Tag Archives: genesiskel

The Cult Movie Club: The Border (1982)

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Summer 1980. Jack Nicholson was in the middle of his busiest period. ‘The Shining’ had just wrapped and he had inked contracts to appear in both ‘Reds’ and ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’.

But first up was ‘The Border’, one of his least known films but a fascinating watch these days and still relevant. It’s also one of his most serious, intense screen performances, rivalling ‘Five Easy Pieces’, ‘The Pledge’ and ‘The Passenger’.

Nicholson plays a downtrodden Texas border patrolman who, after years of viewing corruption and trapped in an unhappy marriage, decides to do something completely altruistic. When the baby of an underage Mexican girl is kidnapped with threats of being sold/adopted, Jack takes a stand against his spiritually-bankrupt superiors.

It’s possible that Nicholson was attracted to the project due to the involvement of director Tony Richardson, the Brit who helmed John Osborne’s legendary ‘Look Back In Anger’ on both stage and screen, and also the presence of co-stars Warren Oates and Harvey Keitel, with whom Jack does some great sparring.

Shot in El Paso, ‘The Border’ is a terse, angsty, mature movie with moments of dark humour and an interesting companion piece to both John Sayles’ ‘Lone Star’ and Tony Garnett’s ‘Handgun’.

But its third act moves uneasily into action territory – Richardson seems out of his depth here, searching in vain for his inner Peckinpah (and why the 18 certificate? My DVD warns of ‘strong sex, violence and language’, but none of the above feature, outside of one particularly poorly staged gore effect).

Still, apparently it was an interesting shoot, with a blitzed Dennis Hopper arriving to set up a huge prank for Jack involving the president of Mexico, a cadre of cheerleaders and some Hells Angels (see Robert Sellers’ book below for more). Sadly though, Ry Cooder’s soundtrack is rather phoned-in, despite featuring an early version of the classic ‘Across The Borderline’.

‘The Border’ was delayed for a year and crept out in February 1982 to minimal fanfare (though Siskel and Ebert both liked it) and rotten box office. In truth, it feels much more like a movie of the 1970s than the 1980s. But it features yet another gripping performance from Jack during arguably his peak period and it’s well worth a look – if you can find it…

Further reading: ‘Hollywood Hellraisers (Bad Boy Drive)’ by Robert Sellers

The Cult Movie Club: Fletch @ 40

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Quentin Tarantino recently drew an interesting comparison between the 1980s careers of Chevy Chase and Bill Murray.

Both had reputations for being difficult but it was Murray who sought ‘positive’/’learning’ scripts through the decade and early 1990s. Chase didn’t: his characters generally started out as wise-cracking assholes, and ended the films the same way.

And the always amusing ‘Fletch’ – a movingtheriver favourite which premiered 40 years ago this weekend – is exhibit A. Based on the 1974 novel by Gregory McDonald (who subsequently wrote ten other Fletch books), it came into existence when Michael Douglas got on board as producer (later to be replaced by his brother Peter) and Universal finally took it on after many false starts.

McDonald had star approval though, and Burt Reynolds, Mick Jagger, Richard Dreyfuss and Jeff Bridges nearly played Irwin R Fletcher, before Chevy got the nod. After a few lean years, he was hot in 1984 after the success of ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’. In the meantime Andrew ‘Blazing Saddles’ Bergman had written a screenplay with uncredited help from Phil ‘All Of Me’ Alden Robinson too.

Director Michael Ritchie must take a lot of credit for the success of ‘Fletch’. Helmer of bittersweet classics ‘Smile’, ‘The Candidate’, ‘Downhill Racer’ and ‘Prime Cut’ (and, after ‘Fletch’, ‘The Golden Child’ and ‘Cool Runnings’), he keeps things moving fast and reportedly encouraged Chase’s surreal ad-libs. ‘Nugent. Ted Nugent’, was the first, apparently uttered totally spontaneously by Chevy.

His stoned delivery and anti-establishment wisecracks hit the spot time and time again. This writer always giggles when someone shoots out Fletch’s back windscreen and Chevy shouts ‘Thanks a lot!’, ditto the entire ‘airplane investigation’ scene. Chase is always one step ahead of the material, sharing a joke with the audience, assuming it’s intelligent and on his side.

But watching it again, ‘Fletch’ certainly seems more suitable for adults than teenagers (borne out by the fact that when I first saw it at the Putney Odeon during school summer holidays in 1985, the teens around me mainly threw popcorn and talked amongst themselves). The plot is hard to follow and the stakes never seem very high, despite the film’s noir leanings (one key character is named Stanwyk).

The film benefits from some excellent supporting turns – female co-star Dana Wheeler-Nicholson is delightfully natural (though weirdly didn’t make another movie for five years after ‘Fletch’) and Joe Don Baker, M Emmet Walsh, Geena Davis, Richard Libertini and George Wendt (RIP) do solid, enjoyable work.

Harold Faltermeyer’s memorable synth soundtrack still raises a smile. And though ‘Fletch’ would seem to be influenced by ‘Beverly Hills Cop’, it was actually shot around the same time as that Eddie Murphy vehicle, summer 1984, in and around Los Angeles during the Olympics.

‘Fletch’ was a surprisingly big hit, grossing around $60 million against an $8 million budget. Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael quite liked it, Gene Siskel loved it. Kevin ‘Clerks’ Smith tried and failed to reinvigorate the Fletch brand in the 1990s. But Jon Hamm has just played him in 2022’s ‘Confess, Fletch’ – any good? Doubt it… Peak Chevy is a hard act to follow.

