3 Recent Re-viewings

Outland - (1981)
In the future (obviously, given the rest of this sentence) Sean Connery is the new policemen for the mining colony on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. People start acting strangely and several die unusual deaths. Connery investigates and has the whole plot figured out 1 hour in. Then, he sits around and waits – and waits for people to kill him. It is literally High Noon in space. But writer-director Peter Hyams has no communist scare subtext to comment on, just an homage to another movie. The space sets and visuals are OK (but kinda look like Alien), but the special effects aren’t so special. Connery is good and it’s nice to see Peter Boyle as the bad guy. But this is only interesting as a curiosity and sci-fi haters should look elsewhere. Love the pistol-grip shotguns. B-

Spartan - (2004)

Val Kilmer is a special government agent who helps train new hires. When the president’s daughter is kidnapped, he leads a team to retrieve her. But when it appears that her absence will be used for political benefit, he’ll have to go it alone. Writer-director David Mamet’s repetitious dialogue and tough-guy verbosity is exceptionally strong during the first act as he keeps the audience guessing with many quick developments and twists, but he can’t sustain the pace which ultimately slows too much when it tries to say something about individualism vs. conformity and intimacy vs. isolation. And he’s a little too cavalier about dispatching the secondary characters. Kristen Bell and Derek Luke make strong appearances as the president’s daughter and a newly credentialed agent, respectively. Mamet regular William H. Macy has been much better elsewhere and struggles with the bad guy role – he’s too nerdy and quirky to be menacing. B

Hard Eight (Sydney) - (1997)

With everything that has followed, it’s no surprise that Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film is quite a technical feat with its uninterrupted takes and slow camera moves. Since it focuses on 3 characters: Sydney (Philip Baker Hall), John (John C. Reilly), and Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) and has basically only 2 other characters - Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson) and a cocky craps player (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the dialogue, and thus, the film is more focused with less tangents. While this helps with creating memorable characters, it also makes the film feel less important than all of his subsequent, more ambitious films. And what we’re left with is a perfect little film about regret, redemption, unconditional love, and creating your own luck. A-