Flicks to Hold You Over Archived Columns: 2002 Reviews 2003 Reviews 2004 Reviews

"Last Man Standing"

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

Back in the early years of my obsession of all things WW2 era (big band, history, art and films) there was one television show that provided a brief interlude once a week. “Moonlighting” staring Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd as David Addison and Mattie Hayes was a phenomenal hit and put the two co-stars on the celestial charts of Hollywood. It brought back good powerful writing into fashion. The on-screen relationship between Willis and Shepherd is similar to that of William Powell and Merna Loy of the Thin Man series back in the 30’s and 40’s.

Word was that the reason why there weren’t as many episodes each season, as with other series, were the hefty scripts which were full of witty dialog and plot twists. Yea… this show did have heft and plot; more so then some of the other movies released the years “Moonlighting” was on the air.

One of my favorite episodes was a great “What if”. Mattie and David pondered what really happened in an unsolved case from the 1940’s. Willis and Shepherd played the parts of the couple involved. Shepherd was a night club singer, Willis a Philip Marlow type hard-boiled detective.

While it was by far one of the best episodes of the season, I was praying for the false gods of Hollywood’s divine intervention that somehow the rating for that episode would go through the roof and the rest of the series would be in black and white, set  in 1940’s Los Angeles.

What impressed me about the Philip Marlow-esqe episode of “Moonlighting” was Willis’ timeless performance. The man he portrayed in that black and white episode was similar to the one he portrayed every other week, with the exception of being more cool and withdrawn. It’s a subtlety I doubt many other actors, with the exception of Harrison Ford, could pull off.

I hoped that someday we would see a motion picture along the same line of that episode, or, once Moonlighting was over, a series similar to that episode would be made. While that series never materialized, Stacey Keach played a modern fedora wearing detective on CBS’s “Mickey Spillain’s Mike Hammer” in the late 80’s and Powers Boothe played Phillip Marlow on HBO around the same time. It wasn’t until a few years ago that my wish of seeing Willis in a similar adventure to that “Moonlighting” Episode came true.

It was more then a decade later.  A friend of mine was surprised to see that out of the few DVD’s I own already I had already bought “The Untouchables” (future Flick to tie you over?) and yet I didn’t have “Last Man Standing”. To be honest, I had yet to see it since I heard it received poor reviews, which is odd… since I usually avoid reading reviews when I like the premise of a film and the way the trailers look.  Many times, I’ve disagreed with critics.  Some of the most critically acclaimed movies are ones that nearly put me to sleep. “Portrait of a Lady” comes to mind.

I bought the Last Man Standing DVD on a cold Saturday night while desperately looking for something from my favorite era.  It was a night that I was desperate for atmosphere, men in suits and fedoras with loud guns… good men doing right by stopping bad men trying to do wrong… and this movie fits the bill, almost exactly!

Willis plays the part of a man, a drifter with a shadowy past during prohibition. John Smith arrives to a town, broke, down to his last dollar and just finishes his last swallow of whiskey. Learning that there are two rival gangs in this town he quickly learns the players names and rules and plays both sides for the most dollars. Along the way, he picks up only two allies: the sheriff, Ed Galt  played by Bruce Dern and “Newheart” alumni William Sanderson ... as Joe Monday the saloon and inn keeper, (Sanderson seems to play the same parts from “Lonesome Dove” mini-series and “Blade Runner”…)

Willis’ character really has only a few redeeming qualities. He is perhaps one of the best two fisted shot I’ve seen on screen in recent memory, he has a soft spot for women in distress (the reason why it seems, that he always ends up broke), and, like our favorite screen hero, Willis’ John Smith has a soft spot for his fedora… a gray, narrow brimmed Fedora with a charcoal band. Despite the graphic sex scene, there is only one truly powerful and beautiful love scene when John Smith goes back to his hotel room toward the end of the motion picture and puts his hat back on before going out and kicking some serious ass… it’s a love scene that touches at the heart of all true gearheads everywhere. It’s the kind of love affair that has been written about endlessly on my favorite forum, Club Obi-Wan on IndyGear.com; where a man has to do what he has to do but not until the man retrieves his favorite lid… It’s the kind of love that only true fedora or cowboy hat wearers understand, but I’m getting ahead of my self.

