FILM FRENZY

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II; Rutger Hauer in Flesh+Blood (Photos: Paramount; Capelight)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

ARABESQUE (1966). As the previous year’s Best Actress Oscar winner for Two Women, it was Sophia Loren who announced the Best Actor nominees for the 1962 crop and subsequently handed Gregory Peck the statue for his work in To Kill a Mockingbird. As they left the stage, she asked, “Now when are we going to do a movie together?” They didn’t have to wait long, as director Stanley Donen brought them together a few years later for this adaptation of Gordon Cotler’s novel The Cypher. Donen had such success with 1963’s Charade, a lightweight spy flick starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, that he decided to make another picture in that vein. Peck plays David Pollock, an American hieroglyphics professor in London. He’s roped into a case of international intrigue when he’s forced by ruthless businessman Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel) to decipher a secret message. Understandably, Pollock prefers to spend his time flirting with Beshraavi’s beautiful mistress Yasmin (Loren, decked out in Christian Dior), but when matters become more heated and other interested parties appear on the scene, he must decide if she’s actually friend or foe. The plot is needlessly convoluted and the comedy occasionally veers toward unsightly silliness (the ‘60s-psychedlic scene in which Pollock sings and dances in the street after being shot full of truth serum is a cringer). But the stars enjoy tremendous chemistry, the London location shooting is lovely, the action sequences deliver the goods, and Henry Mancini’s Grammy-nominated score stands as one of his best. Arabesque was Peck’s final box office hit for an entire decade, as he would star in seven consecutive flops before headlining the 1976 blockbuster The Omen.

Blu-ray extras include film historian audio commentary; an archival piece showing Mancini at work; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

CRAWLSPACE (1986). While there’s always intrinsic interest and maybe even value in watching the unhinged Klaus Kinski in action — whether while delivering a performance or in behind-the-scenes footage — even his bizarre behavior can’t elevate this truly atrocious film. He stars as Karl Gunther, a landlord who rents exclusively to female tenants. The reason? Well, it’s a character played by Kinski, so what do you think? Yup, it’s so he can take pleasure in spying on them from within the building’s elaborate crawlspace system. But Karl isn’t merely a landlord and a Peeping Tom; he’s also a murderous doctor and the son of a former Nazi war criminal, and his attic space includes deadly spring-traps, jars containing various body parts of his victims, and a young woman (Sally Brown) locked inside a cage (but placed there only after he had cut out her tongue). Kinski’s in full psycho mode here, and the notion that any sane woman would rent from such a transparent creep is as hard to swallow as a bowling ball. But Kinski completists who need to see him smear crimson on his face and roll around on a flat dolly shouldn’t miss this.

Blu-ray extras consist of audio commentary by writer-director David Schmoeller; film historian audio commentary; an interview with the movie’s three-time Emmy Award-winning makeup effects artist John Vulich (TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer); Schmoeller’s amusing 1999 short film Please Kill Mr. Kinski, in which he describes working with the volatile actor (perfect pairing with the same year’s feature-length Werner Herzog documentary about Kinski, My Best Fiend); TV spots; the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other films on the Kino label.

Movie: ★

FLESH+BLOOD (1985). This medieval romp from director Paul Verhoeven — his first English-language film after a successful career in his native Netherlands — hit the video market under the somewhat misleading title The Rose and the Sword. If there’s a rose to be found anywhere in this movie, it’s completely hidden from sight, perhaps mashed under Jennifer Jason Leigh’s buttocks as her character gets raped, or maybe resting on the ground next to the chunks of chopped-up dogs that were infected with the Plague, or possibly mixed in with the copious amounts of blood, puke, and pus seen throughout. Verhoeven has stated that he made Flesh+Blood to counter all the movies that presented medieval times from a more romanticized angle — to state that he completely succeeded is putting it mildly. This film is so grimy and gruesome that the stench of decay practically wafts off the screen (no Odorama cards needed for this flick!). In the same year that he starred in Ladyhawke (the sort of romanticized yarn Verhoeven was railing against), Rutger Hauer, the lead in four of the director’s previous Dutch releases, plays Martin, the de facto leader of a band of mercenaries in 1501 Italy. Martin and his gang end up abducting an upper-class virgin (Leigh, as fearless as ever), prompting her intended (Tom Burlinson) to rescue her. This one’s a real mixed bag, with its attributes (including an interesting slant on Leigh’s character) almost keeping pace with its debits (including some truly daft moments, like one character’s instant recovery from the Plague). Verhoeven tapped out with his first American production — the film was a massive box office bomb — but he needn’t have worried, as RoboCop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct were all yet to come.

