Ten Statements About....THE FUGITIVE (1993)

"For the last time, I am NOT The Unabomber!"

"Listen up, ladies and gentlemen. Our fugitive has been on the run for 90 minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground barring injuries is four miles an hour. That gives up a radius of six miles. What I want out of each and every one of you is a hard target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, townhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up to 15 miles. Your fugitive's name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him."

1) You want to know how to write an effective suspense thriller? You set up a smart, resourceful character. You put him in an untenable situation. You sic an equally smart resourceful character on his tail....and you don't let up.

2) The reason why Harrison Ford worked so well as an actor at this period is the tension between his worn, sad face and his physicality. And I'm not talking about big fighty-fighty stuff; I'm talking about simple things like the way he runs, or the way he knocks someone's arm off his shoulder with such conviction. The combination of these two qualities give him an everyman vibe that allows so many people to identify with him.

On his off days, Tommy Lee Jones liked to dress up as a
homeless man and harass redheads for being the spawn
of the devil....

3) But don't get me wrong--this film is owned by Tommy Lee Jones. From the moment he steps into the frame, he makes us watch him no matter where we go. And most importantly...

4) The script by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy (soon to carve out a filmmaking career of his own after this) is hyper-efficient in defining his characters. Sure, we know very little about Ford's Kimble, and even less about Jones' Gerard, but we know what these characters are about, what their motivations are, and what their desires are. We find these character relatable without forcing far too much backstory on their, well, back.

5) Ahhhh, Jeron Krabbe...how I wish you had more of an American career like your friend Rutger Hauer. Sure, your role is relatively small in this film, but you are the best when it comes to being oily and smug...and when Ford beats you up, it's just sooooo satisfying....

6) On a related note....wow, it's so weird seeing Jane Lynch playing someone who's not evil and wants to make teens unhappy.

If you don't acknowledge his smugness, Jeron Crabbe
will hit you with his girder...

7) You know, at first I was wondering why Sela Ward was so prominent in the cast list, as she spends literally the entire film as a corpse, whereas Julianne Moore's name is way down...but in retrospect, the script gives Ward an integral position as a sort of ghost that drives Dr. Kimble forward on his quest, and Moore's role is just to scowl, yell at Ford and snap at Jones. So, you know, their position is valid after all.

8) The script is so good that even Gerard's support staff--and there are a lot of staff he has in support--has little grace notes that give us very clear idea of where they're coming from.

9) However...if there's one weakness, it's in the portrayal of the Chicago cops. I understand that this is for expediency's sake--after all, the script gets the story into high gear very, very quickly--but the sharpness of the other characterization makes the one-sidedness of the cops seem like plastic caricatures.

10) Yes, the solution starts coming out of left field--an argument can be made that on some level this has the whiff of 'Just Go With It'....but the pacing is such I have to wonder if this was brought up to create a MacGuffin-esque Hitchcock angle to the film.

Overall...an excellent suspenser that works due to a great script, some exceptional casting, and even more exceptional characterization.

Ten Statements About....BLADE RUNNNER--The Final Cut (1982)

Ford's character owes more to Sam Spade than Flash
Gordon....

"Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell. More Human Than Human is our motto. Rachel is an experiment, nothing more."

1) Just as Alien was an old dark house horror film, it's obvious that Ridley Scott intended this film to be a film noir detective thriller, and everyone acts accordingly, right down to how pretty much everyone smokes and drinks like their lives depended on it. I particularly like the way production designer Lawrence J. Paull manages to find a way to make the costumes and sets a true melding of futurist and 40's esthetic.

2) There literally isn't a bad performance in the film's 117 minute running time. Even Sean Young. Yes, she's skittish and hesitant like a baby deer and seems a bit emotionally flat--but that's the character. All the identified replicants have broad, child-like personalities that makes them seem off from the identified humans (save Sebastian, but he's set apart by his disease), so in the context, Young's performance works.

3) And here's something I didn't notice until this viewing--there are a number of moments with Young's Rachel, particularly in the major scene she shares with Deckard at the halfway mark, where Scott switches to a Steadicam. Those moments, mainly when it involves Rachel in close-up, display a very subtle unsteadiness not to the insane shakey-cam levels we've experienced recently, but almost subliminally noticable. These shots seem to emphasize Rachel's skittishness as she leaves the sheltered world of Tyrell and enters Deckard.

Damn...they don't make women like her anymore...

4) One of the reasons this film works so well is that outside of Harrison Ford (and even Ford is still in the early stages of his big style stardom), none of the actors are particularly well-known. Even Brion James, who probably had the biggest cv at this point amongst the main players, was known for secondary heavy roles. This creates a veracity that feeds into our accepting the world painted here whole.

5) I miss actresses like Joanna Cassidy, who had an unselfconsciousness about their bodies. There's really no doubt that it's all her in that scene where Dekard runs down Zora, and she is spectacular.

6) I find it fascinating how the Tyrell and Sebastian suss out what Roy and Priss are quickly, and respond not with the revulsion you'd get from Deckard's debriefing scene, but a pleased wonder. I particularly find Tyrell's discussion with Roy, explaining how they've tried a number of things to cure the short lifespan, fascinating...the fact that he argues how Roy should embrace the brevity of his life displays a certain depth corporate questionable types wouldn't display in the many imitators afterwards.