The Cult Movie Club: Halloween II (1981) 40 Years On

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A babysitting uncle (later reprimanded by my mum!) showed my brother and I John Carpenter’s classic 1978 film ‘Halloween’, recorded from TV after its first (edited) UK showing, sometime in 1982 or early 1983.

I loved it but it scared the bejesus out of me. Well, I guess everyone’s entitled to one good scare on Halloween. But Rick Rosenthal’s 1981 sequel, released 40 years ago this weekend, was a definite no-no. My parents wouldn’t let my brother and I watch it, though I distinctly remember us creeping along the upstairs corridor and spying on them watching the rented video with friends.

‘Halloween’ has of course been through numerous/confusing sequels and reboots. The new ‘Halloween Kills’ is supposedly a ‘proper’ sequel to the rebooted ‘original’ of 2018 (which I tried to watch recently, but didn’t last beyond the first five minutes…).

But back to John Carpenter’s original 1978 classic. It was a huge hit. Once the money started rolling in, a sequel was on the cards, one that Carpenter was unable to veto due to his original contract (he also allegedly missed out on a huge amount of royalties too).

So he reluctantly hooked up again with Debra Hill to write the screenplay and co-produce. The result was one of the last big ‘slasher’ hits, outside of the endless ‘Friday The 13th’ sequels, earning around $25 million worldwide against a $2.5 million budget. And this was in the days when sequels were not commonplace.

But how does ‘Halloween II’ stand up today? First, the good stuff:

The camerawork
Director of photography Dean Cundey was lured back from the original, passing up the opportunity to work on Spielberg’s ‘Poltergeist’, and his original angles and Panaglide compositions elevate the film way beyond the standard slasher fare.

The hospital setting
It’s a great idea to set the film in a suburban hospital, and gives a claustrophobic sense of isolation, of course a descendant of Carpenter’s ‘Assault On Precinct 13′ (via, originally, Howard Hawks’ ‘Rio Bravo’ and George Romero’s ‘Night Of The Living Dead’).

Continuity
It’s a neat concept to start the film right where the original ‘Halloween’ ended.

Donald Pleasence
Once again he fully embraces the role of Dr Sam Loomis. He takes it seriously and does a stand-up job, complete with a few memorable line readings.

The Chordettes’ ‘Mr Sandman’ intro and end credits
A very creepy choice, possibly influenced by the use of music in ‘The Shining’.

But then there’s the bad stuff:

Lack of Jamie Lee Curtis
She spends most of the movie either in a hospital bed or limping/crawling around (wearing a very odd wig). As good a performance as she gives, the film suffers from her inertia.

Too much dialogue/exposition
There are way too many slow, boring plot/dialogue longeurs.

Lack of engaging/likable characters
As workmanlike as the mostly young cast are, they can’t replicate the natural rapport that existed between Jamie Lee, Nancy Loomis, PJ Soles etc. in the original film.

Dick Warlock as The Shape
The original film mostly used Nick Castle as The Shape, but experienced Hollywood stuntman Warlock got the role here, and he moves way too slowly and stiffly (and the William Shatner mask doesn’t quite fit…). And the closing fire stunt may have won him some brownie points in the industry but looks absurd now.

Gratuitous gore
Carpenter took a look at the first assembly of ‘Halloween II’ and decided it was too long and not scary enough. He shot a few additional scenes, adding some gore and spikes. Sadly this resulted in too many nods to standard slasher movies, and resulted in a lot of dodgy reviews. Carpenter was also fairly disgusted with himself for ‘messing’ with another director’s work – ‘I did something I don’t believe in. I did something I would hate for anybody to do with me. It was an evil thing to do and I didn’t enjoy any of it,’ he told biographer Gilles Boulenger.

Music
Alan Howarth overdubbed onto Carpenter’s original 16-track tapes, adding copious synths and and drum machines – there’s a lot of bluster but unfortunately Howarth adds little to the original soundtrack.

In conclusion: I’d argue it’s a decent-enough sequel, despite the obvious problems. The last 15 minutes offer creeps, shocks and thrills, and the hospital setting works excellently.

The movingtheriver.com rating: 6/10.

Now, I must go and answer that door. Damn kids…

Siskel & Ebert: The Worst Of 1987

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Given the precarious state of movie criticism (and movies?) these days, it’s a treat to check out the intelligent, measured and authoritative work of these two gentlemen.

Probably best known for their ‘thumbs up/thumbs down’ schtick, I’ve recently become fairly addicted to Siskel and Ebert’s deceptively laidback presenting styles and incisive comments.

They called it exactly as they saw it, and you never feel there is any kind of corporate skullduggery going on in the background. And they certainly didn’t always agree on stuff; their exchanges could get pretty fruity.

Gene Siskel died in 1999 and Roger Ebert in 2013. They started out as rivals, writing for competing Chicago papers (the Sun Times and Tribune) in the early 1970s, but were brought together for the small screen when PBS devised a new movie review show in 1975. Its popularity quickly increased and it received national syndication in 1982.

As well as reviewing all the current releases, Siskel and Ebert also presented in-depth investigations on movie controversies of the early ’80s (video nasties and slasher movies) and weren’t afraid to get moral on our asses.

But I initially zeroed in on this ‘worst of 1987′ list. Let’s go back almost 30 years to the day and check out a very tasty list of ill-conceived star vehicles (sorry about the picture quality). I want to see all of ’em. Especially the Stallone arm-wrestling flick.