Blu-ray extras consist of audio commentary by Verhoeven and interviews with Verhoeven and his co-scripter Gerard Soeteman.

Movie: ★★½

FULL MOON IN BLUE WATER (1988). I’m hardly alone in stating that Gene Hackman is one of my all-time favorite actors, and it was disturbing to hear about his recent death under hazy circumstances at the age of 95. Full Moon in Blue Water is a mere footnote in his stellar career (see From Screen To Stream below for more worthy efforts), a chunk of quirk whose characters are meant to be lovable but are instead forgettable. Hackman plays Floyd, who owns a bar called the Blue Water Grill on the Texan coast. The establishment is failing, due in part to the fact that Floyd spends much of his days watching home movies that feature his wife. Dorothy (Becky Gelke) has gone missing; everyone else is certain she drowned, but Floyd believes otherwise and awaits her return. In the meantime, he is in a sorta relationship with bus driver Louise (Teri Garr, who we also lost within the last few months) and has to watch over his elderly father The General (Burgess Meredith) as well as his mentally challenged employee Jimmy (Elias Koteas). Other less than riveting developments include Jimmy believing he accidentally killed The General and a pair of crooked businessmen trying to bully Floyd into selling the bar so they can benefit from a real estate deal. With the vast majority of the movie unfolding at the bar, this might as well have been a play, albeit one nobody would have wanted to see. Hackman and Garr are good, but they and the other performers can’t do much with a script that grows exponentially more ludicrous as it shuffles along.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★½

GLADIATOR II (2024). One of the slighter films to ever win the Best Picture Oscar, Ridley Scott’s 2000 blockbuster Gladiator nevertheless is a solid popcorn picture marked by intriguing visuals and a committed, Oscar-winning performance by Russell Crowe. The actor portrays Maximus, a Roman general betrayed by Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and demoted to slave status, whereupon he reemerges as a vengeance-minded gladiator. One of the secondary characters in the film is young Lucius (Spencer Treat Clark), the nephew of Commodus and the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), Maximus’ former lover. Given the passage of time, it made sense to build the sequel around the grown-up Lucius — thus, we’re given a tale in which Lucius (Paul Mescal) similarly goes from warrior to slave to gladiator, is also driven by revenge, here against a Roman general (Pedro Pascal), and likewise must contend with the whims of a fey and casually cruel despot (two in this film, played by Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn). Yet while Gladiator II operates in the shadow of its predecessor, it isn’t exactly a carbon copy, with some complexity added in the characters played by Pascal and Denzel Washington, the latter a former gladiator who now owns his own stable of fighters. Mescal is convincing in the central role, and the presence of Washington’s character adds some twists to the usual political machinations that drive the plot. But Scott (returning as director) and his new writers are unable to bring to the piece the passion that fueled the first picture — Maximus’ rage and grief were far more palpable than any emotions exhibited by anyone here — while the effects work seems to have regressed, with the Colosseum spectacles more cartoonish this time around.

Extras in the 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Code Steelbook edition consist of making-of featurettes and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★★½

PERIL & DISTRESS: ENDLESS NIGHT (1972) & PICTURE MOMMY DEAD (1966). Last fall, the Kino label produced a 4K + Blu-ray double feature of the 1970 thrillers And Soon the Darkness and Sudden Terror and placed it under the banner Peril & Distress. Now the outfit has released another twofer under that heading.

