Recent Viewings

WALLACE AND GROMIT - THE CURSE OF THE WERE RABBIT

I like Wallace and Gromit. I watched my first episodes of the shorts about a month ago - with the first one, I laughed until I cried. Gromit Rules. And Wallace is the Uber-Geek.

In CURSE, Wallace and Gromit are running a business to protect veggie gardens from rabbits. Their rabbit storage system (a la GHOSTBUSTERS in a way) goes haywire, and thus the WERE RABBIT is concocted. We join the fun of the hunt as Gromit slowly pieces the puzzle together in a desperate effort to save his own prized veggies. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say Gromit steals the show. I love that dog!

4 out of 5

THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS

My 4 year old wanted to watch this one with me, then ended up 'too scared to sleep.' Oh well.

A polar research expedition unearths, er discovers, a mutant dinosaur of sorts awakened as a result of nuclear testing. This is yet another Harryhausen effects-fest 50's era "nuclear testing is bad" creature thriller and it does not disappoint. I found the pacing good for the story and the struggles between the scientist who knows, the scientist he convinces and the officials who don't believe are not anywhere near as tiresome as those in modern disaster/monster flicks.

4 out of 5

WINDS OF TERROR

Thus begins our brief, two-movie romp into made-for-TV disaster films that we somehow missed in original airing. This one, originally named WWIII, stars Timothy Hutton as an FBI agent who specializes in fraud investigations and how he gets to be center-stage stage in the largest bioweapon terrorist attack the world has ever known. A particularly nasty virus is unleashed on a cruise ship off LA and in several cities to rapidly infect the entire US population, and it's up to this fraud expert to save the world!! The cast includes Terrry O'Quinn and Venessa Williams.

Just what you'd expect from a made-for-TV flick of this genre, WINDS is full of overdramatization and ridiculous depictions of FBI terror suspect interogations and Level 3 lab safety procedures. Someone on IMDB wrote that this was 'very realistic' and I truly feel sorry for that person. Anyway, one of the highlights, for me at least, was Lane Smith's appearance as the bioterror-weapon-expert-uncle-of-Hutton's-character; this was his last movie appearance (only TV guest spots after this). RIP Lane.

One thing I did like about Smith's character, though, was the coldness with which he described his former work for the Army. His job was to develop a weapon whose purpose was to kill people. And he made little apology for that. The movie did try to get preachy on the topic of bioweapons, but Smith's portrayal gave us a good glimpse of the down-to-earth guts of Army weapons research.

3 or 3.5 out of 5

THE FIRE NEXT TIME

Craig T. Nelson and some chick's boobs star in this post-global-warming-is-out-of-control snooze-fest made for Lifetime in 1993. Oh man. Avoid this one. LAME LAME LAMELAMELAME.

Drew (Nelson) is a blue collar boy from the Bayous of Louisiana who: is broke, his fishing business is failing, his son is a reject who left to live in CA with a rich uncle, is separated from his wife but wants her back, loses his house (and boat) in a hurricane, kills a man trying to loot the ruins of his house, takes his family on a trek "up north," loses his daughter to a cult, gets upset over his sick father, becomes involved with eco-terrorists to get what he wants (across the border into Canada), gets his daughter back from the cult.

That's the movie in a nutshell. I had a hard time staying awake; well, I did not stay awake. My wife had to fill in some of the plot I missed. As a fan of poorly acted and directed and conceived TV disaster movies, I hated this tripe - all three hours of it.

1 of 5

DAS BOOT (1981), Director's Cut

Undeniably one of the best war pics ever laid to film. Interestingly, I was avoiding watching this because of the reputation it had for 'intensity.' It does get you on the edge of your seat.

Initially watching the English Dub, I quickly turned over to German with English subtitles (I wish my German was up to the task of watching without the subtitles, but oh well). The English dub was annoying and lost a lot (the English subtitles and dub did not match).

Just in case someone reading this is not familiar with DAS BOOT, the story follows a German U-Boat crew during a war patrol in WWII. This movie is raw. The Captain (Jurgen Prochnow) is a veteran submariner and has had his enthusiasm tarnished. His crew is mostly raw recruits that have no idea of the terror about to beset them. Set in 1941, the time period is one in which the U-Boat crews are held to be national heros, much as we esteem sports heros today.

But the Captain knows better. He knows the Brits are getting better at anti-submarine warfare (something the German propaganda machine is not admitting) and he knows the odds of returning alive. Along for the ride is a War Correspondent, who incidently wrote the book on which the movie is based, and we see his disillusionment grow and fester until he becomes as nearly stoic on the matter of survival as the Captain.

I love movies that give a glimpse into the minds and characters of individuals in wartime (HAMBURGER HILL being a notable example), and DAS BOOT did not disappoint. We see, and feel, the discomfort, frustration and fear as this sub crew gyrates from utter boredom to total terror.

The level of detail of the set was uncanny. Director Wolfgang Peterson, in his director's commentary, notes that the interior set was copied from a museum specimen in Chicago, and was accurate down to the last screw. The entire set was gimbaled, so scenes with men falling and slamming into bulkheads and each other are not 'acting' - they are really being thrown about. I also learned from this commentary that a 1:6 model is about the perfect size for filming surface water effects with an overcranked camera (more reduction in scale distorts the visual effect of the water on the boat).

If you haven't seen it, watch it.

5 out of 5