The Road Warrior: my review of a superior sequel!

The Road Warrior is Australian director George Miller’s 1981 follow-up to his 1979 post-apocalyptic thriller Mad Max. In The Road Warrior, Mel Gibson reprises his role as Max Rockatansky, a former cop who has become, in the words of the film's narrator, "a burnt-out shell of a man" after a ruthless motorcycle gang kills his wife and child in the 1st film. Now, with nothing to live for but the road, Max’s existence is defined by scavenging fuel for his beat up, but still angry '73 supercharged V8 Pursuit Special!

The premise of the Road Warrior is concerned with a small community of settlers who have barricaded themselves and their oil well against a gang of bandits led by Humungus who wants the oil. By chance, Max comes into this situation as an opportunist by rescuing one of the settlers and taking the man back to the compound. Max does not care one way or the other about helping the settlers against Humungus. He barters an abandoned truck he found in exchange for fuel. The settlers decide to abandon the compound and need Max to drive their fuel tanker but he turns down the offer. Later, Humungus’s gang attacks him on the road and kill his dog. Max returns to the compound and agrees to drive the fuel truck.

The struggle between the settlers and the bandits is a metaphor of the current geopolitical landscape with America as Humungus pillaging weaker nations like Libya, Iraq and Syria, countries parked on oil reserves.

Certain characters in this film stand out like Feral Boy (Emil Minty) who goes on to lead the northern tribe. Another standout is Max’s sidekick Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence) and his gyrocopter. Another memorable character is Pappagallo played by English actor Michael Preston who acts as a Moses figure among the settlers.

Even though Mad Max went on to become the biggest movie ever in Australia, American film audiences knew nothing about it. It is for this reason that George Miller gave the sequel its stand alone title, The Road Warrior; after all, who would go see a sequel to a film they knew nothing about? This decision on Miller’s part paid off as The Road Warrior garnered numerous positive reviews, including The New York Times and Roger Ebert who praised the film's action sequences.

And this film is all about action! There is no dialogue until 15 minutes into the film, just action. And the film ends the way it begins--with action in the form of a 15 minute chase sequence involving every stunt and tricked-out vehicle you can imagine, real crashes with real cars, and real stuntmen flying through the air like rag dolls with no CGI effects to speak of--great cinematography by Dean Semler and a hell of a lot of balls by George Miller. I also can't leave out the legendary score by Brian May, especially in the film’s opening montage, which is in my opinion, the best montage ever.

I recently got this film on blu ray and it's like a new movie compared with the DVD version. The blu ray is widescreen while the DVD is cropped off on the sides and the top. There’s stuff you see in widescreen that makes the upgrade from DVD to blu ray worth it to me. And finally, this film is 96 minutes long which makes the pacing even faster. For the same reason that some consider T2 superior to Terminator, I think that The Road Warrior is superior to Mad Max because it gives you more of what you liked about the 1st film.

Run Lola Run: A quick review of the Tom Tykwer film starring Franka Potente

Run Lola Run: A quick review of the Tom Tykwer film starring Franka Potente

Run Lola Run is a 1998 German film written and directed by Tom Tykwer and stars Franka Potente and Moritz Bleibtreu. In a nutshell, the film consists of 3 identical episodes with completely different outcomes. In each of these episodes, Lola (Potente) has to come up with 100,000 Deutsche Marks in 20 minutes to cover a bag of mob money her boyfriend Manni (Bleibtreu) lost on a bus. If she can’t come up with the money in this short amount of time, he promises to rob a nearby grocery store. This is the trigger for all 3 episodes along with Lola running through the streets of Berlin with her red hair shooting up like a flame intercut with animation to a hard-driving techno soundtrack.

Existential themes of fate, death, reincarnation, and fortune are interwoven among the 3 episodes. Destiny is determined by everything, even the smallest of things such as bending down to tie a shoelace, or asking someone the time, or going back to get something you forgot, or that split-second hesitation at a stoplight that saves you from being killed. This is the overall idea of Run Lola Run, that everything in life happens for a reason and that the tiniest things can make the biggest impact on our lives.

Run Lola Run is the 1st foreign film I saw. I can remember renting the tape at a neighborhood Blockbuster store because of Lola's red hair on the box. If not for her hair, my tastes in films would still be in the dark ages. If you are looking for a fast-paced movie that gives your brain something to chew on, you don’t need to look any further. It’s a German language film but it also has an English dubbed track and it also has subtitles if you prefer hearing the actors’ real voices.

If you see this film and like it you might want to check out this directors’ other films such as The Princess and The Warrior and arguably his best film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer starring Dustin Hoffman, Ben Wishaw and the late Allan Rickman.

