The Confessor–I can’t believe I am confessing that I watched this movie.

The Confessor staring Christian Slater is flat out Crap.

It is clear to me that the cast and crew were suffering from dementia before they made this piece of work.  I didn’t think the film would ever end.  This movie had a decent cast that was totally wasted.  Frankly I expect more from Christian Slater.  He has made some great movies: Pump Up The Volume, Heathers, Wind Talkers, Broken Arrow (a John Woo Flick) and Murder in the First.  Why Christian, oh why would you make such crap?  I can understand if you needed the money, but that is about the only excuse I’ll accept.

Slater plays a worldly and urbane priest who can raise money like a demon.  That said, there is no way the viewer for even a second believes that Slater is a priest.  What ever his other talents are they don’t involve him playing a holy man.  Another priest is involved in a murder and accused of the crime.  Slater’s character is asked by the church’s big cheese to find out what went on and minimize the damage to the church.  Slater even gets the help from his former journalist girl friend, Madeline Finney, (Molly Parker) who works at a TV station.  Naturally there has to be some sexual tension when a priest and a woman are involved so Slater has to stay at her apartment overnight where he “accidentally” sees her in her birthday suit while she is taking a shower.  Oh the drama–a chimp chained to a typewriter could write this stuff.

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To anyone with half a brain, this movie is solved when the co-star is late for dinner as there was no doubt where he was and that he had just murdered someone.  After that there was no suspense and it takes about 85 minutes of your life away that you will never get back before the “mystery” is solved.  Speaking of confessions, I must confess that the weaknesses in the plot makes me wonder just how dumb the screenwriters, the director, Christian Slater, Molly Parker, and Stephen Rea were when putting this abortion together.  Perhaps it was a comedy and I forgot to laugh.

The film is a load of muddled and pointless Crap.

 

Dr. H & JP Collaborate Again on “Looking for Mr. Goodbar.”

Looking for Mr. Goodbar is not about finding a candy bar.

Diane Keaton gives us an outstanding, fearless performance.  Remember  Mr. Goodbar was released the same year Keaton won an Oscar for her role in “Annie Hall.” I find it difficult to believe that Keaton was the same actress in both Mr. Goodbar and in Annie Hall.  She pulls off a multi-layered, charismatic performance that you don’t see often in an adult movie.

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By day Keaton plays an affectionate teacher with her deaf kids.  At night, however, she turns into the proverbial Mr. Hyde, cruising bars, having sex with many different types of men, leading a promiscuous and seedy life which ends violently.  Indeed, one gets the sense that she actually derives more and more pleasure as the sex-act, the drugs, or the situations become more and more dangerous.
Mr. Goodbar also features early performances by Tom Berringer and Richard Gere–who plays similar characters in the classics “American Gigolo” and “Breathless.”

It would be a crude oversimplification to regard this movie as a romanticized walk down memory lane for the wild 1970′s.  It is a much more complex insight into various characters against the backdrop of the disco era.  At the time, the country was in a transitional phase where the Vietnam war had just ended and the momentum of the 1960′s had faded away.  It was a time of high unemployment, rampant drugs and not enough social support for the needy.  For better or for worse, a new reality was right around the corner as the Reagan era would be born taking the country in a whole different direction and this movie captures it perfectly.

This is a Rose for the ages.

 

Kung Fu: One of The Great T.V. Series of All Time

Kung Fu: One of The Great T.V. Series of All Time

Kung Fu starring the late David Carradine

Given the recent and unusual circumstances surrounding David Carradine’s death, I thought it only appropriate to let some time pass between his untimely demise and reviewing his trademark character Kwai Chang Kaine in one of the greatest T.V. series ever made: Kung Fu.

Kung Fu lore has it that Bruce Lee originally conceived of the idea for the show and had wanted it to feature Lee as the star.  Carradine, however, pulls it off and would be known for the rest of his life as Kaine.  Kaine, an orphan who was raised by Shaolin monks, was forced to flee China after killing the emperor’s nephew in retaliation for the murder of his kung fu master Po (played by Keye Luke).  Constantly on the run from bounty hunters and assassins from China, Kaine wanders the American West in search of his half-brother Danny.  His conscience forces him to fight injustice wherever he encounters it, fueled by flashbacks of training during which his master famously referred to him as “Grasshopper.” Also dispensing wisdom is the head monk Master Kahn (played by Phillip Ahn).  This show has a very mystical quality and when combined with the eerie music of Jim Helms, that mystic quality is even more fully fleshed-out.

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It’s detestable that anyone who hasn’t seen the show often lumps it in with the group of old, campy television shows like “The A-Team” or “Charlie’s Angels” or others similar shows of that ilk. To those Philistines I would like to say that any given, hour-long episode of “Kung Fu” probably contained only about 45 to 60 seconds of actual action–if not less even less. The fact is, David Carradine was as good a leading man and true actor as any TV drama has ever featured.

Caine was a true iconoclast (in the best sense of the word) within the world of mainstream network television–a complete reversal of nearly every American screen hero who came before.  He was not just peaceful–but passive and serene.  As Caine described it–”Kung Fu” was an “anti-revenge television show”–an astonishing premise for a show given the norm of the day.

It certainly could be argued that T.V. was just as much of a wasteland in the ’70s as it is today, but I long for the day when we will be able to view something as good as this again on broadcast television.

As Martin Scorsese (who gave Carradine’s eulogy) said, and with whom I completely agree, “We’re going to miss you Kawai Chang Kaine.”