MATINEE (1993)

Set in Key West, FL during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the main character is a boy who loves watching monster movies at the local theater. Right at the height of the Crisis a new movie opens, MANT! It's about a radioactive accident that turns a guy into a half-man/half-ant creature. Even better yet is the director of the film (John Goodman channeling William Castle) is appearing in person and he's rigged the theater full of surprises like electric shock seats, giant speakers, air cannons shooting shit all over the joint and a guy in a ant suit running around scaring kids!

Beyond the storyline of the movie premiere is some coming of age stuff that I really enjoyed, like him getting a girlfriend; the theater owner's bomb shelter; bomb drills at school and his best friend dating a chick with a crazy ex-boyfriend who likes to yell out bad poetry while attacking people.

MATINEE director Joe Dante made a few of my favorite films like GREMLINS and ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, but after MATINEE in 1993 he really hasn't made anything notable. Sad. It's strange how people in the film industry can just disappear. Maybe he should make a GREMLINS 3.

I wasn't alive back in the early 1960's, but I love the romanticized idea of a simpler era where people were innocent...yes, I know that it's a complete lie made up by Hollywood, but still it's a pleasant thing to dream about. If you like the idea also or you just like a good movie then you should check out MATINEE...and if you're feeling extra frisky then you should also read Robert McCammon's "Boy's Life".

THERE WAS A FATHER (1942)

Another touching film by Yasujiro Ozu. This time the story is about a single, widowed father (Chishu Ryu in his first starring role) who has a son. He's also a teacher and after a accident at the beginning of the film that leads to a boy's death, the father is so overcome with guilt that he quits his job. He still wants the best education for his boy, so he sends him off to school while he, the father, works in Tokyo. The boy is heartbroken, but he does his best and eventually gets a job as a teacher himself.

For his entire life, the boy has longed for a closer relationship with his father and eventually when he himself is an adult they grow closer and are able to spend time together, but by now the father is old and well past the prime of his life.

To me, THERE WAS A FATHER is a even sadder film than it's DVD companion THE ONLY SON, because even though the father, I'm sure, loves his son very much it seemed to me that he was selfish in quitting his job. At the beginning of the film, everything appeared to be very happy, but once he quit his job it threw his son's life into turmoil and when he just dumped him off at the school and moved away that was extremely cruel. The little boy has already lost a mother and now his father abandons him?! I don't have any children, but when you become a parent you are responsible for that child and just because a horrible accident happened and one of your pupils died it doesn't mean you should quit your job and scar your kid for life. You gotta man up, put on your big boy panties and do what's best for your child.

Back to the film though, it's beautifully shot (a lot of the exterior shots could be put on postcards) and the performance by Ozu regular Ryu is very good. His version of an old man (Ryu was 38 at the time) is much more believable than Toshiro Mifune's in I LIVE IN FEAR (Mifune was 35). Of the two films in this wonderful set by Criterion I think I liked THE ONLY SON better just because the separation between the child and the parent was against the parent's will. Then, of course, at the end the mother saw the separation as not being worth it (which is the saddest moment in the film), even though I disagree, to a point, with that because she was sad that her son didn't grow up to be "great", just normal.

The picture on the DVD is passable, but I was really surprised at the amount of crackling and audio noise was going on, but since this is the first time these films have been available in America I'll just gladly shut up and be grateful that they are finally here for me to enjoy. For a better, more educated, essay on THERE WAS A FATHER look here.

MISS MARCH (2009)

So this dork guy in high school has a beautiful girlfriend, but he's a tool and refuses to have sex with her. She's OK with that because she's in love with the geek. Finally, she's had enough and makes him promise to have sex with her after the prom. They go to a party and before they can knock boots he gets drunk and falls down a flight of stairs and goes into a coma.

Four years later he wakes up he finds out that she's posing in Playboy, so with the help of his mentally challenged friend they travel across country, having all kinds of wacky adventures, in the hope of seeing her at a Playboy mansion party.

Interesting movie with a few humorous bits, but overall it was a let down. I was entertained for the majority of the movie, but the friend got on my nerves after awhile. He was just too goddamn stupid! Also, I was kinda shocked at how a film that centers around Playboy and pornography had such little nudity. Even worse is the nudity there was was just extras, unless I missed it the main girl didn't get even close to being naked. Fucking lame.

Worth a watch, but don't expect too much.

OBJECTIVE, BURMA! (1945)

[Update 05/14/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Who knew Burma looked so much like California?! I'm just kidding. OBJECTIVE, BURMA! is actually a good movie. It kept me entertained the entire time and even a little shocked in a few scenes.  Also, it's one of the only films I can even recall that's about the WWII Burma Campaign.

Handsome Errol Flynn leads a group of soldiers on a parachute drop behind enemy lines to destroy a radar station. They do it, but when it comes time for their air extraction the landing zone is too hot, so now Flynn has to lead his boys a hundred and fifty miles through an harsh jungle with a pissed off Japanese Army hot on their tails! Really good stuff and I especially liked the scene where the Americans are dug into little holes and the Japanese are slowly creeping up on them. I don't think I'm giving away anything here, but at one point the Japanese kills an American with a knife then calls out in English to another soldier asking if he's OK. The American instantly figures out what happened so he answers then sets a hand grenade in the space between them and lays down in his hole with his helmet over his head. The enemy soldier crawls over and the grenade blows up right in his face!!! Goddamn!

Of course it's not as bloody and violent as a modern day military action film, but this was the real deal full of anti-Japanese propaganda. Errol Flynn does a good job of looking like a war fatigued soldier. Director Raoul Walsh somehow directed three other films in 1945 including THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT.

Worth checking out.