Last Man Standing is supposed to be a remake of Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic “Yojimbo”, which I can only assume is correct even though I’ve never seen it... But what I can say is that there are times when I’ve watched this I’ve thought that maybe the makers of this film had more “Raiders” (but with out any treasure) in mind. This is fine, since George Lucas has said on countless occasions on how Kurosawa inspired him in the past (If anything, Star Wars- Episode IV: A New Hope is a remake of Kurosawa’s “Hidden Fortress”.)

There are a few other stand out performances besides those previously mentioned. Christopher Walken as the henchman Hickey , again… another Indiana Jones wanna-be (Walken was considered for the roll of a brash swashbuckler pilot in the Lucas remake of the aforementioned “Hidden Fortress”). Regardless that his character is perhaps creepy enough to rival Anthony Hopkins most famous roll, you can’t help but want to root for a guy who’s attire closely matches that of the elder Dr Jones in “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”.

Basically, what is “Last Man Standing”? It’s hardly a morality tail. Although like Temple of Doom, Jones ends the adventure with little to show for besides a few new scars and burn hole through his bag, Smith leaves town a bit more broke and battered but has the satisfaction of doing some good. Smith does a great job of cleaning up the town while in the process of wrecking a quarter of it, not unlike Jones... “Last Man Standing” is either a western or a gangster movie… or a gangster movie filmed on location of a Western movie… perhaps left-overs from “The Quick and The Dead” staring Sharon Stone.

If anything, the movie can be best described as one long “Raven” bar fight, right down to the shoot out at the burning building out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps my wife did say it best when she said “ “Last Man Standing” really isn’t much of a movie. It’s a man in a perfectly blocked fedora shooting people endlessly.” For Indy fans waiting for the next big thing from George, Steven, Harrison and John… that’s good enough to hold us over through one more cold Saturday night when we’re craving some atmosphere, men in suits and fedoras, and loud guns.

Purchase 'Last Man Standing' @ Amazon.com: DVD & VHS

"The Wrath of Khan"

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

I’m going on a limb here as I set out to write my next review by featuring a motion picture outside the normal boundaries of my usual criteria. Usually I only review movies that were either the inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark, inspired by Raiders, or in someway capture the essence of adventure and discovery. One of my major boundaries is that all the movies I review must either take place in the decades leading up to, during or after World War 2. If not, the movies must take place in the here and now. I vowed never to review Science Fiction movies that take place in the future in fear of breaking the Raiders Karma. The whole idea of “flicks to hold you over” is to find movies that remind you of the bare bones, threadbare, gimmick free exploits during a time when men wore suits and hats… not polyester jumpers and molded aluminum fittings. To repent of breaking my vow, instead of a few “Our Fathers” a few more “Hail Mary’s” and a Novenas; I’ll do 3 Humphrey Bogart’s, All the Thin Man’s and the two Tom Clancy movies starring Harrison Ford. (I’ll even do Hanover Street if I can find a copy to refresh my memory.)

Anyway… both Wrath of Khan and Raiders bare quite a few similarities and were both released from Paramount a year apart, and both had F/X done by ILM. I know it’s a stretch…

The Background...

One of the other reasons why Wrath of Khan is because of the rich history… Much like Lucas and Spielberg, Gene Roddenberry was hooked on serial movies and SF pulp anthology magazines of his era. Roddenberry had it in his head that he would someday he would create a Science Fiction venue where he could tell morality tales. After work on a few movies and television shows, the World War II hero in the Army Air Corps, Pan-American pilot, police and freelance writer officer finally got the go-ahead for his own series that he sold as “’Wagon Train’ to the stars.” The rest of his story is a study on how one man’s idea can become diluted then polluted by know-nothing studio executives whose only concern was selling commercial airtime and appeasing the censors. What could have been one of the greatest Television series using a starship as a metaphor for the American experience became a laughing stock about men in funky colored velour uniforms and cheep effects. If not that, then about obsessive rabid fans who trivialized the message by being preoccupied over factoids such as the combination to the captain’s safe.

Return to Its Essence...

After the success of “The Motion Picture” (good, not great) the studio pundits had the nerve to make another movie in the franchise. What would been the second and last movie, all the stops were pulled.  The thought was that If it was going to be the last time the crew would get together, everything that could have been done would now be done (short of an all out war with the metaphorical representatives of the Cold War Soviet Union, the Klingons).