One of the handful of novels Agatha Christie penned in the last decade of her life, 1967’s Endless Night was reported to have been one of the author’s favorites among her own works. Her adoration didn’t extend to the film version five years later, and she wasn’t alone in her disdain: The movie proved to be such a bomb in England that it never received theatrical distribution in the United States. It’s definitely an acquired taste, but those who don’t mind its leisurely pace — or its departure from the traditional murder-mystery template — will find it a worthwhile endeavor. Hywel Bennett plays a character who feels like he would belong in one of the kitchen sink dramas so prevalent in the UK during the previous two decades — he stars as Michael Rogers, who floats from menial job to menial job while perpetually dreaming of becoming rich. While working as a chauffeur, he meets and falls for the American Ellie Thomsen (Hayley Mills), only to be dismayed when he finds out she comes from a fabulously wealthy family. Michael figures that they can never be together because her family will object to his lowly station in life; he’s right about the clan’s attitude but wrong about their future together, as Ellie chooses him over the objections of her own kin. The first three-quarters of the film contain so little mystery — just some vague talk of supposedly cursed land — that one might understandably mistake this for a straightforward love story, but the late-inning jolts do arrive at a rapid clip. All About Eve Oscar winner George Sanders appears as a family lawyer; this was one of two films released after his death, as he had committed suicide earlier in 1972, at the age of 65.

Less successful overall but also worthy of a look is Picture Mommy Dead. Writer-director Bert I. Gordon holds the record for the most movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (eight total), but this chiller isn’t one of them. Certainly, there are enough awkward or amateurish moments to have allowed for plenty of ripe riffing, but there are also enough offbeat moments to make this film impossible to dismiss out of hand. Teenager Susan Shelley (Susan Gordon) has just been released from a mental institution, her home since her mother (Zsa Zsa Gabor) died in a fire a few years earlier. Her ineffectual father (Don Ameche) and scheming stepmother (Martha Hyer) take her back to the house where it all happened, triggering hazy memories that suggest her mom may have been murdered. Gordon cast his own daughter Susan in the pivotal role — think Sofia Coppola in her dad’s The Godfather: Part III to get an idea of Susan’s wretchedness, another cautionary tale of Hollywood nepotism. But the veteran actors are solid, and the twist ending is efficient enough.

Extras on Endless Night consist of film historian audio commentary; the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other films available on the Kino label. Extras on Picture Mommy Dead consist of film historian audio commentary and trailers for other Kino offerings.

Endless Night: ★★★

Picture Mommy Dead: ★★½

RED ONE (2024). Despite the us vs. them approach taken by many moviegoers, the divide between the tastes of critics and the tastes of general audiences isn’t as vast as rumored — this can be verified by noting how most films on Rotten Tomatoes boast Tomatometer (crix) and Popcornmeter (audiences) scores in the same vicinity. That’s why it’s always interesting to come across wildly divergent scores. One example is Emilia Pérez, with 72% Fresh from critics and 16% Rotten from audiences (I side with the crowd on this one); another is Red One, frowned upon by reviewers at 30% Rotten but beloved by moviegoers at 90% Fresh. Red One was a box office bomb — it cost $250 million to make, with $50 million going to Dwayne Johnson (Chris Evans must have felt unloved with his $15M haul), but only grossed $97M stateside and $186M globally. I guess its high Popcornmeter score can be partly attributed to the fact that it hit Amazon Prime a mere month after its theatrical bow and parents were relieved that they waited to catch it at home for (relatively) free instead of paying $100+ to take the family to the multiplex. Closer in kinship to an MCU extravaganza like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness than a Yuletide charmer like Miracle on 34th Street, this picture is busy busy busy as it sets up multiple storylines and creates new mythologies. The plot finds Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) kidnapped on Christmas Eve, requiring his head of security Callum Drift (Johnson) and slacker hacker Jack O’Malley (Evans) to rescue him. Add to this a winter witch, a grouchy Krampus, an anthropomorphized polar bear working for ELF (Enforcement, Logistics, and Fortification), and an outfit called MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), and the mechanical result is more worthy of seasonal jeers than cheers.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★★

