Fallen (1998)

Fallen (1998)
Fallen is an creepy thriller that features good acting, great writing, and nice cinematography. Denzel Washington plays John Hobbes, a detective who recently captured a serial killer named Edgar Reese. Edgar Reese is put to death for his crimes, but the murders continue in Reese's style. Is there a copycat killer on the loose or is something supernatural at play?
Fallen has a tightly written script, which is especially impressive for a work of speculative fiction. Writer Nicholas Kazan is the son of director Elia Kazan so it looks like the film making gene was passed down. Nicholas Kazan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay based on material from another medium for Reversal of Fortune. The story of Fallen has good twists and turns which kept things fresh. We have high stakes and insurmountable odds combined with well-written characters to make us care about what is happening. The theme of "evil among us" has been done since the beginning of human history, but the inclusion of the Azazael demon and use of scapegoats put a different spin on it.

Director Gregory Hoblit has made one movie I have seen before, Frequency. I remember liking that film but I saw it so long ago that I don't remember much about it. The directing in Fallen is very good with one of my favorite scenes being a creative "whisper down the lane" chase scene which features fantastic choreography.  The "demon vision" is a unique look that I haven't quite seen before. The Rolling Stones cover of the song "Time Is on My Side" is used multiple times in the movie in an interesting and effective way.
John Goodman is hilarious as Hobbes' fellow detective, Jonesy. Donald Sutherland, Embeth Davidtz, and James Gandolfini also put in solid supporting performances.
I found Fallen to be underrated since it's a movie most people haven't heard of despite being a major Hollywood film with plenty of recognizable actors. If you haven't seen it, check it out sometime.
Fun Facts: Fallen is one of the few movies to feature the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic language.
Fallen was filmed in part at Philadelphia and showcases locations such as 30th Street Station and Pat's King of Steaks.
8/10

Godzilla (1998)

Godzilla (1998)

I have only seen two Godzilla movies so far: this one and Godzilla vs. Megalon. At some point I will watch the original film, but until then Godzilla vs. Megalon remains the best Godzilla movie I've ever seen! This is also the third movie I've seen directed by Roland Emmerich. But unlike Stargate and Independence Day, Godzilla 98 (as it is often referred to as) is awful.
Matthew Broderick plays the main character, a scientist brought in to help deal with the threat of Godzilla. Broderick is miscast and feels out of his element. I guess he was only brought in for his comedic chops, but it doesn't help that most of his dialogue isn't funny. The most infamous example is the dumb line "that's a lot of fish" which is a statement, not a joke. One of the few acting bright spots is Jean Reno, who plays a French DGSE agent who tries to help take down the creature while also covering up his agency's role in creating the monster. We also have live-action appearances from three actors who are regulars on The Simpsons: Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, and Nancy Cartwright. They do fine as usual but I found their inclusion in the movie was unnecessary and distracting. Speaking of strange acting/casting decisions, the mayor and his aide are obvious parodies of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. But as Roger Ebert himself mentioned, what is the point of doing that in a Godzilla movie if you aren't going to have the King of the Monsters stomp on them?
Although it is made clear that this is the first appearance of Godzilla in the universe of this movie, a Japanese fisherman recognizes the creature as "Gojira." I guess this was just intended as a nod to the fans but I found it confusing and out of place. As for the rest of the story, I'm just going to sum up everything, spoilers and all. Godzilla attacks New York City, is revealed to be pregnant (?!), and eventually gets killed after rampant destruction. But fear not, we have a teaser for a sequel (a Godzilla egg hatches!), which thankfully never happened.

Despite having budget that would still be quite big today ($130,000,000) the CGI hasn't aged well. This might be more of a commentary on CGI in general than the production itself since the visual effects were praised at the time. But if you compare the specials effects of this movie to Star Wars: Episode I which came out only a year later, The Phantom Menace effects still look quite good and they had to work on more types of ships and creatures than just Godzilla. But even if Godzilla had great special effects this movie would still suck!
One of the few positive things I can say about the film is that it had a clever and effective marketing campaign. It's just a shame that it didn't have a good movie to go along with it.
Godzilla has a lot of characters, tons of destruction, and weird attempts at comedy that make it an epic event movie somewhere between Emmerich's own Independence Day and Michael Bay's Transformers movies (which like Godzilla also feature Kevin Dunn). Godzilla is not just bad but is also too long which really makes the film drag at times. I'm not sure why this movie felt it needed to be 139 minutes as the plot and characters are pretty straightforward. But at the end of the day there are still enough unintentionally humorous scenes for Godzilla to be watchable for fans of crappy movies.
3/10

Major League II and III

I'm a big baseball fan and watched these sequels while doing others things, such as catching up on blog posts!

