What I’ve Caught Up With, October Part 1
Film: Brainstorm (1983)
Natalie Wood’s brilliant career ended with Brainstorm, a film released a couple of years after her death. The cast is a good one—Wood, Christopher Walken, Cliff Robertson, and Louise Fletcher, and the story is the sort of near-future science fiction that was common in the 1980s. Scientists have developed a device that allows others to experience the sensory input from other people—a sort of VR that includes all five senses. All is fun until the military gets involved and someone records their own death as a sensory experience. This is very much the precursor to Strange Days from about a dozen years later. What an odd way for Wood’s career to end.
Film: Copshop (2021)
Joe Carnahan’s Copshop is a pretty solid actioner, if a film that is not shy about being as over-the-top as a classic Schwarzeneggar or Stallone film from the 1980s. Con artist Teddy (Frank Grillo) is on the run from an assassin named Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler), so he arranges to be arrested just outside of Las Vegas. Viddick is smart, though, and gets himself arrested as well. Everything goes to hell, especially with the arrival of a second assassin named Tony Lamb (Toby Huss). Standing in their way is rookie cop Valerie Young (Alexis Louder). It’s violent and ridiculous, but fun, even if it’s desperate to be seen as a Tarantino film. Louder is the best part of the film, but Toby Huss is having the most fun, and honestly, it’s probably the best thing Gerard Butler has ever done.
Film: The Power (1968)
Scientists exploring the limits of human endurance for the space program discover that someone in their midst has powerful psychic skills, something beyond human comprehension. With that revelation, people on the committee start dying off in strange ways. Professor Jim Tanner (George Hamilton) and his scientist girlfriend Margery Lansing (Suzanne Pleshette) try to figure out who is doing what to whom, and things get strange and dangerous quickly. A fun cast (Michael Rennie, Earl Holliman, Aldo Ray, and Yvonne De Carlo among others) helps with this. George Hamilton seems like a strange choice for scientist leading man, but he pulls it off well. There’s a good story here, although the film tends to ramble in places and get lost in its own attempt to be cool and hip. Worth a view, even if it isn’t perfect, if only because Scanners and Dreamscape ripped a couple of pages out of this to tell their stories.
Film: Antonia’s Line (1995)
There are times when I wonder if a film can be made that doesn’t include some amount of sexual assault. Antonia’s Line is the story of a Dutch woman named Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy), her daughter Danielle (Els Dottermans), Danielle’s daughter Thérèse (Veerle van Overloop), and her daughter Sarah (Thyrza Ravesteijn), who also serves as the film’s narrator. It’s a story of love and death and life, and one generation moving to the next. There are moments of real beauty here, but also tragedy, and for the love of everything, I would really like to have a movie about the lives of women that didn’t involve rape, which happens twice in the film, including once with a child victim. I realize it’s something that happens, but can we have a little bit of relief for people who have been traumatized and give them a safe movie to go to?
Film: Long Shot (2019)
I don’t really care for Seth Rogen in general, in part because it really seems like he just plays himself, and I find that guy annoying. Long Shot wasn’t really on my radar, mostly because of Rogen, but I gave it a shot, and surprise surprise, it’s pretty good. Secretary of State Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) reunites with journalist from her past Fred Flarsky (Rogen), who becomes her speech writer for her presidential run, and eventually becomes her secret lover. The film goes too extreme with some of the plot points, and a bit gross at the end of the second act, but a lot of the humor lands surprisingly well. There are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, and that surprised me more than anything.
Film: Equilibrium (2002)
Equilibrium is what you would get if you took Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and crossed it with Orwell’s 1984, tossed it with a little bit of Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House, and set it in the universe of The Matrix as directed by John Woo. In the future, humanity is rendered emotionless by chemicals, but there is naturally a resistance that fights back but not taking the meds and by preserving works of art and culture. John Preston (Christian Bale) is a member of the thought police that round up criminals, who are summarily executed if they are found with contraband or expressing an emotion. And, of course, eventually he’s going to rebel. It’s a solid cast—William Fitchner, Emily Watson, Sean Bean, Sean Pertwee, Taye Diggs, and Angus Macfadyen all appear—but it feels very derivative. Much more style than substance, but the gun battles are cool.