FILM CLIPS

A REAL PAIN (2024). Two mismatched American cousins, the fussy and focused David (Jesse Eisenberg) and the unpredictable and insensate Benji (Kieran Culkin), journey to Poland to honor their late grandmother by partaking in a Holocaust-themed tour before visiting her former home. Eisenberg scores as director, writer, and star: His helming is fleet-footed, his Oscar-nominated script is sharp-witted, and his nicely shaded performance is one of his best. Yet the talking point is Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Culkin, who locates the inner suffering in his character’s insufferableness. Benji is a real pain, no question about it. But the real pain rests elsewhere, be it coping with the specter of the Holocaust, wading through personal trauma in the modern age, or finding a way to reconcile both past and present and emerge as a more balanced person because of it.

The only Blu-ray extra is a making-of featurette.

Movie: ★★★½

WEREWOLVES (2024). Basically The Purge with parvo, this posits that a supermoon which appeared one year ago caused over a billion people to transform into werewolves for that one night. Another supermoon is now about to become visible, and anticipating another breakout of lycanthropes bent on murder and destruction, a team of scientists seeks a cure while ordinary citizens board up their homes. Frank Grillo stars as the most macho molecular biologist one could ever hope to encounter, in effect holding a test tube in one hand and brandishing a shotgun in the other. A promising hook is undone by poor plotting, and while it’s commendable that the lycanthropes were created via old-school practical effects, the film’s low budget critically hampers the creativity — maybe it’s just me, but I thought the one pictured above looks like Ed the hyena from The Lion King more than anything which would cause someone to faint from fright.

The only Blu-ray extras are a handful of deleted scenes.

Movie: ★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM: Gene Hackman

BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967). Nineteen-sixty-seven was one of the seminal years that changed the face of American cinema forever, and Bonnie and Clyde was one of the two reasons why (the other was The Graduate). This saga centering on the bank-robbing exploits of the Depression-era Barrow gang — leader Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), his partner Bonnie (Faye Dunaway), his brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck’s wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and driver C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard) — became a cultural phenomenon on several levels, starting with the controversy over its explicit violence, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in mainstream American cinema before. Among other achievements, the picture also instigated a wardrobe craze — Dunaway’s outlaw outfits became huge sellers (especially the berets) — and largely led to the dismissal of Bosley Crowther as the New York Times film critic (Crowther’s trashing of the film convinced the paper’s honchos that he was out of step with the changing times). Most importantly, under the expert direction of Arthur Penn, Bonnie and Clyde expanded the parameters of cinema through its precise melding of bold and exciting techniques, particularly signified by its world-class innovations in camerawork, editing, lighting, and sound. The script by Robert Benton and David Newman deftly careens between drama and comedy (Gene Wilder makes his film debut in the funniest scene), and the performances by Beatty and Dunaway perfectly capture the crazy mix of bravado, romanticism, and fatalism that made Bonnie and Clyde the nation’s most dangerous lovebirds. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and actors Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman, and Pollard, this earned two statues, for Best Supporting Actress (Parsons) and Best Cinematography (Burnett Guffey).

Movie: ★★★★

HOOSIERS (1986). Long considered one of the best sports movies ever made by those in the know (i.e. wags at Sports Illustrated and ESPN, movie lovers from the American Film Institute with their various all-time lists, and basketball fans across the country), Hoosiers works the underdog formula so expertly that it’s no surprise the film still has the ability to uplift audiences nearly 40 years later. Much of its appeal comes courtesy of Gene Hackman, whose work here — a canny mix of aw-shucks bluster and below-the-surface slyness — was a warm-up for the career-best performance he would deliver two years later in Mississippi Burning. Hackman stars as Norman Dale, a basketball coach who arrives in the small town of Hickory, Indiana, in 1951 to take the reins on a high school basketball team (the Hickory Huskers) whose beloved coach has just passed away between seasons. Still nursing emotional wounds from a secretive past, Dale finds himself facing townspeople who don’t approve of his coaching methods, though he does acquire some allies in a plainspoken teacher (Barbara Hershey), the town’s hoops-savvy drunk (Dennis Hopper), and, eventually, the players themselves. This earned a pair of Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Hopper) and Best Original Score (Jerry Goldsmith), although Hopper actually earned more honors elsewhere (mainly critics’ organizations) for his demented turn in the same year’s Blue Velvet, where his psychotic Frank Booth was a far cry from the lovable lush he plays here.

