Film Review: LAST EMBRACE (1979, Jonathan Demme)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.

Running Time: 102 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew:  Roy Scheider (JAWS, ALL THAT JAZZ, MARATHON MAN), Janet Margolin (ANNIE HALL, GHOSTBUSTERS II), John Glover (52 PICK-UP, BATMAN AND ROBIN, GREMLINS 2), Christopher Walken (THE DEAD ZONE, MCBAIN), Charles Napier (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), Sam Levene (SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, CROSSFIRE).  Music by Miklós Rózsa (THE KILLERS '46, BEN-HUR, SPELLBOUND).  Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE SIXTH SENSE, FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF).

Tag-line:  "It begins with an ancient warning.  It ends at the edge of Niagara Falls.  In between there are five murders.  Solve the mystery.  Or die trying."
Best one-liner:  "You gotta do better than that, Jack!  WHO SENT YA?!"

LAST EMBRACE is one of acclaimed director Jonathan Demme's (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, PHILADELPHIA, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED) first commercial efforts, and though it's reputation is nearly nonexistent (I hadn't even heard of it until this week), it ranks somewhere between "fairly okay Roy Scheider vehicle" and "lost De Palma film."

Based on the novel THE 13TH MAN by Murray Teigh Bloom, LAST EMBRACE stars Scheider as a CIA-ish secret agent who sees his wife gunned down in Mexico by a gang of dudes including MANIAC's Joe Spinell, a character actor who I've described as "Ron Jeremy meets Vincent Price."

In the wake of her death, Scheider undergoes a nervous breakdown and spends several months in a Connecticut sanitarium.  Upon his release, he finds a stranger (Janet Margolin) subletting his apartment, receives cryptic Aramaic messages, and encounters all sorts of people who are probably trying to kill him, including his own agency.  ...Or is he simply delusional?
And so that's the set-up– Scheider tries to stay alive while attempting to unravel this conspiracy which may or may not actually exist.

How is the film?  It's pretty good.  It's got a great hook, some nice Hitchcockian suspense, and in Scheider, an excellent star.  Scheider really knows how to carry a movie.  The man's one of the best actors of the 1970s.  If you haven't already– go see ALL THAT JAZZ.  Do it now.  
Anyway, the plot of LAST EMBRACE begins to degenerate around the halfway mark, and it builds to some hilariously bad melodrama that may or may not involve the white slave trade.  But Scheider never stops giving it his all, and he will in all likelihood convince you that you're watching a much better movie than you actually are, and that's okay with me. 

His intensity has rarely been matched.  In the scene pictured above, he needs to speak with Janet Margolin, who happens to be taking a shower.  He whips back the shower curtain (with Norman Batesian panache) and begins saying what he needs to say.  There's no hint of lasciviousness or peeping Tomitude– he's got the precision and matter-of-factness of a surgeon.  Scheider has played a lot of CIA and military types before (MARATHON MAN, TIME LAPSE, THE RUSSIA HOUSE, THE FOURTH WAR, etc.) and you absolutely believe him.  His acting choices are simple and understated- when he wants to indicate that ice water runs though his veins, he doesn't showboat around, he just becomes that hardened man.   Incidentally, I recently found out that Roy Scheider was a boxer, long before he was an actor.  He went 12-1 before moving on to theater.  Who knew?

In any event, a few of the signposts and highlights of LAST EMBRACE are these:

#1.  Tak Fujimoto's cinematography.  A long-time Demme crony, Fujimoto is a master craftsman whose first film was fuckin' BADLANDS.  Along the way, he slummed for Corman (DEATH RACE 2000 and others), lensed a few John Hughes classics (FERRIS BUELLER and PRETTY IN PINK), shot the MACGYVER pilot episode, and worked with Demme 17 times.  Somehow he's never even been nominated for an Academy Award.  What the hell!?