7) The biggest difference between this version and the theatrical one is, of course, the lack of Ford's voiceover. The film is still understandable, as the plot is pretty straightforward and linear...however (and here comes some heresy) the voiceover might not be out of place. This is for almost an hour and thirty minutes a film noir, where the voiceover is a standard trope. However....

His origins may be Frankenstien, but make no mistake--
Roy Batty is the big bad wolf.

8) There's a decided, but not jarring, shift in the film from the moment Deckard enters the Bradbury Hotel from film noir to a horror film. I'd say it becomes an old style horror movie, with Priss and Roy literally playing monster in stalking and trying to kill Deckard. Hell, Roy's howling as he runs around naked save for black biker shorts makes it explicit that this last replicant has become a modern day Wolf Man hunting the prey that seeks to end the life it wants to extend.

9) It's been so long since I've seen this film that it's a shock seeing William Sanderson in such a gentle, repressed role. First off because he looks so young save for the shots where we see all the lines in his face, but secondly because we're so used to Sanderson being hard-asses and assholes. Seeing him play this pathetic figure so starved for human contact that he lets his own death in is surprising.

10) One of my favorite things in this film as a whole? The lighting. Sometimes using natural light, sometimes using color in key ways....and frequently taking advantage of the sweeping spots that seem to permeate the city...it once again gives us another element that makes the film seem alien, but also firmly in a territory we're familiar with.

Overall...a film that I had to grow up a little to appreciate (I actually walked out on it on opening day in 1982 at the ninety minute mark, thinking it boring and plodding), this is another perfect storm of a film, where all the disparate parts come to together to create something unique and wondrous. And hell, it's the only film you can say helped launch an entire literary sub-genre in cyberpunk. Absolutely essential viewing.

Ten Statements About....COWBOYS AND ALIENS (2011)

"Watch out!  The mechanical brine shrimp is after us!"

"I don't know what it is, but it's bleeding."

1) You know you're in trouble when you have seven writers attached to your script. Because when you have that many writers, each with their own ideas on the script, you sometimes end up with a lot of 'Just Go With It.'

2) I was encouraged at times by the implication that Harrison Ford's Dolarhyde might be more of a villain in this. He certainly acts monstrously, and he also gets points for being named after a serial killer in a Thomas Harris novel. But once the aliens show up, he starts slowly reverting to the typical Harrison Ford Hero-type. By the time we get to Adam Beach telling the Apache Chief what a good man Dolarhyde is, you realize we're supposed to believe it as well in spite of the horrendous stuff we've seen him doing.

Yes, Ms. Wilde..I will ride your trail...

3) I really wish we had more about the nameless Frog-Cricket-Spider things that are the titular alien...or about the alien race that Olivia Wilde's Ella comes from (Oh, c'mon...anyone who couldn't have figured that out from the trailer I saw ninety times in the coming months wasn't paying attention). Yes, you don't have to explain everything to make me happy, but you need to explain something. Just telling us that, hey, these things wants your gold just isn't enough...

4) At first, I was encouraged a bit by how it seemed Favreau cast a number of actors against type--Clancy Brown as a preacher, for example...but while the window dressing is different, their actions show us that they're actually being cast to type.

5) Okay, look here, Frog-Cricket-Spider-thingies...your scout ships are these weird techno-organic brine shrimp-like creations, but your ship is...a rocket. You can be either techno-organic or technologically inclined; you can't be both.

6) I've always wondered what you can see when you drink peyote tea, and now I know...you see the worst CGI hummingbird imaginable.

7) Once again, I am confronted with a movie where I find Olivia Wilde incredibly sexy. Hell, I'd be fine with her playing Lara Croft now that I've seen her in a ponytail...as long as they give her a stetson and a sideways gunbelt as well....or maybe nothing but...

...which once again proves the fact that I can't stand Thirteen is entirely the fault of the writers and creator of House

Yep...I've had nights where I wake up in the middle of
nowhere with some techno-gun welded to my wrist....

8) I do have to give credit to the film for giving us a tribe of Apache warriors who only speak Apache. While it's obvious that Favreau really wants to hearken back to an old-school Western feel, there are tiny touches like this that ground the film in some semblance of reality.

9) It really, really surprised me that, given how many times Favreau gives us moment where he draws attention to how both Craig and Wilde both have vivid blue, distinctive eyes, the film never pulled the trigger on the idea that maybe Craig's Lonegan was an alien as well. It strikes this might have been the intention in one of the earlier drafts, but it got shunted off by the wayside. It would certainly have given the ending the bittersweetness the film was obviously going for.

10) This is prolly due to the actors all around, but Ford, Craig and even Keith Carridine manage to make the whole 'they hated each other, and now they respect each other' thing work. Still doesnt make the happy and bright ending with everybody loving each other and wearing their Sunday Best.

Overall...even though there are some moments, this is a disappointment for being just another 'Just Go With It' action film. There needed to be a little meat on its bones, a little more mythology to support the performances.

Saw this at The Atlas--which, for some reason, turned on the lights three minutes before the credits rolled--and suffered through such horrors as the much-threatened Battleship (shame on you, Peter Berg...shame on you); Brett Ratner's latest product, the Ben Stiller/Eddie Murphy caper flick Tower Heist which is notable for the inclusion of Alan Alda and a very thinning-on-the-top Matthew Broderick; and Final Destination 5, which at least has the good sense to bring back Tony Todd. And thank God I missed the Firstlook, because I would have started screaming during the preview of that abomination that is supposed to be the Straw Dogs remake.