Category Archives: Video

Saturday Matinee: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

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By Roger Ebert

Source: RogerEbert.com

At a time when so many movies show such cold-blooded calculation, here’s one heedless enough to be fun. “Little Shop of Horrors” arrives with enough baggage to make it into a thoroughly timid project – what is less likely to make a fresh movie than a long-running stage hit? – and yet the movie has the offhand charm of something that was concocted over the weekend.

This is not only a musical and a comedy, as we expected, but also a revue of sorts: Comic actors such as Bill Murray, John Candy and James Belushi have walk-ons, and Steve Martin almost steals the show as a sadistic, motorcycle-riding dentist. Yet at the heart of the movie is a basic sweetness, an innocence that extends even to the centerpiece of the story, which is a man-eating plant named Audrey II.

The plant makes its appearance one day in a flower shop window, having arrived from another planet. It immediately begins to grow, to look around itself, to attract attention and to exhibit an appetite for human blood. It also changes the lives of the three people who work in the store: the shop assistant, Seymour (Rick Moranis); the salesclerk, Audrey (Ellen Greene), and their kindly, blustering old boss, Mr. Mushnik (Vincent Gardenia). Suddenly, they have the sort of fame thrust on them that is usually reserved for lottery winners and people who survive freak accidents.

There are all sorts of people with ideas about how to exploit the wonderful plant, and others who wish it no good. The movie uses them as the occasion for gentle satire and broad comedy, and there’s the sense that “Little Shop” is amused by just about whatever comes into its mind. There is also a romance; Seymour falls in love with Audrey (I), but must win her away from the evil dentist (Martin), who roars around on a motorcycle and gives her black eyes.

Meanwhile, Audrey (II) inexorably grows, nourishing itself with blood from a nick on Seymour’s finger and developing a taste for human flesh. The progressive growth of the alien plant was, of course, one of the glories of the stage version of “Little Shop,” and the movie’s Audrey, designed by Lyle Conway and directed by Frank Oz, is a marvel of technique. The plant actually does seem to have a personality and is remarkably accomplished during its musical numbers.

Moranis also has developed a personality in this movie and, in a way, that’s as surprising as Audrey II’s achievement. After being typecast as a nerd on SCTV and in such limited and predictable films as “Strange Brew,” he emerges here as a shy, likable leading man in the Woody Allen mode. The movie sometimes makes his work look easy. But he has to carry a lot of the exposition and hold most of the conversations with the plant, and without him the movie might not have been half as confident.

Greene repeats her New York and London role as the human Audrey, and by now the wide-eyed, daffy blond with the pushup bra has become second nature. Her big musical number, “Suddenly Seymour,” has the bravado of a Broadway show-stopper even while undermining itself with satire.

The show is punctuated by musical commentary delivered by a Supremes-style trio (Tichina Arnold, Tisha Campbell and Michelle Weeks), that bounces around the flower shop’s inner-city neighborhood with a message of hope that seems somewhat optimistic, inspired as it is by a carnivorous plant, but fits right in with the movie’s good heart.

All of the wonders of “Little Shop of Horrors” are accomplished with an offhand, casual charm. The movie doesn’t labor its jokes or insist on its virtuoso special effects, but devotes its energies to seeming unforced and delightful. The big laughs, when they come, are explosive (such as the payoff of Martin’s big musical number), but the quiet romantic moments are allowed to have their coy innocence.

This is the kind of movie that cults are made of, and after “Little Shop” finishes its first run, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it develop into a successor to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” as one of those movies that fans want to include in their lives.

Watch Little Shop of Horrors for free here: https://soap2day.cool/watch-movie/watch-little-shop-of-horrors-free-10873.5306743

Saturday Matinee: The Package

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By Paul Willistein

Source: The Morning Call

“The Package” is not a neat little present, but rather one wrapped in a plain brown wrapper – and ticking.

What’s explosive about this thriller set in the glasnost era are the performances of Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones. As the movie races to its conclusion, it discards plot like bumpers and fenders flying from a car in a chase scene. Preventing the movie from coming to a crashing halt are Hackman’s and Jones’ performances.

Inside “The Package,” you’ll find Hackman quietly strong and Jones edgy. There’s a surprise: a steadfast Joanna Cassidy.

“The Package” begins in East Berlin where a disarmament conference between the Soviet Union and the United States is shattered by a terrorist attack which occurs on Sgt. Johnny Gallagher’s (Hackman) watch. Reprimanded, he’s given a more menial assignment, delivering a “package” (military parlance for a court-martialed serviceman) back to the United States to serve time.

Hackman and the serviceman (Jones) arrive while the president of the United States and the secretary general of the Soviet Union are meeting just before Christmas in Chicago (where Enrico Fermi’s experiments in the late 1930s led to the nuclear age) to celebrate the Cold War’s end. But Gallagher is brutally beaten in an airport men’s room. His “package” is gone. Checking service records through his ex-wife (Cassidy), Gallagher finds that he delivered the wrong man. Who, then, was the soldier he brought back to the States?

That’s when the twisted web of this political thriller unravels, with an ending worthy of “No Way Out,” another Orion Pictures release in which Hackman starred. “The Package” keeps you guessing, not unlike the Michael Caine starrer, “The Fourth Protocol” (also an Orion release; this studio is almost single-handedly preserving the political thriller genre). Not since “The Manchurian Candidate” has a movie provided so many chilling moments.

