Noirvember: Night Moves (1975)

While I often spend my time trying, hopelessly, to catch up on many of the bigger movie titles that I have somehow avoided over the years, some of those films feel a bit more notable than others. Night Moves was something I have been aware of ever since knowing the term “neo-noir”, but I just hadn’t ever got around to watching the thing. That has finally changed now, and (as is so often the case) I wish I had seen this years ago.

It’s an absolutely classic premise, in many ways. Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a detective tasked with locating a young woman named Delly (Melanie Griffith). This brings him into contact with Delly’s troublesome boyfriend (played by James Woods), a couple of stunt performers, before he eventually finds her living with her stepfather, Tom (John Crawford), and his girlfriend, Paula (Jennifer Warren). Things become more complicated as Harry investigated further, and the case he has been hired for may actually lead to him stumbling on to something much more dangerous.

Written by the immensely talented Alan Sharp (I haven’t got time to list everything in his filmography but I highly recommend the two most recent feature films that he worked on, for starters), Night Moves is an entertaining crime drama that leads viewers, slowly but surely, into increasingly dark waters. The first half is full of cynicism and bitterness laced with humour, but the finale removes any of the mirth. Viewers will root for Harry, mainly because it is always easy to root for Gene Hackman (even when he isn’t being a very nice guy), but it’s also easy to see that things may not lead to a satisfying conclusion for many, or any, of the main characters.

Director Arthur Penn also has a filmography well worth your time, although maybe focus on the ‘60s and ‘70s when exploring his back catalogue, and he makes great use of all his assets here. The script, the cast, the cinematography that moves between sunshine and shadows with equal clarity, the pacing of the unfolding plot, and a third act that cuts through everything that preceded it with unwavering commitment.

Hackman has always been superb onscreen, but this is one of his best roles. He’s a smart man who may sometimes be too smart for his own good, but he’s also quite selfish and blinkered (in a way that he feels is necessary for his job). Griffith is a delightful presence in her few scenes, and Warren has a chemistry with Hackman that has you sensing an extra complication due to arise. Crawford is fine, Woods perfectly embodies the kind of young guy that Hackman would dismiss as a punk, and there are excellent supporting turns from Susan Clark (playing the neglected wife of our “hero”), Anthony Costello and Edward Binns (two stuntmen who may be involved in something suspicious), and Janet Ward (the woman who hires Harry to find her daughter).

One of the films often mentioned by people who revere the seventies as the greatest ever decade for cinema (it’s undoubtedly great, and with a notable sea change at certain points, but every decade has highs and lows), Night Moves is a gritty classic, more effective because of the lightness of touch throughout the first half of the movie. I would highly recommend it to everyone, but I also suspect that everyone else has already seen it.

10/10

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Scary Movie 2 (2001)

After the success of Scary Movie everyone knew that a sequel was going to happen. I'm not sure if many people thought the thing would become a money-making franchise, but the sequel was definitely coming, whether we liked it or not. Keenen Ivory Wayans returned to direct and the script was whipped into shape by no less than SEVEN writers. Seven writers and this is the best that they came up with? Someone needs to change job, in my opinion.

Starting off with a fairly amusing spoof of The Exorcist, made all the better thanks to a fantastic cameo from James Woods, the whole thing swiftly moves on to parody numerous haunted house movies. The Haunting, The Legend Of Hell House, The Changeling, What Lies Beneath, Poltergeist and . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hollow Man and Charlie's Angels all find themselves on the receiving end of some unsubtle spoofery. A group of young folks - Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Kathleen Robertson, Tori Spelling, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Christopher Masterson - all head out to a big, slightly spooky house as part of a school project. While there, they are also in the company of their professor (Tim Curry), his wheelchair-bound assistant (David Cross) and a strange house servant (Chris Elliott) with a deformed left hand. Oh, and the ghosts. They're also in the company of a lot of ghosts.

When I first watched Scary Movie 2 I thought it was one of the worst movies that I'd ever seen. I wasn't far wrong, and it's certainly not a film I would recommend to anyone, but I must admit that I do manage to get a few giggles from it when rewatching it nowadays. The opening section is particularly fun, but then it starts to go downhill fast.