I’ll spare you the elaborate story on how Nicholas Meyer took the helm, but it was his fresh approach to The Franchise as an outsider-turned-Director and as an unaccredited screenwriter (With Harve Bennett) that made the movie a classic. Not only did they make a classic, but also they saved the franchise. Meyer’s whole approach to the Franchise was to make The Wrath of Khan more like the real U.S. Navy; more like the “Horatio Hornblower” that was one of the original inspirations of Roddenberry’s. Unlike the previous movie, one could feel the cold depths of space; the starship feels more like the real thing and not just a set on the Paramount lot. With little extra detail, changes in lighting and new costumes, the whole experience feels more nautical.  What’s more, Meyer seemed to “get it” more then many of the people around him. Meyer had a better idea of what The Franchise was supposed to be, even though he had yet to meet Roddenberry until after they wrapped production.

The Wrath of Raiders Connection...

It wasn’t till someone pointed out to me that the first movie in this review bares some striking resemblance to Raiders. The first is about the search and recovery of an object like the Ark, an item of unspeakable power that has the ability of giving life or take it away on huge scale, and it even has a biblical name. The Lost Ark of this movie is the Geneses Device.

Wrath of Khan and Raiders also have a main character dealing with a reconcilable past, a long lost lover who returns into his life as part of the quest of the powerful artifact, at least one close steadfast companion/sidekick. (One of the reasons why both Spock and Sallah work as sidekicks is the simple fact neither are there for show or for laughs. If anything, they’re interracial parts of the story and the heroes may not have succeeded with out them.) While both objects are found after deductions that are both lucky and inspired genius, Both hero’s of these films are someone lovable losers who have the objects they’re chasing after stolen form them right after being recovered. Both movies climax with the incredible unavailing of the powerful and destructive forces, both movies end on Melancholy notes that still seem to inspire wonder. If anything, Wrath of Khan is the Naval Space Opera version of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Both Wrath of Khan and Raiders of the Lost Ark represent a better time for Paramount, a brief hey-day that would later prove to be one of the most successful periods of the Studio’s history.

Purchase 'The Wrath of Kahn' @ Amazon.com: DVD & VHS

"Across the Pacific"

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

In a world gone crazy with terrorist threats, elevated alert status and cover stories speculation who knew about what and when, it's good to just be able to step back and reflect to a time when the treat was just as real. But from the time this flick was filmed, the terror came from a fascist state from Europe and an Imperial regime in the pacific, not some obscure band of international criminals armed with a perverse idea of religion. Who would have thought back then that a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists would be more terrifying then book burning, goose stepping morons?

At least two of Bogart's movie fit in this Category of an American man fighting against a clandestine organization. "All through the Night" and the subject of this review: "Across the Pacific" is both two excellent movies he made under his contract with Warner Brothers during that era. "Across the Pacific" isn't as tongue and cheek as "All Through The Night", but reflects much of the adventure that may have inspired another franchise
many of us are interested in. Much as it is true today, the themes of these movies were relevant during the world war two era, American’s living back then were just as concerned about Fifth Columnists and outright spies taking advantage of America's open society to wreck havoc.

In one of the first spy motion pictures of it's time, Bogart plays Richard Leland, supposedly a disgraced Army officer who books passage on a Japanese boat docked in Canada heading towards The Panama Canal then through to Hawaii, then finally to the Philippines. Like Leland, NOBODY except the crew of the boat is what they seem to be. Bogart’s character isn’t the only double agent in this film. As the story unfolds and as you learn about the other people Leland shares this adventure with, there are opportunists and twisted foreign patriots fighting for a twisted cause. Even Mary Astor (the female lead, with Sidney Greenstreet is another carry over from another Bogart classic.) lies about her true identity and intentions...

Once the Japanese boat reached the Panama Canal and is denied access, the passengers disembark as the pieces of the plot fall into place. Through a pair of contacts, Leland gets a few more pieces of the puzzle and is given the go-ahead to continue with the charade of being a traitor. It’s only through luck and skill that after Leland uncovers the plot by the Japs to destroy the Panama Canal. It’s a good watch, regardless if slightly hokey and excessively patriotic.

AS the plot unravels, even with its light heartiness, there are times when the viewer stops and thinks, “This could be today, this could be headlines tomorrow.” This motion picture illustrates that even thought the dancers may have changed, the steps are still the same… as much as you plan and try and prevent a terrorist attack, there are still ways around almost all security measures.