“The Package” does get bogged down by plot. A political thriller is nothing if not a well-oiled machine when it comes to plot – the more complex the better. But the plot must be internalized in the psyches of its main characters. Director Andrew Davis (“Above the Law,” “Code of Silence”) doesn’t show us enough of the interior life of Hackman and Cassidy, nor of Jones, for that matter.

Hackman, who’s played Lex Luthor, Superman’s nutty arch fiend, has Superman strength and determination in his heroic efforts in the movie’s latter third. It’s a credit to Hackman’s abilities that he makes it believable. Jones (“Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Stormy Monday,” TV’s “Lonesome Dove”) again plays a hateful character who you’ll find oddly appealing. Cassidy (“Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Blade Runner,” “Under Fire”) has a smallish role but elevates it handsomely (and she looks great in a uniform). There’s also John Heard (“Betrayed”) as the tight-lipped colonel, and Dennis Franz (Lt. Buntz of TV’s “Hill Street Blues”) as a likeable Chicago policeman.

“The Package” is slick and shiny. It will appeal to fans of Hackman, Jones and Cassidy, as well as those who enjoy political thrillers.

Saturday Matinee: The Thousand Faces Of Dunjia

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“The Thousand Faces of Dunjia” (2017) is a Chinese fantasy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping; scripted and produced by Tsui Hark, and starring Chengpeng Dong, Aarif Lee, Ni Ni, and Zhou Dongyu as the central core of a ragtag group whose mission is to defend humankind from ancient aliens. It’s a remake of Yuen’s 1982 film The Miracle Fighters.

Watch The Thousand Faces Of Dunjia on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12064080

Saturday Matinee: Land of the Blind

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By Ms Mary Lou

Source: The News Blender

“A stale piece of bread is better than nothing.”

LAND OF THE BLIND is a 2006 film directed by Robert Edwards, and written by Edwards five years before. Its message about political corruption and complacency is so resonant that, even though it takes cues from historical figures throughout the centuries, we can still see our current climate reflected in it .

The film starts “Five Years Before” during the reign of President-For-Life Maximilian II (Tom Hollander). Having inherited the position from his father, Maximilian is equal parts politically clueless and personally gluttonous. He doesn’t understand why his constituents aren’t grateful when he commutes those sentenced to the gallows…by sending them to firing squads instead. Unable to stand any critique of himself, he murders his opponents when he can get away with it and sends them to the not-so-secret prisons when he can’t.

One of these prisoners is the de facto leader of the resistance, playwright turned political prisoner Thorne (Donald Sutherland). He’s been imprisoned for years for the crime of being critical of Maximilian. Despite having nearly all communication with the outside world cut off, his followers “The Citizens for Justice and Democracy” continue the movement he inspired. While they wage wars against the administration outside, Thorne is left to write his manifesto on the walls of his cell using any means available.

One of the guards assigned to him, Joe (Ralph Fiennes), serves as our everyman narrator. In the beginning he doesn’t consider himself political, just a man doing his job. The more he has conversations with Thorne, however, the more he sees the corruption in Maximiliam’s regime and becomes determined to help achieve change. From his cell Thorne runs for–and is elected to–parliament and is thus released to serve his term. Now that their leader is accessible the Citizens for Justice and Democracy spring into action.

Quickly Joe helps Thorne and his followers get into Maximilian’s castle. Within minutes Thorne puts Maximilian and his wife through a two minute trial in their bedroom, convicts, and executes them. The Maximilian II regime is over.

“Nothing is better than a big, juicy steak.”

With Thorne in the position of President-For-Life, change definitely happens. Maximilian’s indulgences are replaced with a strict moral code. All females are now forced to wear hijabs when outside the house. Re-education camps are opened to make sure everyone is in line with the nation’s moral code. This includes teachers, doctors, people who insist on wearing glasses, and anyone else not in line with the new morality. Children are separated from their parents in order to “fight the narcissism of family.” The revolution has occurred. Long live the revolution.

Joe is retired from the military and held up as a hero for his part in the revolution. He isn’t as thrilled with Thorne’s changes. When pressured to sign a loyalty oath, Joe refuses out of principle. He points out to Thorne that “before the revolution man exploited man. Since the revolution it’s the other way around.” That is enough to get Joe sent to the re-education camps.

What happens in the camps would be unfathomable if I didn’t know how much of this movie was based on historical events. There is physical torture, psychological torture, relentless pressure to accept anything and everything he’s told to believe. Can Joe survive with himself intact and is it worth it if he does?

“Therefore, a stale piece of bread is better than a big, juicy steak.”

LAND OF THE BLIND is not a movie for everyone. There are a lot of questions left unanswered. We don’t learn the characters’ histories. In the end there is no comfortable resolution. The movie will be fascinating for those who know history; they’ll be able to recognize the patterns that have happened and even recognize some that are still going on. Even those who can’t see when Idi Amin or the Khmer Rouge are referenced can still appreciate the movie on its own. The actors are all well cast in their roles and their journeys are completely believable. The music, composed by Guy Farley, is appropriately unsettling and comes in at just the right moments to keep the viewer on edge. Robert Edwards is a master at balancing actual history with a compelling story. I like to watch this movie whenever I find myself getting politically complacent. It’s a reminder that it’s not enough to stand against something; you have to also know what you’re standing for.

Watch Land of the Blind on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/14779187