#2.  Scheider is waiting for the MetroNorth train to take him from Connecticut to NYC.   On the platform, he's pushed from behind and nearly tumbles into the oncoming train.  He grabs the nearest guy (a young Mandy Patinkin!), puts him in a stranglehold, and begins to question him ("You gotta do better than that, Jack!  WHO SENT YA?!"), all the while poised to deliver an insane karate throat blow, or maybe even the throat-rippin' move from ROAD HOUSE.  God bless Roy Scheider.

#3.  Christopher Walken's brief appearance as a CIA handler.  As always, he's hilarious, creepy, and enunciating unexpected syllables.

He's also wearing ginormous glasses.

#4.  Junta Juleil Hall-of-Famer John Glover as a religious scholar who helps Scheider ascribe meaning to his cryptic Aramaic messages.

He's not particularly given a great deal to do here, but he still imbues his character with the amazing, eccentric energy we've come to love and expect from Glover.

#5.  Hitchockian setpieces.

There's a chase/shootout scene up a bell tower that recalls VERTIGO, and the final showdown takes place at Niagara Falls, referencing Hitchcock's propensity to end films at national landmarks (like Mount Rushmore in NORTH BY NORTHWEST or the Statue of Liberty in SABOTEUR to name a couple). 

In the end, it's a sort of lackluster thriller with some great character actors and brilliant, anchoring lead performance by Roy Scheider.  Three and a half stars.

–Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... THE PRINCESS BRIDE!

Only now does it occur to me... that Chris Sarandon's majestic dickery in THE PRINCESS BRIDE is nearly as impressive as it is in FRIGHT NIGHT.

Devotees of this site may recall my ode to the exquisite douchery of Chris Sarandon in FRIGHT NIGHT, and my repeated pleas that he be enshrined as a national treasure. It had been a decade at least since I'd last viewed THE PRINCESS BRIDE, and have to say that Sarandon's condescending, self-important portrayal of Prince Humperdinck ranks with the decade's douchiest villains.

And he's even got a fantastic sidekick in dickery (a side-dick, if you will), just as in FRIGHT NIGHT.
















Note crown.

Where before we had the inimitable Jonathan Stark, now we have Christopher Guest as the six-fingered, cruelly ridiculous, and ridiculously cruel Count Rugen.

Together, they're droppin' a Douchebomb on the Kingdom of Florin, and not even Cary Elwes may survive. It's a wonderful pair of absurd performances in a movie populated with potentially overshadowing attention-getters like Billy Crystal & Carol Kane in gnome makeup; a swashbuckling, scarred, Spanish-accented Mandy Patinkin; and Andre the goddamned Giant.

I salute you, Chris Sarandon and Christopher Guest, may your achievements live long in the beloved annals of cinematic bastardry.

Film Review: ALIEN NATION (1988, Graham Baker)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 91 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: James Caan, Mandy Patinkin (THE PRINCESS BRIDE, DEAD LIKE ME), Peter Jason (THEY LIVE, PRINCE OF DARKNESS), Terence Stamp (THE LIMEY, SUPERMAN II, THE HIT), Kevyn Major Howard (FULL METAL JACKET, DEATH WISH II, SUDDEN IMPACT), Leslie Bevis (SPACEBALLS, FALCON CREST). Special makeup effects by Stan Winston studios.
Tag-line: "Los Angeles, 1991. They have come to Earth to live among us. They've learned the language, taken jobs, and tried to fit it. But there's something about them we don't know. Prepare Yourself."
Best one-liner: "Don't take it personally. I'm a bigot."

Combine the slick, one-liner'd potboiler traditions of the buddy-cop flick and the socially-minded sci-fi of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and whaddya get? ALIEN NATION. Taking place in L.A. of 1991, the set-up (a genetically-engineered alien slave species has landed and partially integrated themselves to human society) lends itself to endless commentary on race, drugs, immigration, and all that jazz. Now some have criticized the film for the superficiality of its analysis, but I say: it ain't Richard Wright, and it doesn't have to be. It's more along the lines of Reagan's 3rd term, RAMBO VI getting released to theaters,

and a linguistic potpourri of euphemisms (i.e., "newcomers" instead of "second-class citizens"). No one's going to write their dissertation on this, but it’s still full of prescient little moments, and you still kinda purse your lips when an alien accuses our society of being incapable of living up to its ideals.

