benjamnsnchezsblog

Oh dear. Oh, my eyes … they're not … working right. And there's something eating its way through my brain! I think it's…

Holy crap, it's Heartbeeps!

(Cue hazy flashback sequence.)

It's January of 1982 and my sister and I trudge off for our Saturday afternoon matinee at the AMC Leo Mall Twin Theater. Through the snow and nasty Philadelphia wind… To the box office…

"Two for Heartbeeps, please."

We enter the comfy confines of the darkened movie theater, not really surprised to find that we have the massive auditorium all to ourselves. We yell at each other a few times just because we're not supposed to yell in movie theaters — but we're the only ones here.

My sister turns to me and asks why we're seeing this particular movie. Already a desperately helpless movie geek at the age of ten, I turn to her and say "It's got Latka from Taxi and the pretty blonde lady from The Jerk. And it's about robots."

And then, for the next 72 minutes, I was treated to one of my very first film-critic lessons: That while some movies are good and some are bad — there are some that are so amazingly bad that even a ten-year old can see it.

Heartbeeps was one of the very first movies I actively hated. I remember thinking how stupid an idea it was to take two funny people, wrap them up in ugly plastic, and then force them to talk like robots for 75 minutes. Even at ten years old, which is when I liked pretty much every movie, I acknowledged Heartbeeps for the massively chintzy, painfully unfunny, and desperately boring film it was.

Flash forward 20 years later; I hold the DVD of Heartbeeps in my hand. I feel a strange sense of deja vu generally unseen outside of an X-Files episode. So I crack the plastic and spin the disc.

Hoo boy, folks. Hoo. Boy. You wanna talk bad movies? Bad, malformed, interminably, aggressively, astonishingly bad movies? Rent this one and be sure to sit at least six feet from your TV screen. The Garbage Pail Kids Movie? Masters of the Universe? Super Mario Bros.? Freakin' child's play.

Heartbeeps is a romantic robot comedy in which Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters are coated in five layers of plastic & paint, asked to shuffle around a field somewhere, and occasionally speak out loud. The story is supposed to be about how two adult robots manage to fall in love, but you'll be too busy yanking your teeth out with a pliers to catch many of the subtler nuances.

Sort of a rambling road-trip thing, Heartbeeps also offers a Henny Youngman-style robot called Catskil (jokes for the tots, right?), a goofy little baby robot thingamajig, and a mini-tank called Crimebuster who wants to catch the other robots and blow things up.

Humiliated humans in the cast include Randy Quaid, Christopher Guest, Michelle Mayron, Dick Miller, Mary Woronov, and Kenneth McMillan. They all look as embarrassed to be in this movie as I was to be watching it. The jokes are atrocious, the performances are jaw-droppingly sad, the (Oscar-nominated!) special effects look like outtakes from that Robot Wars show you secretly watch on PBS, and get this: Heartbeeps features a musical score from none other than John Williams! And it's probably the lamest score he's ever done!

Heartbeeps was slapped together in a hurry, so as to piggy-back on the droid craze kick-started by R2 & 3P0, reportedly gutted by Universal prior to its theatrical release, and dumped into the laps of disinterested moviegoers at the tail end of 1981. It now exists only as a movie-geek curioisity ("Andy Kaufman? Randy Quaid? John Williams??"), and it's one that should be tackled by those with hardy dispositions. Heartbeeps is not only as mawkish and abysmal as I remember; it's actually (somehow) worse.

And just like any infamously awful movie that's over 20 years old, Heartbeeps has its own little cult of supporters, folks who somehow have an affection for this malformed mass of stupidity. To those folks I say: Huzzah, the DVD is here! You can now commence ruining your childhood memories with just one fresh look at the thing.

It's a cold and snowy New Year's Eve in Detroit as major crime figure Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne) is being transported by policemen across town with other, lesser criminals. The snow khamsin forces their trash to detour to the Administer Department's Precinct 13 building, which is closing down for re-location. The officers are planning a farewell party, combined with New Year's Eve and reluctantly lock up the prisoners. But when black vans liberate a group of SWAT-like operatives at the structure, led by important cause Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne), the Precinct's senior political appointee, Sergeant Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) learns that Bishop's pending testimony against corrupt cops has put them all in deadly danger. Now, the crime boss and the cop must make an effort to go together -along with the motley crew in the building - just to survive the unresponsive and deadly round-the-clock.

Sole of the biggest challenges in the service of writers revamping functioning thrillers made anytime before the mid 90s is the bloody mobile phone. It has punched a dent in many retread scripts, and Precinct 13 is another casualty. Unless you totally restructure the script to detect allowances on the digital phone years, you're snookered as paralysed a progress as credibility goes. In 1976, when the original was made, if the phone lines were mow (by man or nature), there were no alternatives. In 2004, every self respecting crim, not to mention a psychatrist and a twisted cop, has at least one unstationary phone.

