Moscow on the Hudson. Columbia Pictures 1984.

Before watching the movie:

Here’s another movie about which I know absolutely nothing, found through automated recommendations. On the one hand, it’s Robin Williams in the 80s, so it could be a wacky fish out of water comedy. On the other, they say that when Robin Williams wears a beard, he thinks it’s a serious film. I’m getting vibes of The Terminal and Being There, a pair of movies very unlike each other.

What I’m ultimately expecting is a comedy with a lot of warmth, patriotism, and jokes stolen from Yakov Smirnoff.

Oh look, yet another Cold War movie. I seem to have grown up from World War II into the next big one.

After watching the movie:

Vladimir Ivanoff is a saxophone player in a Soviet circus, getting ready for the troupe’s trip to America. His best friend Boris, the circus’s lead clown, tells him he’s planning to defect when they get there, but Vladimir wants nothing to do with it. However, once they are in New York, it is Vladimir who defects, having had enough when he sees Boris’s attempt suppressed. Vladimir is lucky enough to have a kind security guard give him a place to stay, and an Italian-American shop clerk to date. But freedom isn’t the bed of roses it looked like back home.

This film isn’t tragic enough to be a drama, or funny enough to be a comedy. What it is, is bittersweet. If the title wasn’t taken, it ought to be humbly titled Coming To America, because that is entirely what it’s about. This film is the ups and downs of immigrant life in modern America. All the main characters in America are either immigrants, or black people who moved out of Alabama for similar reasons.

I was surprised at how much of the plot happens before the defection. The first twenty minutes are entirely in Russia, and entirely in subtitled Russian. Then the circus’s visit takes about fifteen to twenty minutes of screen time. I was expecting Vladimir to have already defected by fifteen to twenty minutes in, but it took that long to build a full picture of everything he was leaving behind at home.

Since this is a slice of life story, there isn’t much driving the plot in the second half, after Vladimir has gotten settled in New York. He works half a dozen jobs and writes letters to his family. The closest thing to plot the film has in this period is his relationship with the shop clerk Lucia, but his culture shock and melancholy are only tangentially related to her. There are two or three times Vladimir reunites with someone through sheer serendipity that only serve to forward the plot, but they are all written to be very human and realistic.

This is entirely unlike the sort of movie I was hoping for, but as a light yet deep feel-good movie, it’s exceptional.

Watch this movie: as a snapshot of immigrant life.

Don’t watch this movie: if a drink of water is always too bland for you.

The Hunt for Red October. Paramount Pictures 1990.

Before watching the movie:

This movie stars Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery, is based on Tom Clancy’s work, and the main thing I’m thinking about is that the plot reminds me of the Star Trek episode “Face of the Enemy”. That’s how my mind works.

Alec Baldwin’s obviously in the “taking things seriously” part of his career, and I have no great expectations for Connery other than being his usual brand of incongruous greatness (A Scottish Russian, you say…)

After watching the movie:

The experimental Soviet silent submarine Red October is heading deep into American waters, and Jack Ryan is the only man who can guess why: Captain Ramius is trying to defect as a political statement triggered by the death of his wife. The rest of the American navy can’t be so sure, but Ryan has to convince them to at least let him try to contact the sub. If they can find it.

Strangely, Alec Baldwin is the sort of actor I would have chosen for the kind of man I thought Jack Ryan was, and then he turned out to be different from my expectations but still well-suited for the role.  Jack Ryan isn’t a reserved action hero, but a CIA writer thrust into action situations. This is a very cerebral film, to the point that the action sequence finale bordered on being out of place. It’s an entirely different sort of role from what I’d expect Harrison Ford to play. Baldwin’s Ryan can’t stand air turbulence and is only put in action because he’s the most expendable man briefed on the possibility of Ramius’s defection. I wouldn’t be surprised if Harrison Ford’s Ryan prefers punching to panicking.

As usual, Sean Connery more or less plays the same character. But he plays him really well. Ramius is always dignified, calmly burning his bridges behind him. His announcement to his officers that he informed the Admirality of his intent to defect when they left port is delivered with at the same time casual mention and deepest import. Late in the film, when he speaks actual English, not translated for narrative convenience, I think I caught a bit of an attempt at a Russian accent.