For someone like myself, “Across the Pacific “ is for those of us you want more from movies such as Casablanca and The Maltase Falcon. There are nights that I crave Bogart films, I’m glad that I took a chance on this, one of his lesser films. For Indiana Jones fans, like myself and the founder of this site, any Humphrey Bogart film is a great way to spend an evening while waiting for Indy IV. Many times, Harrison Ford has been called the Humphrey Bogart of our generation… “Across the Pacific” reminds us that Bogart was the Harrison Ford of his era.

Purchase 'Across the Pacific' @ Amazon.com: VHS

"Casablanca"’s 60^th Anniversary

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

I got Goosebumps this morning when sent me a link to the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) website-, which is celebrating the 60^th anniversary of Casablanca’s release. I’m happy and amazed that the movie still endures. ‘As Time Goes by’… the motion picture pick’s up new fans each time it’s viewed. Two of the staff members here on TIE have told me how it’s profoundly affected them. The day after he saw it, Daniel “Idaho” Riser and I spoke about it via IM longer then it took him to watch it. That’s just one more testament to Casablanca’s mass appeal.

 Casablanca always shows up on every "Greatest Movies ever made" list for good reasons, despite the fact it was just one of the 50 movies Warner Brothers released that year. It wasn’t meant to be anything more then just the one they released for that particular week in 1942, but by the time the Oscars rolled around it was no surprise it took Best Picture. Earlier in my life, watching Casablanca was like being able to slow down and enjoy the same region of the world where Indy fought the assassin Arabs in the market place with before Marion was kidnapped. If anything in my narrow view, Rick’s Café was an upscale version of the bar where Indy and Renee argued after Marion was killed. (Trivia question- what was the name of the Bar?) Casablanca is more then just a location on the map used to set the scene for a World War II drama, it’s a story filled with political intrigue, heart break and sacrifice for a greater cause then one’s own self.

 I love Lucas and Spielberg’s work is that they don't rely too much on Special Effects to tell a story. (Which is ironic, since the two are responsible for F/X growth over the past 25 years.) The style of story telling in their films is extremely reminiscent of the older motion pictures that had nothing but plot to rely. So much of the Raiders inspiration can be found in the golden age of Warner Brothers, most notably Casablanca. Raiders of the Lost Ark owns a lot of it’s greatness to the fact that many of the scenes and gimmicks are homage’s’ to Casablanca and other films. One example of evidence on how Casablanca was the inspiration for Raiders is that all three Indy films have the clever map over-lay with the moving line signifying the traveling done Indy and his companions, same was featured in the prolog opening in Casablanca. Second, Many of the scene transitions and dissolves are taken from Casablanca.

 The scenes in the middle of Raiders does and excellent job of capturing the local texture that was also well illustrated in Casablanca, yet director Michael Curtiz didn’t have the luxury of filming on location (the only filming done off the studio lot that I’m aware of was done at the  “Metropolitan Airport", now known as "Van Nuys Airport" in L.A.) Spielberg was able to do things in Raiders on location that Casablanca director Michael Curtiz could only do with in the studio for budget and political reasons, and yet, the original seemed to do more with less. Even thought Casablanca is slower paced, there is just as much action and tension in the market scenes as there was in Raiders.

 Finally, Casablanca lends its character interaction to Raiders. The love triangle between Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa Lund and Paul Henreid’s Victor Laszlo can be found briefly in the exchange between Indy, Marion and Renee Belloq. No doubt, many of Harrison Ford’s inspiration for Jones could have been directly inspired from Bogart; one just needs to see the scene again where he’s sitting alone with the monkey after Marion’s death. Most if not all the characters have a layer of grit and history to them, despite being genuinely good- both Richard Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) and Indiana Jones have shady pasts and serious skeletons in their closets.

 With that said, there's really nothing new I can say about Casablanca that hasn't been said by older and wiser people then me in the past 6 decades. It’s one of my personal favorites, but I’m ashamed to say that if it wasn’t for Raiders of the Lost Ark, I wouldn’t have been that interested to see it when it was released on VHS in the mid-80’s. It’s simply one of the best movies ever made, one of the movies that’s responsible for the Raiders phenomenon, and as it celebrates it’s 60^th anniversary I’m sure it will endure for decades to come as a movie that endures on it’s own.