Putting that untimely oversight aside, the picture boasts an excellent shy working their hearts out. Ethan Hawke, playing a tortured cop whose feloniousness beside an earlier undercover operation's deadly culminate is invoked to perform him some demons, parlays this Roenick character into a suitably tormented figure under the control of pain.

Laurence Fishburne brings the good of ballast to his character as felony boss Marion Bishop (what's in a name?) as Gene Hackman might, occupied of authority and charisma. Gabriel Byrne is also effective as the ice hearted baddie, with Brian Dennehy making the most of the veteran cop with great wells of fire scorching beneath his regimentals.

The two central female characters (Maria Bello and Aisha Hinds) are given plenty to do, and the action is well paced. The action would also be receive, if only cinematographer Robert Gantz had insisted on shooting it all without the hand held mould. It's evident from the 'tripod' shots that he can descend a background, frame and move the camera, but when he takes up the round of applause held camera for close-knit up action and ruckus sequences, he does a disservice to the film. Some of the pass out held pans stop up looking like home videos made by an over-hearty P of a late digital camera. The fad is extinct; let it rest.

Yet another flaw to overlook; until the climactic scenes of the protagonists battling it out, both in atypical advance terms and in simple action heroics. All is sedately until the undertaking moves outside the Precinct building and we find ourselves in a veritable forest, seemingly adjacent to this New Zealand urban area obstacle. It's no medial city park, as the final shot would have us suppose, but if you can forgive all its trespasses, Attack on Precinct 13 may enjoy enough gritty strength, SWATy gunplay and smart dialogue, tense stand offs and adroit letter insights to content you as the week's Saturday Darkness Special.
0
1
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
(MA)
(US, 2004)
Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Brian Dennehy, Gabriel Byrne, Ja Bypass, Maria Bello, Aisha Hinds
Pascal Caucheteux, Jeffrey Silver, Stephane Sperry
Jean-François Richet

SCRIPT:
James DeMonaco (John Carpenter, integument 1976)

CINEMATOGRAPHER:
Robert Gantz

EDITOR:
Bill Pankow

MUSIC:
Graeme Revell

PRODUCTION DESIGN:
Paul D. Austerberry

UNINTERRUPTED TIME:
109 minutes

AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR:
UIP

AUSTRALIAN RELEASE:
March 31, 2005

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ORIGIN HOST:

78.47.125.158

TARGET HOST:

ae.philly.com

TARGET PAGE:

/entertainment/ui/philly/movie.html?id=61280&reviewId=8477

Copyright © 2001-2008 NeuStar, Inc.

As Thompson, a former horse breeder, tells filmmaker Michele Ohayon in the
fascinating and distinctly politically incorrect documentary "Cowboy del
Amor,'' the horse business and the woman business are a lot alike. If you can
peddle one, you can peddle the other.

His clients are lonely Americans in the market for Mexican wives, whom the
men hope will be more docile than their compatriots. Thompson, who bills
himself as the Cowboy Cupid, is the go-to guy, who's paid $3,000 to make the
introductions. His Spanish is passable; but more important, he knows the
territory.

When he was in the market to marry, he placed an ad in a Juarez newspaper
and was deluged with responses. Thompson's marital history — he twice
married and divorced the same woman he met this way — doesn't exactly
inspire others to emulate him. But he's a born entrepreneur who used the
experience to develop contacts up and down Mexico's border towns.

There aren't very many documentary subjects who can hold the screen simply
by nattering on. Robert McNamara is one. Thompson is no McNamara, and "Cowboy
del Amor'' is no "Fog of War.'' But there is something hypnotic about this
self-styled romance expert expounding on the fog of love. His commonsense
approach resonates more than the gobbledygook to be found in most self-help
books. And since "Cowboy del Amor'' ends with two weddings, he seems
particularly worth hearing out.

His modus operandi is to bring a client to a Mexican town and help him
place a "Wife Wanted'' ad. A truck driver, Rick, puts a lot of importance on a
woman's build, specifying that she weigh no more than 130 pounds. Thompson sits
in on the first interview. Afterward, he berates Rick for mentioning that he
dumped his previous wife when she started going through the change of life. It
is bad form to bring up your ex to begin with, Thompson tells him, and
something is bound to be lost in translation when you start talking about
menopause.

Thompson insists on no sex at these introductory meetings. "I've never run
a whorehouse, and I don't want to insult the women,'' he explains, looking
earnestly into the camera.