Major League II (1994)
Sequels are generally considered to be bad. However, in my experience it seems that for sequels to movies not part of a franchise (such as Star Trek or Batman), the first sequel is usually not as good as the original but not horribly bad either. While this is the case with Major League II, it was still an unnecessary sequel only made to cash in on the success of the first movie.
There was a five year gap between the original and this sequel. David S. Ward returned to direct but didn't write the screenplay this time. Besides Major League, Ward's other claim to fame is winning an Oscar for best writing with The Sting.
Wesley Snipes did not return and Omar Epps takes over his character, Willie Mays Hayes. Chelcie Ross also did not come back and his character is not even mentioned. The two are essentially replaced with more screen time for real life baseball announcer "Mr. Baseball" Bob Uecker, Randy Quaid as self-loathing fan, and a young catcher with a throwing problem played by Eric Bruskotter.
The owner of team from first movie is back but it feels shoehorned in just re-hashes of the scenes from the original.
I noticed that there are more baseball jokes this time around than first movie, though its less realistic about the game later in the movie. The baseball humor is probably why I liked it even though its less focused than the original. I found it pretty funny and the character arcs were done well for what this is.
Major League II was ahead of its time with the depiction of a Japanese baseball player coming to the US to play in the Major Leagues and baseball players selling out by advertising for companies.
Jesse Ventura even has a cameo by way of the film within a film Black Hammer and White Lightning!
Trivia note: The Indians meet White Sox in ALCS. This is the same team the Angels faced in the ALCS in Angels in the Outfield (1994).
If you liked the first or are a baseball junkie like me, its worth a watch.
6/10

Major League: Back to the Minors (1998)
Although this movie is commonly referred to as Major League III, the number doesn't appear in the title. I guess technically Major League: Back to the Minors is a spin-off. This makes more sense since in the first two Major League movies we follow the Cleveland Indians team but some odd reason the team we follow in this movie is the Minnesota Twins and their minor league affiliate, the Buzz.
I'm not sure why this was made. Major League II didn't so well and the main characters played by Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and James Gammon are absent. They didn't even bother to re-cast Willie Mays Hayes again as that character gone too. There are some returning characters (Twins Owner Roger Dorn, announcer Bob Uecker, spiritual outfielder Cerrano, Japanese transplant Tanaka, and catcher Rube Baker), but it's still loosely connected to first two movies with little explanation as to why/how these guys left the Indians and got on the Twins.
Scott Bakula does a nice job playing the manager of the Buzz, though it is strange that his character gets the most focus since he is a brand new character to this series. I guess this is because Bakula is the best actor in this movie! Ted McGinley plays the villainous general manager of the Twins and is fun as usual. I guess McGinley dooms not just TV shows but movie franchises too apparently! Though who knows, maybe Charlie Sheen will return for Major League 4!
While there are a decent amount of baseball movies out there, not many are about the minor leagues which puts a different spin. Probably the best film about minor league baseball is Bull Durham (which I saw awhile ago and need to re-watch sometime).
The main story of Major League: Back to the Minors is that of a big league team playing against their farm team. This actually does happen in pre-season exhibition games though never in the middle of the season as depicted in the film. While these movies are unrealistic but until this point usually contained enough real baseball for me, especially the first one. In this movie the Buzz are supposed to be at the AAA level but their stadium looks like a high school baseball field.
While this movie is not too funny as a comedy, Bakula's character is very likeable and easy to root for so at least it works on that level. Major League: Back to the Minors is watchable but not very good and completely unnecessary as feels more like a made for TV movie. This one is for completionists, baseball lovers, and Scott Bakula fans (like me!) only.
4/10

Weekly Wrap-Up (10/2)