Purchase 'Casablanca' @ Amazon.com: DVD VHS

"Romancing the Stone"

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

Out of all the movies meant to cash in on the Indiana Jones phenomenon after Raiders of the Lost Ark, there’s really only one that wasn’t awful, and is quite memorable. Trying to remember all the other movies that tried to cash in on the Tour-de-force from Lucas, Spielberg, Ford and Williams, is like trying to remember the names of all the girls who I had casually dated in High School almost 20 years ago. It’s kind of funny, seeing how “Romancing The Stone” was homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark, while Raiders was homage to Republic serials and other films such as David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” and John Huston’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”

 Released the same year as “Temple of Doom”, “Romancing The Stone” perhaps captures just as much of the original feel of Raiders. Kathleen Turner’s Joan Wilder is a romance novelists lives vicariously through the characters she writes about in her books, who one day gets a treasure map from her recently murdered brother-in-law… meanwhile her sister’s held hostage by American grave-robbers in Columbia. The grave robbing brothers, Ira and Ralph (Zack Norman and Danny DeVito ,) simply want the map to the final treasure they want before they retire. Reluctantly, Joan Wilder leaves her comfortable shell in New York City with the map after a neighbor was murdered and her apartment is ransacked. In an attempt to deliver the map as ransom for her sisters life and in a series of comedic errors, she finds her self lost and abandoned in the jungles of Columbia, far from her final destination and at the mercy of mercenary Jack T Colton played by Michael Douglas. Colton is best described as being the type of character Lucas and Spielberg had originally envisioned Indiana Jones to be, a scoundrel mercenary with few scruples with a perpetual reluctance to take on charity cases.

 As a side note… this type of scenario was the topic of conversation in the forum section of IndyGear.com, after one of the fellow members was stuck in a South American City that was over-run with rebels. When I learned of his predicament, I desperately wanted to get on a plane with a few maps and plenty of firearms in an attempt to rescue him... which was a moot point after he rescued him self. Weeks afterwards when he was home and safe- I started a thread asking our fellow members what would we do and bring with us in the event we were thrust into a situation that was similar to what Turners character goes through or if our fellow member still needed rescuing. I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who would have joined me in a rescue effort if needed, and how the scenes in ““Romancing The Stone” ” illustrated what NOT to bring or how not to prepare yourself for such an occasion.

 Much of the fun is the chase through the jungle, ramshackle villages, chaises through dirt roads and down rivers, the search for buried treasure… all of which has been done well in Raiders and Temple. What makes “Romancing The Stone” unique is how everything that was done in Raiders is done differently. All the action is with modern equivalences; while highlighted with the developing relationship between Turner and Douglas. Not lost in the fun is the desperation of Joan Wilders plight through Turner’s performance and the cinematography, the sense of being lost in the jungles and the fear factor from the multiple brushes with death in every other scene.

 The end of the movie is pure cliché, leaving the door open for other adventures and sequels After seeing Joan and Jack grow as people and as a couple, the audience is enthusiastic to see them again. (The Follow-up to “Romancing The Stone” was “Jewel of the Nile” Good movie, this time Jack and Joan set out to find the “Jewel” while trying to foil an Arabian would-be tyrant. Not nearly as good as the first, and probably killed off the plans for more “Romancing” movies.)

 Directed by Steven Spielberg’s friend and frequent collaborator Robert Zemeckis, later collaborated with Spielberg to make “Back to the Future” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” Zemeckis later went on to film other great movies such as “Cast-away”, “Forrest Gump” and “Contact”, many of these films could be considered as other “Films to hold you over ‘till Indy 4”.

Purchase 'Romancing the Stone' @ Amazon.com: DVD VHS

"The Omen"

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

This week’s review is a hold over from last week, inspired by this site’s wonderful host and founder. Before Halloween, we were having a conversation on a grim morning with an overcast sky filled with the dark promise of more harsh unforgiving weather… a pal of gloom had overcome the Boston area.  Aaron asked me: “what horror flicks do you recommend?” Not having given him my review for “The Mothman Prophecies” yet, I mentioned that one with the title for this week’s review: “The Omen”…

I’ve joked in a few of the forums I contribute to that the next Indiana Jones movie should start with the discovery of a face painted in the cave close to where the Dead Sea scrolls were recovered. Near the portrait would read the words in ancient text: “Beware the Rise of the Beast”… The face being that of the new Secretary General of the United Nations, all in an obvious referenced to a scene in “The Omen”.