This is billed as a “techno-thriller”, but I didn’t feel a very strong technology angle. Sure, the sub has a spiffy new “silent drive”, and they can only listen for it with geological equipment, but the technology is just set dressing to me. The point is entirely about Ramius’s psychology and Ryan’s understanding of it.

Watch this movie: For Sean Connery being as smart and resourceful as ever, and Alec Baldwin being a reluctant action hero.

Don’t watch this movie: To see the bloody Ruskies get theirs.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Paramount Pictures 1987.

Before watching the movie:

I saw a little of this movie over a year ago, but I mainly remember a rant Steve Martin delivers. I certainly don’t remember as much in general as a DVD blurb could tell me, but essentially Steve Martin has to cross the country with planes snowed out, and faces a million irritations, many from John Candy, a traveler going the same way.

Maybe I do know as much as the blurb after all.

After watching the movie:

Neal Page works in New York, but he’s going home to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his family. Except he can barely get a cab to the airport. And his flight is delayed. And rerouted to Witchita due to snowstorm. He has a day to get home in time, by any and every means necessary, and through it all, annoying him, getting in his way, causing most of his problems but also providing most of his opportunities, is Del Griffith, shower curtain ring salesman.

This is the kind of comedy that piles misery on top of misery for humor’s sake, but for once I don’t feel too badly about it. The jokes are written and delivered in such a way to take the hurt out of it, and metered so that you don’t get too much time to linger on the full implications of what just happened. At the same time, there are moments when the emotion is a focus, but it’s not too big or broad, just a moment of humanity. In all honesty, it doesn’t take much for a film to get me to tear up, but the emotion in the story wasn’t strong enough to moisten my eyes.

Another point on the balance in writing is that, most basically, this film is a series of comic pieces. A race to catch a cab, two strangers sharing a room and a bed in a hotel room, late night driving accidentally on the wrong side of the highway, and so on. But while all these individual scenes that could stand alone as sketches are going on, the characters’ friendship is visibly growing, and backstories are being hinted at. A plot grows underneath the jokes.

It seems to me like this is a really rare “Thanksgiving movie”. If it were made today, it’d probably be shoehorned into the glut of Christmas films, and it absolutely doesn’t need to be. What’s important is that Neal and Del are traveling, and “holiday” closings and inclement weather slow them down.

Watch this movie: and watch a dozen plausible “worst trip ever” stories pile on top of each other.

Don’t watch this movie: with the kids. It’s deceptively close to being a family film.

Office Space. 20th Century Fox 1999.

Before watching the movie:

From time to time I pass up a film, and it goes on to get big. Then I start thinking about seeing it, but the moment has passed, and I just run into references here and there. Happily, nobody’s quoted Office Space to me in pieces. Yet.

There comes a point when I decide I might as well see what I’ve been missing. I’m told it’s supposed to be popular among people who work in the kind of offices it’s satirizing, but I haven’t met anybody who likes it who does. Or that many people in general who work in cube farms, really. They seem to be a mistake of the 90s that is mostly filtered out of the system. Even on The Office it’s not that bad. On the other hand, I wish I could work in a cube farm at least for a while.

Anyway, people like this movie. I want to too.

After watching the movie:

Peter Gibbons fills space in a cubicle at Initech getting hassled over report coversheets by eight different bosses and shocked by door handles. His girlfriend convinces him to take hypnotherapy, and he receives the calm of total apathy about his job. He starts doing what he wants, when he wants, no longer coming in on Saturdays, or before lunch, or at all really. His new attitude gets noticed by the downsizing consultants… into upper management. Then he learns that his two best friends are going to be fired and outsourced, and hatches a plan for them to all get back at the company that’s using them up.  Also Jennifer Aniston doesn’t have enough flair.

Maybe I don’t associate with the right people, but it seems like the culture this movie is a response to is on its way out because of sentiment like this. I find the idea the first half of the story works with, that corporate culture rewards the traits it’s designed to stomp out of people, interesting, and would have liked to see it carry the movie more. I get the idea the plot was designed to serve the jokes, but after the first act neither the plot nor the jokes get adequate time, and just get in each other’s way until the end.