Waking Life (2001)
Richard Linklater directed A Scanner Darkly (2006) which I consider to be the best film adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story. Don't get me wrong, its not my favorite film based on a Dick story, just the one that captures the feeling, themes, and story of the original novel the closest. Philip K. Dick is my favorite writer and after seeing A Scanner Darkly I wanted to see another film directed by Linklater as he is also a PKD fan. I finally got around to seeing Waking Life and I must admit, I was a little disappointed. Waking Life uses rotoscope style animation similar to the style later used in A Scanner Darkly. While the animation is unique and fun to watch, the biggest problem with this film is that there is way too much dialogue with people just sitting and looking at each other. Occasionally the animation will complement the dialogue. For example, during a monologue somebody says "humans are 70% water" and he appears to fill with water. While this was cool, it didn't happen much which led to many boring scenes. The main character, credited as "Main Character" was interesting as he was trying to wake up from a dream but kept having false awakenings. However, there is more focus on discussing philosophy, lucid dreams, illusion vs. reality, than on an actual plot. But since I am somebody interested in those three topics, I did enjoy those discussions. We even got a monologue about Philip K. Dick from Linklater himself! Overall the movie didn't feel as cinematic as it should have been since much of the time I could have just listened to it on the radio. At first I hated it, but as the movie went on I did get into it. This is probably one of those films that people either love or hate, but I just liked it. Waking Life has great animation, fantastic dialogue, and good ideas but still could have been executed better. Linklater's A Scanner Darkly touches on similar themes so I would recommend that movie instead. Linklater also directed School of Rock starring Jack Black. While I liked that movie, I doubt the intended audience of that film would enjoy Waking Life!
6/10

Return to Oz (1985)
Return to Oz is an unofficial sequel to the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. However, its not quite a sequel as it also is an adaptation of the later Oz books and its not a musical. I've never read the Oz books so I don't know how close this movie is to the book sequels, but from what I understand it draws elements and characters from several of the books as well as the 1939 film. The red slippers were silver in the books and an agreement had to be made with MGM so that Disney could use them in this movie. Dorothy is about 10 years old like she was in the books, and unlike Judy Garland who was 17 when she played Dorothy. Fairuza Balk puts in a nice performance as Dorothy Gale. Balk did a good job carrying the movie, especially for a child actor.
Although this movie was a commercial and critical failure (Siskel and Ebert didn't like it), it has gained a small cult following in the years since its release. The special effects hold up surprisingly well for a 26 year old movie which impressed me. Practical effects age better than CGI, but I still gotta give credit to the SFX team. The set design is quite good as well. Oz is essentially given the post-apocalyptic treatment, which is something I had never seen in a straight-up fantasy movie before.
It was quite interesting to see a different take on the Oz story. The movie was directed by Walter Murch, and it is the first and only movie he has directed. Murch is a respected film editor and sound designer who has won three Oscars (along with several nominations) for his work on Apocalypse Now and The English Patient. While I thought he was fine, the movie probably would have been better if they brought in somebody like Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam.
Many people say that this movie is too dark for a "children's film." However, when compared to other PG 80s fantasy films its par for the course since its not much darker than The Neverending Story (1984), Legend (1985), or Labyrinth (1986).
6/10

                                        

3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998)
This is one bad 90s kids movie. Even Surf Ninjas was better than this garbage! We have terrible acting and zero logic when it comes to the story. I know this was a movie meant for children, but that is never an excuse for a bad movie and an insult to the intelligence of all children. Hulk Hogan "stars" in this crapfest and if you've seen any Hulk Hogan movie you pretty much know what to expect. Jim Varney, most famous for the Earnest movies, plays a ridiculously over the top bad guy. We also have Loni Anderson as the female baddie and she hams it up even more than Varney, if that is possible.
Sadly this was character actor Victor Wong's last film. He should have gone out on a high note with Seven Years in Tibet! I guess Wong was contractually obligated to be in all of the 3 Ninjas movies. That reminds me, this is the fourth movie in this series. Why did they make so many of these movies?! I guess the earlier films are better (or at least the first one) but I have no desire to see any more of them.
Speaking of Wong, he plays the Asian grandfather of the "3 ninjas" but neither the boys nor their parents look Asian. Oh well, he is just a Mr. Miyagi rip-off anyway!
As bad as this movie is, at least its not a boring bad movie. Only watch this to make fun of it with a group of friends!
2/10