The franchise gets a fair bit of goodwill from me thanks to the inclusion of Anna Faris and Regina Hall, both funny women who always try to make the best of the material. This is, however, offset by the fact that Shawn Wayans plays the most annoying character, Shorty, in any comedy franchise that I can think of. The rest of the cast here do okay, with the exception of Chris Elliott, who is the SECOND most annoying character in any comedy franchise.

Once again mixing crude gags amongst the spoof moments, and once again including a pop culture reference outdated within years of its release (this time it's a GAP advert), this should appeal to fans of the first movie, but even they might see sense and decide to skip it in favour of other instalments in the franchise.

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scary-Movie-Collection-DVD/dp/B001ECPV6Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1377373211&sr=8-11&keywords=scary+movie

Vampires (1998)

"Well first of all, they're not romantic. It's not like they're a bunch of fuckin' fags hoppin' around in rented formal wear and seducing everybody in sight with cheesy Euro-trash accents, all right? Forget whatever you've seen in the movies: they don't turn into bats, crosses don't work. Garlic? You wanna try garlic? You could stand there with garlic around your neck and one of these buggers will bend you fucking over and take a walk up your strada-chocolata WHILE he's suckin' the blood outta your neck, all right? And they don't sleep in coffins lined in taffata. You wanna kill one, you drive a wooden stake right through his fuckin' heart. Sunlight turns 'em into crispy critters." 

Many point to Vampires as "Evidence A" in the case against John Carpenter having any kind of film-making talent left in him (with Ghosts Of Mars, of course, being "Evidence B") and there was a time, not too long ago, when I would have agreed with that. It would have saddened me, as I'm a huge Carpenter fanboy, but it would have been impossible to argue against.

Not any more.

Vampires is a messy movie with plenty of failings, but it's far from the unwatchable mess that many people try to label it. In fact, it's actually a lot of fun in places and benefits from an enjoyable opening segment and a grand finale bookending the weaker content in the middle.

James Woods stars as Jack Crow, a tough and skilled vampire slayer who works for the Catholic Church, leading his team into dangerous places to stake bloodsuckers and rid the world of the vampire menace, one nest at a time. Unfortunately, a particularly powerful master (Valek, played by Thomas Ian Griffith) doesn't like that situation and he turns up to spoil the party, killing the vast majority of Crow's group in one sequence of entertaining carnage. Crow is even more motivated than he was before to kill off every single vampire that he can, for his own revenge and also to stop Valek in his quest for . . . . . . . . . whatever it is that he seems to be looking for. Perhaps the church knows more than it's letting on. With the help of his colleague Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) and a young woman (Sheryl Lee) who was bitten by Valek, Crow sets out to destroy the biggest threat that he's yet faced.

It's got music by John Carpenter, there's a Western vibe to the whole thing and a couple of scenes feature a number of practical gore effects that work really well (including, most notably, a great kill within mere seconds of Valek crashing the party being held by Crow's group). It's far from classic Carpenter - the cinematography isn't as gorgeous, for one thing, and there's far too much crossfading - but it's a solid bit of fun.

Don Jakoby adapted the novel by John Steakly. Many who have read the source material say that it's much better, and I can't help feeling that Carpenter missed a chance to really mix things up a bit and bring a fresh spin to the vampire sub-genre, but the film has enough decent moments and good one-liners throughout (spat out by Woods, for the most part) to raise it just above average.

James Woods chews up every line and spits it out with hilarious effect and the movie is all the better for it. Daniel Baldwin may spend the entire movie reminding viewers of why he's not the A-list star that Alec is, but he does okay. Sheryl Lee isn't the best actress in the world, but she tries her best in a pretty thankless role and she's certainly easy on the eye. Tim Guinee is a lot of fun as Father Adam Guiteau, the priest who will help Crow on his quest when Crow isn't trying to beat up on him and find out just what secrets the church is keeping. People playing the bad guys often have the most fun and Thomas Ian Griffith certainly seems to be enjoying himself each time he appears to cause some death and destruction. Maximilian Schell plays Cardinal Alba and other small roles are filled by Mark Boone Junior, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Gregory Sierra and other people with names less familiar to me.

Don't expect anything like classic Carpenter, that pretty much goes without saying, but give this a watch (or a re-watch) at some point and you might be surprised to find that it's fairly enjoyable. If you think I'm mad for holding that opinion, just wait until I finally revisit Ghosts Of Mars and try to defend that.

6/10

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