rate the last movie you saw

[Eric Paddon]

Condominium (1980) 5 of 10

-Silly 1980 two-part miniseries that aired in "Operation Prime Time" syndication by squeezing out the Irwin Allen formula of loading up every familiar TV name of the previous two decades possible, throwing in a "disaster" related plotline that culminates with a cheesy F/X sequence of destruction at the climax which lets all the baddies and idiots in the drama go to their deserved demises while the nobler characters all live. The bloated plotline isn't too bad until the big hurricane that's going to level the unsafe condo arrives and we get such hilarious moments like Jack Jones refusing to drive his Winnebago out to safety until luscious Pamela Hensley agrees to finally get on with him (meaning they can also go to their demise, and since Jones is the builder who cut corners on safety and Hensley is the one who worked for the sleaze above them, we can call their deaths justified!) and dislikable building manager discovering his wife and mistress are walking out on him to shack up with each other! On the plus side, Barbara Eden IMO looks even sexier at age 50 than she did as Jeannie.

[Paul MacLean]

Eric, it sounds like it would make a great double feature with Supertrain!

[Eric Paddon]

LOL, pretty much! Along with other TV-movie knockoffs of the disaster genre of this era like "Flood!", "Fire!", "The Savage Bees" or "SST-Disaster Flight".

[Eric Paddon]

The Domino Principle (1977) 3 of 10

-Boring, boring, BORING! A film that just takes forever to get started, requires a two and a half minute pre-credits narration to "explain" what is about to follow, and is just flat-out incomprehensible. But one thing it does for me is further demonstrate why "Raise The Titanic" turned out so bad since it has the same screenwriter and executive producer and Stanley Kramer was also originally attached to that project. But unlike RTT, this one doesn't have a John Barry score to rescue it. Instead of that silly song over the credits, Kramer could easily have recycled "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" since that song better describes the mindlessness of what's going on.

[Eric Paddon]

THE CASSANDRA CROSSING
3.5/10

I had to revisit this as part of Shout's Blu-Ray release -- and wow, is it bad. In fact, it's hard to pick which moment constitutes the film's funniest unintentional moment – the infected terrorist stammering through the train’s kitchen (complete with over-the-top “shock” effects in Jerry Goldsmith’s score)? Or Martin Sheen’s unforgettable breakdown as he falls into Richard Harris’ arms before the movie’s climax? Either way, the carnage in the movie’s unspeakably downbeat ending is noteworthy – R-rated and bloody as nobody (not even children and elderly women) is spared a tragic end. It's so sour that it nearly mitigates the outrageously awful miniature effects that resemble a child playing with his dad’s Lionel train set.

Shout has combined this on Blu-Ray with another horrible ITC production, THE DOMINO PRINCIPLE, written by the same screenwriter, and likewise with a narcissistic "'70s ending".

Both of these make RAISE THE TITANIC look very, very good by comparison...but more on that later

I have revisited both of these films now and I can say the only improvement that "Cassandra" has over "Domino" is better cinematography and a slightly less addled plot for the first part. But boy oh boy how it goes off the rails completely in the final half hour. It never seemed to occur to these European filmmakers that audiences wouldn't take kindly to seeing American soldiers who are totally innocent of any involvement in the sinister plot that Lancaster is orchestrating from above, just get blown away in a too-long firefight because they're so dense they're not going to think clearly about the danger that lies ahead with the bridge (unless we're supposed to believe these guys were duty-bound in their minds to go down with the bridge!). Martin Sheen's sudden cure from spaced out junkie to hero who needs to go outside the train is also ludicrous (as is the idea of him carrying on with Ava Gardner who demonstrates how bad she aged in the 1970s), as is O.J. Simpson playing hero and is there a reason why the ENGINEER is never seen once in this film? For goodness sake doesn't this engineer have a mind of his own to maybe think the train should be stopped, because as the Times review in 1976 noted, if the conductor (Lionel Stander playing "Max" is guaranteed to evoke snickers they couldn't have foreseen. Max didn't take care of them!) knows the bridge is bad, won't the engineer????

This is also not one of Jerry Goldsmith's better scores. I was struck by how a couple years ago when I was defending Daniele Amfitheatrof's score for "Major Dundee" and the complaints about the "stinger" that was used to note the menace of the Apache, I said how Goldsmith by contrast would get off the hook for doing something similar (I was thinking of POTA at the time). Well here, he employs all kinds of deathly stingers galore for every time someone gets infected, and then to show us the bridge that it *really* makes the stingers I was defending in "Dundee" look good by comparison since Goldsmith just lays it on thick with no subtlety whatsoever.

[AndyDursin]

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW
1.5/10

Infamously designated as the “movie shot undercover at Disney World,” “Escape From Tomorrow” isn’t even as entertaining as standing in a three-hour line for the recently dumbed-down “O Canada!” Circlevision 360 film in EPCOT Center.