Movie: ★★★½

MISSISSIPPI BURNING (1988). Perhaps second only to The Last Temptation of Christ as the 1988 release to appear the most frequently on newspaper op-ed pages, this firebrand of a film starts from historical tragedy and then spins off in its own direction, the most dubious sidestep being its treatment of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI as a pivotal and heroic ingredient of the Civil Rights Movement. Yet as cinema, this is an electrifying watch, and its fudging of the facts never gets in the way of its sturdy liberal politics — or the simple cathartic pleasure of watching Gene Hackman deal with racist “shit-kickers.” Hackman delivers what receives my vote as his greatest performance — he’s Rupert Anderson, an FBI agent who’s sent to a backward Mississippi town in 1964 to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers. While Anderson is OK with bending the law to achieve results, his partner Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe) prefers to do everything by the book. Their methods are radically different, but they’re united in their desire to nail everyone responsible, from complicit cops to Ku Klux Klan scumbags. Dafoe’s performance comes into sharper relief when one realizes his other role in 1988 was as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, but this is Hackman’s picture all the way — he’s terrific, whether squaring off against the most brutal of the racists (Michael Rooker), annoying Ward with his folksy humor, or tenderly striking up a friendship with the unhappy wife (an excellent Frances McDormand) of a despicable deputy (Brad Dourif). Nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor (Hackman), Supporting Actress (McDormand), and Director (Alan Parker), it won for Best Cinematography (Peter Biziou).

Movie: ★★★½

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972). The Poseidon Adventure was not only one of the first of the ’70s disaster flicks but also the best. Based on Paul Gallico’s novel, it tracks the efforts of a group of survivors who try to make their way to the surface after an enormous wave flips over their luxury cruise ship. As a belligerent cop, hammy Ernest Borgnine does enough acting for everybody aboard the damn boat, but other cast members are better than one might expect in this sort of throwaway fun. Top-billed Gene Hackman, who had won the Best Actor Oscar for the previous year’s The French Connection, is forceful as the maverick priest who repeatedly questions and challenges God’s authority as he tries to lead his flock to salvation above water — it’s an unusual role brought to life by an excellent performance. Red Buttons is similarly fine as a health nut whose eternal optimism goes a long way toward keeping the others focused, and while I generally can’t stomach Shelley Winters, she clocks some effective moments as a kvetchy Jewish woman convinced that her ample size will doom her in the fight for survival. Efficiently directed by Ronald Neame, The Poseidon Adventure also benefits from its spectacular technical attributes, especially its imaginative set design (everything had to be mapped out and then constructed upside down). Nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress (Winters) and Original Score (John Williams), it won for Best Original Song (“The Morning After”) and received a special Oscar for its visual effects. The visual effects hold up; “The Morning After” does not. This was followed by the 1979 afterthought Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (reviewed here), a silly sequel with Michael Caine and Sally Field, and was poorly remade in 2006 as Poseidon, starring Josh Lucas and Kurt Russell.

Movie: ★★★

RIOT (1969) / LUCKY LADY (1975) / HEARTBREAKERS (2001) / WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT (2004). Even a great actor like Gene Hackman couldn’t escape appearing in his fair share of duds, and here are a few of those also-rans.