American husbands are considered a catch in Mexico if for no other reason
than they provide entree into a country with a higher standard of living.
Accomplished professional women respond to the ads and don't make a beeline for
the door even when it's obvious that they have a lot more going for them than
the stranger across the table.

Ohayon, an Academy Award nominee for her documentary "Colors Straight
Up,'' stays very much in the background, keeping the camera on her subjects. In
a few instances, you can see the chemistry brewing almost immediately.

"Cowboy del Amor'' works best when Thompson is the conduit instead of the
main focus. Too much of the film is devoted to his failed love life. While it's
reassuring to know he's stayed friends with his former wife, shots of them
together are irrelevant to the film's ostensible subject matter. More
information about his track record, such as how many of the marriages he
arranged have stuck, is needed to evaluate his credentials. You're left
wondering at the end about what becomes of the women after they say their "I
do's."

It doesn't bode well when one of Thompson's satisfied customers insists
that he's not going to learn Spanish and his wife isn't going to learn English,
so they won't fight. That they also won't be able to talk to each other is an
unsettling thought.

– Ruthe Stein

'Shut Yer Dirty Little Mouth!'

Directed by Robert Taicher. With Glenn Shadix, Gill Gayle, Robert Musgrave.
(Not rated. 75 minutes. At the Roxie in San Francisco and Elmwood in Berkeley.)

Real-life San Franciscans Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman, who both died
in the '90s, have become underground heroes thanks to neighbors' recordings of
their howling, drunken rants; endless verbal abuse; threats; and occasional
knockdown brawls at their digs in the lower Haight.

CDs of their "discussions" gained an international following and became a
play, "Shut Up! Little Man," which served as the basis for this movie.

Fittingly, it's an unpolished, shoestring production, an amazing flow of
vodka-fueled invective and obscenity. It's a real wallow in the urban depths,
but highly repetitious and grindingly petty. We're a far cry here from "Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

As to the ethics of secretly recording these guys, the movie makes it
clear that eventually they became aware of the microphones (which also raises
the question of how much of what we hear was truly spontaneous). Even so, the
viewer may wind up feeling queasy about eavesdropping.

I imagine we're supposed to marvel at the incredible absurdity of what we
hear, then see the underlying humanity of it — but in the end it's just
depressing. Still, there appears to be a market for this stuff: Various Pete
and Ray CDs, T-shirts, comics, etc., are available on the Internet.

For the record, Pete and Ray are played by Glenn Shadix ("Beetlejuice")
and Gill Gayle, and Robert Musgrave portrays a drinking buddy who drops by
occasionally. Robert Taicher directed.

– Advisory: Contains raw language, plus depictions of sexual situations
and physical violence.

– Walter Addiego

'Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea'

Documentary. Directed by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer. (Not rated.
70 minutes. At the Red Vic and Tuesday and Wednesday at the Rafael Film Center
in San Rafael.)

Beaches crowded with rotting fish. Abandoned nightclubs. Empty trailer
parks baking in the 120-degree heat.

Sound like an idyllic vacation spot?

Depends on whom you ask.

The Salton Sea, a vast, stagnant lake — the largest in California —
is worlds away from the tony resort town of Palm Springs, which is only 50
miles to the north. Although the lake may be slowly dying, it is still beloved
by a motley bunch of eccentrics who are profiled in the highly entertaining
documentary "Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea."

Narrated by John Waters, the film focuses on characters who wouldn't be
out of place in one of the cult director's trashier movies. One old man who has
found his bliss by the lake spends his days waving to motorists while holding a
"love peace" sign. The only thing protecting him against the blazing sun is his
white tennies. The unofficial mayor of Bombay Beach, a Hungarian emigrant named
Hunky Daddy, rambles unintelligibly about his "beautiful life" while swigging
beer and dropping his pants for passers-by.

To their credit, directors Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, both of San
Francisco, poke gentle fun at the locals without ridiculing them. The film's
playful spirit is underscored by catchy steel-guitar melodies (courtesy of the
Friends of Dean Martinez) that perfectly suit the bone-dry setting.

The Salton Sea was once a popular resort destination for vacationers and
celebrity guests, rivaling Palm Springs. Footage from the good old days (the
1950s and '60s) shows beaches packed with giddy swimmers, boaters, fishers and
water-skiers. That was long before, as Waters wryly observes, the lake became
"a beautifully awful paradise."

The sea began as a mistake. As archival images and creative graphics in
the documentary show, flooding of the diverted Colorado River caused the
below-sea level Salton Sink to fill in 1905. Runoff from irrigation has
sustained a water supply ever since. Over time, however, that runoff has
increased salinity levels enough to kill fish — on one summer day in the
1990s, 7.6 million of them went belly up, creating a stench that must have
chased away even the most famished alley cats.