Carnal Knowledge: A quick review of the Jack Nicholson film

Carnal Knowledge: A quick review of the Jack Nicholson Film directed by Mike Nichols

Carnal Knowledge is a 1971 drama directed by Mike Nichols, written by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer and stars Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkel, Rita Moreno, Carol Kane, and Ann-Margret.

Carnal Knowledge follows 2 friends from college to their middle age years and their different philosophies on women and relationships. Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) devotes his life to superficial encounters based on sex; by contrast, his friend Sandy (Art Garfunkel) devotes his life to mentally stimulating but physically unsatisfying relationships, mainly marriages. Sandy is the type of man women say they want; Jonathan is the type of man women really want. Sandy is a gentleman; Jonathan, a bad boy. Sandy listens to what women say but Jonathan knows what they really mean. Sandy has book knowledge but Jonathan knows the flesh.

Among Carnal Knowledge’s themes are sex addiction, male impotence, infidelity, and dissociative behaviors. For example, when Sandy asks Susan for a kiss, she politely refuses and insults him in a nice way: “You’re the only boy I know that I can talk to.” But when Jonathan takes her out, he doesn’t ask her anything and they have sex on the 1st date! Susan gives her mind to Sandy but her body belongs to Jonathan. This moral conflict comes to a head when Jonathan gives her an ultimatum to make a decision between himself or Sandy.

Ann-Margret--who received an Academy Award nomination for supporting actress-- plays Bobby, the large busted sexpot who becomes Jonathan’s dream come true and worst nightmare.

Carnal Knowledge is not for everyone. Don’t get me wrong, it is good--damn good--but it pulls no punches. When I say that it pulls no punches, I’m not talking about sex or language. Except for a few profile shots, some leg, an ass cheek, a breast here and there, there is nothing in this film that any kid with an X-Box or Playstation 2 hasn’t seen (and believe me, if you’ve bought any video game in the past 10 years for your teenager or 12 year old, you’ve exposed them to a hell of a lot worse). What’s difficult about Carnal Knowledge is its "naked" honesty about the paradox of human nature. There are things that we say and then there are things that we do! Do women prefer Intelligence or size? Depends on the bank account. Do women like sensitive men? Depends on whether you’re talking about Pierre at the hair salon or Bob at the car repair. Do women prefer gentlemen or bad boys? Lol! Really? I guess to take a proverb from the Good Book: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!” Generally, we say what we want, but we do what we are! No actor but Jack Nicholson could have played Jonathan Fuerst!

Anyway, Carnal Knowledge is funny, a head-trip, and a lean, mean 97 minutes, every last one of those minutes ferociously entertaining. I am not a Mike Nichols groupie (RIP) but this film is in my top 10. I have it on DVD and the picture is great. One of the great films of my favorite decade and a film that every Jack Nicholson fan should own. In my opinion, his best film.

Full Metal Jacket: A quick review of the Stanley Kubrick Vietnam War epic

Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film directed by Stanley Kubrick who co-wrote the script with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford, based on Hasford’s 1979 novel “The Short Timers.” The film stars Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, and Dorian Harewood and was shot entirely in London, England.

Full Metal Jacket is set in 1968 in South Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. There's a lot of debate on the continuity of the 1st and 2nd parts of the film, the 1st of which focuses on the systematic dehumanization of the new recruits, particularly, Private Leonard Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio) who goes over the edge under the harsh treatment of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). The 1st half of the movie is so powerful that it can seem front-loaded and inconsistent with the movie's 2nd act which follows a unit called the Lusthogs and  Corporal Joker (Matthew Modine) who does impersonations of John Wayne and wears a “Peace” button over his heart and the words “Born to Kill” on his helmet, a paradox he describes as the duality of man. 

When it comes to Vietnam War films, the big three are this one, Apocalypse Now (Redux), and Platoon. But Full Metal Jacket stands apart in how graphically it shows the physical and psychological training that goes into programming recruits into soldiers that kill without hesitation. R. Lee Ermey is perfect as Sergeant Hartman who’s tough-love prepares the recruits for the battlefield. On the film's documentary, Ermey admits that Kubrick didn't want to give him the role after seeing Ermey in a 1978 film called The Boys From Company C. Ermey improvised a mock tape of himself belittling recruits and sent the tape to Kubrick who changed his mind and gave the role to Ermey whom he believed to be the perfect Drill instructor and antagonist for Gomer Pyle.

If there is a moral to Full Metal Jacket it’s that war is Hell and to live in it you must become it. Great film. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Well photographed, of course, and tight clocking in under 2 hours. Looks great on DVD and even better on blu ray.