Riot was the second of two consecutive films Hackman made opposite football legend Jim Brown (1968’s The Split was the other) immediately following Bonnie and Clyde. Produced by William Castle of all people, this fact-based drama centers on the efforts of several convicts who, after taking the requisite hostages, stage a protest for better prison conditions while secretly plotting on how best to make their great escape. Hackman’s natural efficiency is appreciated even if it can’t quite flesh out a nondescript role, while Brown glowers with the best of them. But between TV vet Buzz Kulik’s unpolished direction, the intrusive music score, and some truly awful dialogue, this ranks near the bottom of the prison flick subgenre.

Unlike the low-budget Riot, Lucky Lady was an expensive production sporting an accomplished director (Singin’ in the Rain’s Stanley Donen), respected writers (the husband-and-wife team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, coming off American Graffiti), and an A-list cast fronted by two Oscar winners (Hackman and Liza Minnelli) and a top box office star (Burt Reynolds). All of this talent only makes it an even bigger disappointment, with the stars playing Prohibition-era rumrunners trying to dodge both the Coast Guard and rival bootleggers. During their down time, the three share beds together, since the lady can’t decide which of the men she prefers. Hackman and Reynolds escape with their dignity intact, but Minnelli is abrasive (she’s the one who gets to spout the classic bad line, “It’s so quiet, you could hear a fish fart”), the comedy misfires left and right, and the action-packed ending fails to resolve the story in any appreciable manner.

There’s not enough forward momentum to propel Heartbreakers, an overlong farce about Max Conners (Sigourney Weaver) and her daughter Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt), con artists skilled at swindling rich men out of their money. For their latest stings, Max sets her sights on a wheezy cigarette fiend (Gene Hackman) who looks like he’s about to kick the bucket while Page hooks up with an amiable bar owner (Jason Lee) whose property is worth $3 million. After a dreadful first half, the film steadies itself once the plot mechanics start paying off; still, the end result is more exhausting than entertaining. Ray Liotta has some good bits as one of Max’s patsies, although it’s Hackman who steals the show. Apparently basing his character on W.C. Fields (right down to the red nose), he’s a hoot as a crusty tobacco tycoon who proudly recalls how he used to hook grade-school kids on cigarettes.

At the beginning of their careers, Hackman and Dustin Hoffman were friends, roommates, and fellow acting students at the Pasadena Playhouse, where they were jointly (and hilariously) voted by their peers as “least likely to succeed.” How fitting would it have been for Hackman to have ended his career co-starring opposite his old buddy in the enjoyable 2003 thriller Runaway Jury? Alas, Hackman decided to make one more movie before retiring forever from film, and that turned out to be Welcome to Mooseport. This miserable comedy was meant to be a showcase for Ray Romano, then riding high on TV’s Everybody Loves Raymond. Hackman plays a former U.S. President who settles down in Mooseport, Maine, and finds himself railroaded by the city council into running for town mayor; he faces opposition from the town’s easygoing plumber (Romano). Hackman, Marcia Gay Harden, and Maura Tierney are fine, but the comedy quotient, waning from the start, becomes nonexistent whenever it’s placed in Romano’s clumsy mitts.

Riot: ★½

Lucky Lady: ★½

Heartbreakers: ★★

Welcome to Mooseport: ★½

All Gene Hackman films previously reviewed on this site (click on link to open review in new window):

THE CONVERSATION (1974) – ★★★★

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974) – ★★★★

NIGHT MOVES (1975) – ★★★★

SUPERMAN (1978) – ★★★★

ALL NIGHT LONG (1981) – ★★

REDS (1981) – ★★★★

SUPERMAN II (1981) – ★★★½

EUREKA (1983) – ★★½

UNDER FIRE (1983) – ★★★½

TARGET (1985) – ★★½

NO WAY OUT (1987) – ★★★½

SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987) – ★½

ANOTHER WOMAN (1988) – ★★½

THE PACKAGE (1989) – ★★★½

NARROW MARGIN (1990) – ★★★

UNFORGIVEN (1992) – ★★★★

GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND (1993) – ★★

GET SHORTY (1995) – ★★★★

TWILIGHT (1998) – ★★★