Half the characters are real, and half are flat “bad office” props. That’s not a bad thing, since most comedies have round leads and flat joke characters. At least none of the joke characters are in the main circle, which is sometimes a crutch of small group films. Meek, particular, put-upon Milton is fun, but everyone likes Lumbergh a lot more than I see in him. Lumbergh just does the same thing over and over, and while that’s part of his schtick, it gets annoying in a way that takes me out of the film, like a bad Saturday Night Live character they just keep bringing back.

This is a pretty good, at times heavy-handed satire on office life, and bad jobs in general. The best part of the movie runs on pure wish fulfillment, but it’s funny anyway.

Watch this movie: because it’s the next best thing to telling off your boss and quitting.

Don’t watch this movie: if you’ve got to finish up your TPS reports.

Highlander.Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment 1986.

Before watching the movie:

While I know the basics of the Highlander series, I’ve never seen the television series or movies. I know the fact that there are movies plural is bad, but this is the good one.

I guess the plot is just a bad Immortal hunting a good Immortal, which as I understand it is pretty much the television show boiled down into a one-installment plot.

Sean Connery mentors the centuries-old main character, because he needs training for some reason.

It sounds like an excellent example of modern fantasy or magical realism, depending on how much the Immortals’ magic is involved.

After watching the movie:

Connor MacLeod died in battle on the Scottish Highlands in the 1500s. Then he got up the next day. It turns out he was born different, an Immortal. As he learns from an Immortal who comes to mentor him, the Immortals can only be killed by beheading, and an Immortal can gain all the knowledge of another Immortal by killing them, and at some far off time all the surviving Immortals will be drawn to a far away land to compete down to the last man for the Prize. Four hundred years later, MacLeod is living in New York City, there’s been a string of beheading murders in town, and the Kurgan, the man who killed him the first time, is coming for him.

If this movie was the beginning and end of the Highlander story, it would be enough. The narrative goes back and forth between MacLeod’s origins and the Gathering, crafting a complete story that doesn’t need any more embellishment. Every story that follows this has to ignore the end, because it is the end of The Game. If the television spinoff was a retelling of the movie, with more time spent in episodes on encounters with individual Immortals, training, and such, without being set explicitly after (most) events of the movie, I’d like the concept more. But with the plot wrapped up in one movie in this way, the only problem I have with it is that it’s tied up so neatly that the main villain who’s slaughtering the other Immortals for his own gain (MacLeod never initiates his duels) is the one who killed MacLeod the first time, ruining his comfortable first life, and had a second encounter that might be considered a spoiler.

Connor has had hundreds of years to learn new languages and pick up different accents, trying to blend in, and by the time he’s living in America, he speaks with… a Scandinavian accent (or German, can’t quite place it). I assume that’s because it’s the actor’s native accent, but he demonstrates a pretty good Scottish accent in most of his flashbacks, and then in the 1940s he demonstrates a passable, though perhaps intentionally exaggerated American accent. If you’re trying to hide as a normal person living a normal life, maybe getting people to ask “where are you from?” isn’t the best idea, even if “from a lot of places” can cover it.

The effects seem pretty unremarkable for the most part. I’m always a little impressed by hand-animated lightning and the like because it seems like a remarkably tedious thing to animate. There’s one scene where a character is lifted on a sword that is a little too obviously done with wires, and in the Quickening scene at the end the energy takes such a demonic-looking form I was worried that something had gone horribly wrong.

This was a pretty enjoyable film, and I’m completely satisfied with the story, though somebody’s ledger books apparently weren’t.

Watch this movie: As a swords-and-magic action flick with an impressive mix of eras.

Don’t watch this movie: For appropriate accents.

This blog started on the first Friday in December 2009, and has been running for over two years. It went from a biweekly schedule to weekly two months later in February 2010.

How has it changed since then? Hopefully my writing has improved. I’ve polished my format into something more regular, and there are many weeks I impress myself with a turn of phrase.