Not to give too much of the movie away, Gregory Peck plays a American Ambassador who’s wife gives birth to a boy, who were told the child been still-born. A Priest at the hospital offers a deal to Robert Thorn (Peck), since the other woman down the hall died while giving birth to a son of her own… why not just switch his dead for the living and leave it at that? Thorn reluctantly agrees. The rest of the movie is the tragic tale of how this decision has grave consequences for all.

While half the movie is a succession of horrific scenes that detail the fate of those who try to warn Thorn about the true nature of his adopted child, the other half shows Thorn traveling around Europe as he pieces together facts on what to do about this childish horror.

The biggest thrill for Indy Fans is that there is an archeologist who is responsible for uncovering both the artifacts and ritual on how to dispose of the child-antichrist. Obviously, we all wish that Harrison Ford played the archeologist, had more of an active roll and there was a title change to this movie: “Raiders of the Relics of Megiddo”. Maybe next time.

If you’ve already seen the other movie I’ve reviewed last week or are just looking for a classic thriller to pass away the nights leading up to next year’s Halloween, this is a perfect choice. The Omen has seeped somewhat into our cultural awareness, for example- when someone has a misbehaving child, often one would joke that they adopted “Damien”, the title character of this motion picture. What was supposed to be a movie cashing into the occult phenomenon after the success of “The Exorcist” a year or so earlier, The Omen stands out as a thriller of it’s own.  Although slightly dated for the time it was filmed 1973, Director Richard Donner took what must have been an over-the-top script and made it into a “Top Ten Horror Films of all time”. Donner was able to craft a vary human tale from this dark subject matter, and almost 30 years later “The Omen” is still one of the most intense motion pictures of its Genre.

Purchase 'The Omen' @ Amazon.com: DVD VHS

"The Mothman Prophecies"

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

Very little out of Hollywood scares me anymore.  Watching this movie on a windy rainy night... this frightened the heck out of me. The Mothman Prophesies is a movie that is more suspenseful then horror. Not once is there an ax swinging manic or knife wielding psycho, but the antagonist and the title character is far more terrorizing. And like every good scary movie, the monster doesn’t give up its secrets easily… if ever. That’s frightening enough, but as the movie opens with the text: “Based on Actual Events”, hairs are bound to stand up on the back of your neck.

The set up for this paranormal thriller is classic yet original. Richard Gere, surpassing all of his earlier performances as John Kline, a political analyst for the Washington Post, and skeptic at large. He and his wife, Mary (played by “Will and Grace’s” Deborah Messing,) have the perfect marriage and lives we all dream about having. That dream is cut short by a small car accident, which leads to a routine exam, which uncovers a not-so routine brain tumor. Mary Kline remembers seeing a horrific beast before the accident, which becomes her deathbed obsession. The visions, it seems, were just a symptom of the tumor. Before her death, Mrs. Kline leaves behind sketches of the visions, a horrific beast with sweeping wings that seem to be crafted from the black smoke billowing from hell, bright red piercing eyes that could cut through to your soul... 

After her death, Kline tries to move on, and one night two years later he sets out to take a two-hour trip to interview a state politician for his new paper. His car beaks down, if that’s not hard enough to deal with, he then finds out how much more time has past then thought, and he’s 6 hours away from his intended destination. Quickly, over the course of the next few days, he finds that those in the town of Point Pleasant, W.V. have had their own encounters with the same phantom his wife had seen before her death. To help keep Kline centered, he’s aided my one of the town’s police officers, Sgt. Connie Parker (Laura Linney). Parker adds weight and validity to the claims of the towns people by showing Kline the drawer filled with Mothman sightings that have been filed recently. Laura Linney’s performance is pretty terrific, “I’m scared as heck but I’ve got a job to do” is a gentle balance I don’t think too many actresses could pull off. 