All that saline solution may have something to do with the salty
individualists who populate the sea's shores and are resistant to proposed
changes that would cause the lake to shrink. "It's the greatest sewer the world
has ever seen," says one die-hard denizen. "Leave it that way."

– John McMurtrie

Revenge has on all occasions been a fruitful theme for storytellers of every stripe, but film adds a visceral thrill to a permissible tale. The Three Marias (As tres Marias) adds another entrant to the ranks of cineamtic vengeance-intriguing, this time hailing from Brazil. The story is a given of frustrated lover and its consequences, as Firmino Santos Guerra, spurned by the love of his life, Filomena, takes out his displease by stroke of luck her husband and two sons in terrifying fashion. Filomena, upon hearing the news, decides to seek bloody vengeance. She may clothed lost her sons, but she also has three daughters, the women of the title.

After the funeral, Filomena informs her daughters that they are each to seek out a hitman; the hitmen require invoke occasion her the heads of Firmino and his two sons, who participated in the killings as marvellously. Maria Francisca, the eldest, is sent to hire Zé das Cobras, who, as you may have surmised from the name, uses snakes to still, not to praise as a essential eats source and clothing style. And he has a really cool name. Maria Rosa is sent after Tenorio, a chief of police who's a whiz with a blade. The youngest, Maria Pia, gets the most deranged of the bunch, Jesuino Cruz, a multiple assassin known to his fans as "The Devil's Horse."

The three women accept their missions, and even in their funeral clothes, pressure off to their respective destinations. Before you ask, it is on no occasion explained why Filomena has ample consciousness of hitmen in the region, and it really isn't the sort of film where you severely expect an answer to the question. Anyway. The three women reach their targets, but each finds that things are not so simple. Zé das Cobras is obsessed with the tale of Adam and Evening and consequently refuses to temperate beg to a woman, forcing the use of an intermediary. Tenorio has been out hunting a extreme dog that has been terrorizing the community, and he has contracted rabies from it. "The Devil's Horse" happens to be in jail.

It should not come as much of a surprise if I know scold you that each of the Marias finds their task veering away from any expected conclusion. The idea of kismet is thrown around by Filomena, but she doesn't realize until it's too most recent that destiny isn't something that can be known ahead of time, if it even exists at all. The characters exist to fulfill the needs of the story rather than exemplify anything by themselves, and the story plays with the standard avenge scenario passably to crumbs entertaining cranny of. The film treads a line between black comedy and grit fairly well, and it has a stylish, colorful look to it.

This is film making as a branch of the sweetmeats trade, and the pack is so enticing that two will agitation there the jerky machinations of the plot.

Quite apart from the general air of bubbling elegance, the pic is intensely funny. The yocks are almost entirely the responsibility of Peter Sellers, who is perfectly suited as a clumsy cop who can hardly move a foot without smashing a vase or open a door without hitting himself on the head.

The Panther is a priceless jewel owned by the Indian Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale), vacationing in the Swiss ski resort of Cortina. The other principals are introduced in their various habitats, before they converge on the princess and her jewel.

Sellers' razor-sharp timing is superlative, and he makes the most of his ample opportunities. His doting concern for criminal wife (Capucine), his blundering ineptitude with material objects, and his dogged pursuit of the crook all coalesce to a sharp performance, with satirical overtones.

David Niven produces his familiar brand of debonair ease. Robert Wagner has a somewhat undernourished role. Capucine, sometimes awkward and over-intense as if she were straining for yocks, is nevertheless a good Simone Clouseau.

1964: Nomination: Best Original Music Score

Orca (1977)

Jaws
left in its wake scads toothless imitators (

Tentacles

,
Piranha

,

Alligator

,

Jaws II

,

III

and IV), none more pretentious and amusing than the whopping existential whale's slander

Orca

(1977). Orca the Jack the ripper whale (represented here for the most imply by a monster, watching eye) is evasion to avenge the death of his mate and unborn toddler at the hammy hands of overactor unexcelled Richard Harris. Orca should prepare landed his own TV series after this, for he's so playful when he's mad: he sinks boats, eats extras, burns down the sets, uses Harris as a human pinball between bubble rubber icebergs, and–ostensibly fed up with all the bad acting on shore–bites Bo Derek in two. Was

Flipper

ever this much send up? Charlotte Rampling issues grim warnings while modeling one designer dud after another (The Whalewatch Collecting perhaps?), while Will Sampson intones seventies-clearly mumbo-huge connected with Geezer vs. Nature. You'll root for Orca to kill them all.