worked to solve the crime on many different levels, both police-wise and management-wise, was very nicely done. The red herrings subtly tossed into the mix were also nicely executed; I thought I knew who the killers were because of them, but thankfully I was wrong. I also appreciated the way Rizzoli's family played into the story... they emerged as characters rather than just flavoring in this episode.

I'm going to give "Rizzoli and Isles" a few more episodes before I make up my mind. It would be nice to see Angie Harmon in a new series that lasts more than a couple of seasons. She's an interesting and quirky actress who deserves a higher profile than the one she currently enjoys. It's also nice to see Sasha Alexander again... I enjoyed her very much on "N.C.I.S."

"Rizzoli and Isles" currently airs on TNT on Monday nights, with a second airing on Tuesdays.

'The Silencers' is a fun spy spoof

The Silencers (1966)
Starring: Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Daliah Lavi, Victor Buono, and James Gregory
Director: Henry Levin
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Retired secret agent turned fashion photographer Matt Helm (Martin) is coaxed out of retirement by his sexy former partner (Lavi) to help find the mole who has been feeding information to the enemy, and to stop a nefarious scheme to start World War III.

"The Silencers" is one of the films that Mike Meyers was trying to copy/spoof with his Austin Powers films, itself a tongue-in-cheek spoof of the James Bond series... as well as Dean Martin's image as a hard drinker and a womanizer. Of course, a sure-fire way to make an inferior picture is to attempt to spoof a spoof, so it's not surprising that this movie is superior to anything Meyers attempted in every way. (Except Dr. Evil and the various characters in his orbit. Dr. Evil is Meyers' singular great creation.)

If you have a high tolerance for slapstick spy antics, a steady stream of off-color jokes and puns, dream sequences narrated by a singing Dean Martin, and 1960s-style sexism and swingin' life styles, you'll enjoy this film. You'll enjoy it even more, because in addition to being a fun comedy, it's got a well-crafted script at its core that offers a few genuinely surprising twists and even more startling and well-timed moments that many serious spy movies can't match.

And then there's the fact that Matt Helm is probably the only spy in the world who has a tricked-out station wagon that converts to a love-nest on wheels, complete with mini-bar.

The cast is also amusing to watch, with Dean Martin excelling in the part of the reluctant hero who would rather be at home enjoying his models, sexy personal assistant, and hi-tech bachelor's pad; Daliah Lavi as a sexy secret agent that gives some of the best Bond Girls a run for their money; and Stella Stevens as the clumsiest femme fatale to ever bumble her way across the screen. Victor Buono also manages to strike a nice balance between creepy and outrageous as an overweight Fu Manchu-style villainous mastermind.

"The Silencers" is available on DVD along with the other three Matt Helm movies from the 1960s. Check them out, in time for the character's return to film in 2011.