The movie takes twists and turns while Klein pieces together past events while those around him continue to have eerie encounters. These eerie encounters cover the gambit of your typical scary/suspense cliché’s in fresh and terrifying ways through camera work, sound and visual effects and editing. As a movie that’s perfect for the Halloween season, the spirit is kept alive by not revealing or explaining too much what the creature is. In fact, as Kline seeks out Alexander Leek (Alan Bates), author of many books on similar sightings, we learn this horror has a long history dating back to cave paintings thousands of years ago. The movie ends in a catastrophic event, one of the many eerie events foretold by the Mothman. The movie ends in a cloud of mystery while leaving the door open for many more encounters with this phantom.

Lots of you reading this review would be scratching your head wonder why I would recommend this movie as a “Flick that will hold you over till ‘Indiana Jones and The Fourth Movie’”. For a movie to be considered as a recommendation, it must meet particular criteria. Such criteria includes the occult and biblical events. There are a few things that peaked my interest in this movie and thought this would be a perfect fit for Halloween for Indy fans. Not a huge fan of Richard Gere, but through out this movie I was reminded of the many times Jones would piece together ancient lore and current events to uncover the truth or a lost artifact. And as Raiders and The Last Crusade deal in biblical artifacts and events, The Mothman Prophesies dwells in that nether region of biblical verses that foreshadow events that had yet to unfold.

 To boil down the prophetic verse- In the End Times, the Devil and his underlings will have the power to deceive many. For those who are not familiar with those verses…

• Matt. 24:11  - And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
• Matt. 24:24 For there shall arise false Christ’s, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
• Rev. 12:9 -And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

To be honest, this is my speculation, but there are many times through this motion picture we are given clues that this is what the film makers would like to believe. Again, as I’ve said earlier in this review… what makes this movie scary and eerie is what it doesn’t show and tell.

Finally, what also makes this a good recommendation as a “Flick that will hold you over till ‘Indiana Jones and The Fourth Movie’” is the ending of Mothman, it’s vary reminiscent of both Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, which I would love to explain but would ruin the ending.

Purchase 'The Mothman Prophesies' @ Amazon.com: DVD VHS

 

"Enigma"

By Eric 'Renderking' Fisk, Rindge NH

We’ve been celebrating a renaissance these past few months with the release of “Enemy at the Gates” and “U-571” on DVD. Great movies well acted and as historically accurate movies made in Hollywood could allow. Now a new movie is ready to join the ranks of these and many World War 2 dramas as another movie is ready to be added to the pile of Flicks that will hold you over till “Indiana Jones and The Fourth Movie”

One of the best World War 2 stories not yet told on screen was that of the German “Enigma” code machine –until now. This is the ultimate spy story, the stuff that James Bond movies are made of… secret code machine, teams of eccentric geniuses (few who are on the brink of insanity) feverishly searching for master codes, cloak and dagger, double agents and double crosses, and other intrigue. What also makes this the ultimate spy story is that it really happened – while civilization and millions of lives was at stake.

One of the best things Enigma has going for it is the set up. Other movies trying to tackle heavy subject matter such as historical dramas spend too much time building up the background. Enigma does a fine job of filling out the historical facts as part of the story. The buildup of why and what they had to do was seamlessly interwoven into fabric of the narrative. And it does it in such dramatic fashion that the audience becomes quickly aware of the necessity to break the codes. The viewer is able feels the desperation, the hopelessness and urgency with out drowning in the technological aspects.

Even though most of us know the general out come of the story [Yanks and Brit’s win, Nazi’s lose.] it’s not clear until the last 15 minutes of the movie what’s going to happen to these particular characters. Dougray Scott’s lead as Tom Jericho is a melancholy yet brilliant mathematician whose obsession with a lost love brings him to the brink of madness and uncovers a plot that could spell certain doom for the allies. Kate Winslet’s is totally distinct from the roll that made a household name in Titanic in performance deserving another Oscar nod. Hester (Winslet) pulls all the pieces of this tail of intrigue together and becomes more then a consolation for Jericho’s lost love in Claire (Saffron Burrows). Meanwhile, Wigram (Jeremy Northam) is just creepy as the British agent who’s either out to solve a war time murder or hold the pieces together of a treacherous conspiracy.

 With the exception of a brief ”Nocturnal Activities and primitive mating rituals” scene and occasional dark subject matter that would seem tame by any casual cable television subscriber, this movie is pretty much safe for all viewers.  Only two things that keep this from being a complete “To hold you over till Indy 4” flick is the lack of hidden artifacts and no tongue and cheek humor.

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