James Caan plays our bigoted hero. He channels the likes of Eastwood and Bronson as he looks upon everything alien-related with complete and utter disdain.


Of course, he's paired on a case with the first alien detective, played by the ever-exceptional Mandy Patinkin.

Oh yes. And basically every payoff that should ensue does, in fact, ensue- right down to the closing credits music of The Four Tops' "Indestructible," a post-racial ballad featuring lyrics like "We are brothers" and "Two hearts can beat as one." So despite the big-budget and Stan Winston makeup, we've got a little Cannon-style moxie goin' on. Regardless, the futuristic world constructed by the film is very logical and intricate (which led to a TV series, novels, and additional films), and a conspiracy is introduced which is not only satisfying, but it actually makes sense (!)- something of an achievement for the genre.

Terence Stamp plays our stately villain to a T,

Carpenter standby Peter Jason is a gleefully racist cop who's just asking for his nose to get busted ("Take a look at your dildo partner!"), David Bowie’s “Scary Monsters” is the house music at an alien dive bar, Mandy works in some impromptu a cappella singing (attaboy!- hey, he even managed to work it in on DEAD LIKE ME), and the aliens' preferred hooch is spoiled milk (which leads to chunky milk/Stoli drunken buddy bonding!).

Yup, this is the sort of thing that I really enjoy. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: DEAD LIKE ME- LIFE AFTER DEATH (2009, Stephen Herek)

Stars: 1.5 of 5.
Running Time: 87 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Director Stephen Herek (CRITTERS, BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS), Ellen Muth, Callum Blue, Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond on LOST), Christine Willes, Cynthia Stevenson, Jasmine Guy, Crystal Dahl.
Tag-lines: None.
Best one-liner: None.

In the DEAD LIKE ME pilot, there's a pivotal scene where Rube explains to George the realization that washes over you as you see your own corpse: "It’s like looking at a bowl of homemade peach cobbler you just dropped on the floor. As good as it might have been, you just don’t want it anymore." I was once extremely excited by the prospect of a DEAD LIKE ME movie, but now Rube's statement applies perfectly: no need to desecrate it any further; please take this mess away and give it a proper burial.


They even waste Henry Ian Cusick.

The original series worked so well because of the characters. When we first met each of our protagonists, they were presented as something of a caricature (Roxy the badass, Mason the druggie, Daisy the ingenue, Dolores the lackey), but as the series continued, the excellent writing and acting gave each of these comedic archetypes extraordinary depth. Dolores was transformed from office sycophant to a sweet, motherly force; Daisy went from icy bitch to a somber woman whose motivations you completely understood. Each and every character (even Kiffany!) metamorphosed into something wonderfully complex, and in the process became truly beloved; the sort of achievement that serialized storytelling always aims for, but rarely attains.

LIFE AFTER DEATH (in addition to replacing 'Daisy' with a grotesque impersonator) takes everything back to square one. Everyone's a cardboard cut-out of their former selves; not possessing even a shred of depth or dignity.

What doesn't belong here?


Meet the new 'Daisy'....


...and the new 'UnGeorge.'


Whuttttt?!

Rube (Mandy Patinkin), the show's true anchor, is MIA (maybe he read the script?), as is the poignant Stewart Copeland score. There's no Waffle Haus, or ANY original locations, which had almost become characters themselves. The relationship between George and Reggie (does she know that her sister is undead?), which was beautifully tip-toed around for 2 seasons, finds “resolution” with some of the most hamfisted bullshit I have even seen.  Everybody involved deserved a lot better.