Writer-director Randy Moore “somehow” got a film crew inside the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, as well as the Polynesian Resort, in order to film his “movie” about a harried husband (Roy Abramsohn) who loses his marbles while taking his stereotypically shrewish wife (Elena Schuber) and their kids on a magic-filled vacation in WDW.

The first half of “Escape to Tomorrow” is mildly watchable, if only for its novelty value: seeing the couple bicker in front of well-known Disney World landmarks is somewhat amusing, as is the husband getting drunk in EPCOT’s Germany and subsequently throwing up on the Mexico Boat Ride. Yet the seams begin to show early and often: green-screen footage looks as authentic as a Hollywood backlot, and Moore’s attempts at crafting any kind of plot are embarrassing. For the first 45 minutes, the husband chases after a pair of young teenage girls (one of which is played by the lovely Annet Mahendru from “The Americans”), but then gets involved with a “Magician” under Spaceship Earth which leads to a nasty, repellent, gory finale – assuming you make it that far.

One of those “festival darlings” that’s sure to turn off most viewers, “Escape to Tomorrow” is an amateurish outing that never would’ve received the same level of publicity had it been filmed anywhere else other than the Happiest Place on Earth. Do yourself a favor and avoid a fast pass -- or a pass of any kind -- to this attraction.

Cinedigm’s Blu-Ray is available April 29th, exclusively at Best Buy until later on in the summer. The disc’s 1080p transfer, given the handheld HD cameras Moore used to shoot the movie, is surprisingly excellent, and the DTS MA audio includes a seriously good score by Abel Korzeniowski that belonged in a better film. Extras include commentaries (including Abramsohn and Schuber in character – as if you didn’t get enough of them during the film!), a Making Of, and the trailer.

[Paul MacLean]

Noah

This film is yet another turgid, formulaic effects extravaganza, which visually offers nothing more than an endless barrage of images we've seen countless times in the past 15 years. This would be enough of a turn-off, but Noah compounds things with a didactic, preachy script.

Russell Crowe basically phones it in with a watchable but largely un-emotive performance where he mostly falls back on his "grouchy Aussie" persona. A wacky collage of accents pervades the film, with Crowe's Australian drawl clashing with posh Emma Watson, cockney Ray Winstone and Welshman Anthony Hopkins (while poor Jennifer Connelly seems to be trying to reconcile these eclectic speech patterns with with a faux mid-Atlantic accent). That said, most of the cast offers solid performances, but are handicapped by the crummy script.

The title character is also an unsympathetic bitter pill, who borders on psychotic as he attempts to fulfill his "divine appointment" -- to preserve all the Earth's animal life, but insure the extinction of "evil" humanity for its gross materialism and cruelty (as well as its omnivorous eating habits). Animals must be saved because they are "innocent" and free of the carnal impulses of meat-eating mankind, but Noah seems strangely oblivious to the fact that many animals eat other animals (a contradiction director Darren Aronofsky conveniently dances around).

The film preaches the philosophy of radical "environmentalists" who regard humanity as a plague (a view held by people like Paul "Whale Wars" Watson and even David Attenborough). Hey, I'm for the environment too, but most of the people I know are no more of a detriment to their fellow creatures than "innocent" animals like a great white shark or a scorpion.

Ray Winstone plays the heavy, whose depraved band are camped out in the woods near the ark's construction site, and spend most of their time indulging in a a wild party which is half orgy and half Sunday afternoon barbecue (Aronovsky works overtime to equate the two as equally depraved).

Naive ideology aside, Noah is also a stupendously boring, and visually unimaginative and derivative film. The storm sequence looks exactly like the one in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, while the film's towering "rock creatures" are a cross between LOTR's ents and that rock character from Star Trek.



"Hey Noah, lets build an ark!"


The story of course takes place in the arid middle east, so naturally Aronofsky filmed it in rainy, green Iceland. The costumes are likewise inaccurate -- denizens of the ancient middle east wore headdresses (for protection from the sun) and robes, yet Crowe and his sons are all attired in trousers (and I swear Crows is wearing jeans). The characters also wear boots -- which couldn't possibly have been fashioned from anything other than leather, so why is it okay to wear animals but not eat them?

Clint Mansell's score has moments of melodic interest, but is by and large is dramatically blunt and simplistic, lacking musical and dramatic sophistication and does little to help the film. Why, why do directors of large-scale epics forever hand their films off to "composers" with no orchestral training or understanding?

Ultimately, Noah changes his genocidal tune (when he can't bring himself to murder his newly-born granddaughters) but the film's message remains an irritating, naive "campus radical" notion: although most of humanity is "evil", a portion is worth saving -- provided it is limited to a small community of animal-loving vegans. "Impure", war-mongering omnivores must however be done away with.

I will say that I did like the sequence where Noah's tells the story of the world's creation of the world, which is accompanied by an attractively-designed effects sequence, but otherwise this film has nothing going for it. It is unrelentingly dour, preachy and dense, with little appeal on any level.

