Movie Review: Blow Out (1981)

 

DIRECTOR: Brian De Palma. CAST: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz, Peter Boyden, Curt May, John Aquino, John McMartin, Robin Sherwood, Michael Tearson, Deborah Everton, J. Patrick McNamara, Missy Cleveland, Roger Wilson, Lori-Nan Engler, Cindy Manion, Missy Crutchfield, Marcy Bigelman, Ann Kelly, Dean Bennett. 
BLOW OUT is the second reinterpretation of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 classic BLOW-UP (Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION was the first in 1974), but with sound used instead of photography. John Travolta is Jack Terry, a horror movie sound technician who is out in a local park recording potential sound effects when he witnesses a car drive off the road and into a nearby creek. Although the male driver drowns in the accident, Jack can rescue the woman passenger and takes her to the hospital. He finds out that the dead driver was the governor, whose associates persuade Jack to sneak the women passenger out of the hospital, as she is an escort whose presence would be an embarrassment to the deceased political figure. Jack plays back his park recording and discovers that the car wreck was no accident at all—he distinctly hears a gunshot prior to the car going off the road. He becomes more interested when the media gets involved and begins to discover the truth behind an assassination attempt on the governor. BLOW OUT is a very good movie, although its box office failure was a blow to John Travolta’s career as a serious actor for years until Quentin Tarantino cast him in PULP FICTION. John Lithgow’s ability to play the creepiest of bad guys likely started here while Dennis Franz deserves special mention for an incredible performance as a slimy blackmail photographer. Some might appreciate the story’s allusions to the Watergate scandal, JFK’s assassination, and the Lake Chappaquiddick incident. Brian De Palma fans will likely see BLOW OUT as an underrated entry in his extensive filmography. They are correct.

Movie Review: 1941 (1979)

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg. CAST: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Ned Beatty, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, Bobby DiCicco, Dianne Kay, Perry Lang, Slim Pickens, Wendie Jo Sperber, Eddie Deezen, Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Frank McRae, Susan Backlinie. 
1941 is a glorious disaster of a film; it is not a ‘good movie’ as much as it is an amazing spectacle. Personally, I cannot hate a movie simultaneously recognizing the diverse talents of Toshiro Mifune and Eddie Deezen. You certainly will not find such an ensemble cast anywhere else! 1941 is an attempt at a World War II-era comedy through the anarchic lens of Saturday Night Live or Animal House. American tension is high after the attack on Pearl Harbor just a couple days before. Wild rumors abound and everyone is on alert. Servicemen and zoot suiters are rioting in the streets and a lone Japanese submarine is lost in the Pacific Ocean while trying to find and attack Los Angeles. 1941 introduces several movies’ worth of characters and stories at once; so much is going on that most viewers would likely get lost in the chaos. Fans that can make sense of this mess will enjoy the 146-minute director’s cut that fleshes out some of the more principal characters. Although 1941 is not laugh-out-loud funny most of the time, it captures the period in which it takes place with good unpretentious fun.

Movie Review: Robocop (1987)

DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven. CAST: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Dan O'Herlihy, Paul McCrane, Ray Wise, Jesse D. Goins, Calvin Jung, Michael Gregory, Robert DoQui, Felton Perry, Lee de Broux, S.D. Nemeth.
Robocop remains a great action movie and a brilliant satirizing of Reagan-era corporate greed and excess. We see Detroit falling apart in a dystopian future in which the mayor has turned over control of its underfunded police department to the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products. OCP plans to privatize all of the city’s services, including replacing its cops with androids programmed for perfectly efficient law enforcement. They construct RoboCop from the remains of an officer killed in the line of duty by Detroit’s criminal mastermind. RoboCop successfully takes down a number of bad guys, but things go awry when he begins to experience shadowy memories of his previous life. He focuses on bringing his murderer to justice, which also leads him back to the very corporation that made him. Robocop’s greatness lies in the details that separate it from the typical ‘80s shoot-‘em-up action movie. Who could forget “I’d buy that for a dollar!” from everyone’s favorite TV slapstick sex comedy It's Not My Problem? Kurtwood Smith and Ronny Cox steal the show in their inspired character performances. Make sure you also watch the director’s cut that originally garnered an X rating due to the gratuitous violence!