[jkholm]

I got the PLANET OF THE APES Blu-ray box set a few months ago and finally watched all of the movies. I've seen the first one several times before but it's been forever since I've seen the sequels (except for the fifth which I don't remember ever watching).

PLANET... 9/10
BENEATH... 6/10
ESCAPE... 7.5/10
CONQUEST... 5/10
BATTLE... 6/10

Despite my relatively low rankings for some of the sequels, this is still an enjoyable franchise. As for the newer entries, I don't remember much about the Tim Burton version. I thought RISE... was terrific and look forward to DAWN...this summer.

Are either the live-action or animated TV series worth watching?

[AndyDursin]

Great review Paul!

John - I'm a big APES fan too and am looking forward to rewatching the originals before the summer. It's a very weird series of sequels, being "family friendly" but with some of the most downbeat, anti-audience endings in genre history (can you GET any funnier than the end of BENEATH?). It's funny also how ESCAPE was viewed for many years as being the best of the sequels, though I find it stilted and talky today. CONQUEST seems to have supplanted it among many fans as the sequel of choice, though it has its unintentional moments of humor. BATTLE, despite its bad rep, isn't all that bad, and I like how it ends on a "cautiously optimistic" note, which is as close to "upbeat" for the whole series as you'll find.

I'm very excited for DAWN... It sounds as if the third of the new movies (which is already slated for Summer 2016) could be a loose remake of the original PLANET with an astronaut from our present Earth landing in a future world where the Apes have fully evolved. They tipped that off in RISE and the director has likewise hinted as much that it comes "back to the original [68] film". That'll be exciting to see, though I can see from some of the photos it looks like they're already establishing a "good Apes" vs "bad apes" type of scenario with Caesar running into some interference amongst his own tribes.

[Paul MacLean]

It's a very weird series of sequels, being "family friendly" but with some of the most downbeat, anti-audience endings in genre history (can you GET any funnier than the end of BENEATH?).

Beneath's ending is such a lead balloon, and not helped by the abrupt and awkward narration telling us that our "green and insignificant planet is now dead".

The end credits are also a bit cringe-worthy by today's standards, the way one of the the characters is identified simply as "Negro".

[Eric Paddon]

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW
1.5/10

Infamously designated as the “movie shot undercover at Disney World,” “Escape From Tomorrow” isn’t even as entertaining as standing in a three-hour line for the recently dumbed-down “O Canada!” Circlevision 360 film in EPCOT Center. .

I know of Disney history buffs like me that wouldn't mind three hours of footage outside the original "O Canada" from the 80s!

Sounds absolutely awful.

[Eric Paddon]

The POTA sequels are indeed not very "family friendly". I still think "Beneath" getting a "G" rating even by the looser standards of 1970, remains utterly bizarre with all the shooting deaths culminating in that final downer note (for which the blame rests entirely with Heston selling Zanuck I think on the idea, solely so he could discourage being asked to do more sequels).

The subsequent sequels I know were commendable efforts to get themselves out of the corner they painted themselves into but I just could never warm up to them because when you shift the dynamic from the humans being your focal point as was the case in the first two films, to the apes, you're asking a lot of the audience. The metaphor of the ape as the black man was also too heavy-handed.

"Battle" for me doesn't end on an up-note. The implication, especially when the added scene of the Alpha-Omega bomb is put back in, indicates that history is doomed to an endless replay of events in which Taylor will return again to the same future and the process will repeat itself with Earth destroyed, Cornelius/Zira escaping and the loop playing out again.

[Paul MacLean]

"Battle" for me doesn't end on an up-note. The implication, especially when the added scene of the Alpha-Omega bomb is put back in, indicates that history is doomed to an endless replay of events in which Taylor will return again to the same future and the process will repeat itself with Earth destroyed, Cornelius/Zira escaping and the loop playing out again.

I could handle the human and ape child antagonizing each other ("Lawgiver, who knows about the future!") as subtle hint of future hostilities between species, but the bomb scene is so heavy-handed and ruins the film for me.

[AndyDursin]

I don't watch it with the bomb scene restored -- and I think it was wise of them to cut it from the theatrical release -- so I kind of like the ending as it is...because it really isn't in the same place as the original '68 film. The bomb scene is just like Paul says -- ridiculously heavy-handed and really negates the whole message of the film as it were.

I agree the sequels aren't great movies by any means, but they are watchable and interesting for what they are. However the new APES movies have the chance to be much better sci-fi than any of them (save the '68 original, though I felt RISE was very good indeed).

[AndyDursin]

Russell Crowe basically phones it in with a watchable but largely un-emotive performance where he mostly falls back on his "grouchy Aussie" persona.

I follow Crowe on Twitter and it's utterly banal. Calls his followers "villagers," then complains about bike paths in Pittsburgh (where he's shooting a movie) before giving us how many squats and lunges he finished in his workout. If I were him, I'd probably avoid bike paths in Pittsburgh lol.