My initial reason for doing this was mostly for myself. I wanted to have some internet-based project to begin to establish a brand, I wanted to prove to myself I could keep to a regular blogging schedule, and I wanted an outlet for my opinions as I caught up on films I missed out on.

How well have I succeeded? My readership is small by internet standards. I rarely get more than a hundred hits in one day, and I don’t know how many of them are repeat visitors and spambots (if you’re a regular human reader, say hi in the comments!). I never expected to become a nationally known blogger out of this, because goodness knows there are enough critics out there. I have only had three or four updates go by without posting a review (including this one), and I always had some kind of content to publish. Lastly, several films I reviewed were ones I missed out on, and several more are ones I never knew I missed out on.

As to the future of Yesterday’s Movies, I’m unsure. I’ve often thought about how to end it, but I don’t want to do so without having a new project to replace it, filling the hole both for myself and my readers. In the meantime, I’m not sure if there’s room to evolve this blog in some way that’s true to the meaning. I try to keep to first-time viewings and out of the past decade because I feel the brand is “fresh perspective on movies you may have forgotten about.” At the same time, I want to keep it from becoming stale, especially for myself.

In the meantime, what’s a non-review post without links?

• So I Married an Axe Murderer, one of the first posts where I was starting to get the rhythm.
• L.A. Story, still one of my favorite reviews and reviewed movies.
• Batman and Robin, not a great movie, but a (horribly) fun one that gave me a lot of material.
• Superman IV, the first movie I honestly could not find a reason to recommend.
• The first rule about Fight Club is don’t link to Fight Club.
• I almost said Die Hard was the most Christmas-appropriate movie I’ve reviewed…
• Until I remembered Fitzwilly.

I was about to link to a Christmas video I did years ago, but it’s not good enough to promote. Instead, I’ll wish everyone a happy and restful holiday with some festive plant immolation.

Puss In Boots. Golan-Globus Productions 1988.

Before watching the movie:

Welcome to Yesterday’s Movies’ Holiday Gift Guide for Adults Who Always Get The Wrong Thing. There are less than ten shopping days to disappoint a young person close to you this Christmas, and if you’re looking for a movie that’s sure to get a reaction, you could do worse (better?) than the 1988 Puss In Boots.

I have never heard of this film before I found it, but if your kid was expecting Ant0nio Banderas’s feisty CG kitty in some kind of adventure involving Humpty Dumpty before Puss ever met Shrek (I haven’t seen it… yet), this is guaranteed to cause some sort of emotional setback. This movie features Christopher Walken as the voice of the cat in Live Action musical telling of the original Puss in Boots story. There’s potential there, but also so much room to fall short.

After watching the movie:

A miller dies, leaving little but the cat to his third son. The cat, not content with the insults his new master bestows upon him, turns into Christopher Walken and tells him “give me some boots and you’ll never want for wealth.” Receiving his boots, the Walken Cat begins currying favor with the king on behalf of “the Marquis of Carabas”, and soon the miller’s son is invited to the court. Puss bluffs his master even further into favor, and soon the princess (who is acknowledged to act far too common for her station) falls in love with this “marquis”. But some idle boasts from servants aren’t quite enough to convince the king to allow them to marry, and Walken in Boots has a few more tricks up his sleeve.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about the title Puss not being a puss for most of the movie. On the one hand, it smooths over why nobody at court was shocked at a walking, talking cat. On the other, this is a story with an ogre who can turn into any animal he likes, so magic is nothing to question. Puss being a shape changer does allow for one scene where he eavesdrops on the king and queen by turning back into a cat and letting himself be held. Besides, 80s puppet technology would have been much worse.

As for the quality of the film, it’s no The Princess Bride-level production, but I see a decent amount of money on the screen. The effects had a lot of room to be better, but not many are needed. Most of the time that Puss’s changes from cat to human are done with simple cuts, that is good enough, and better than the hard cutting used to show the transition. At least the Ogre gets fades when he changes shape.

The writing is the weakest link of the film. Admittedly, by the time Puss’s master meets the king, the movie has shaken off most of its awkwardness, but that raises it from awful to bland. The music as well is fairly unremarkable. One thing I did appreciate about the writing is that at least it’s paced well after Puss gets his boots. This is a story that can be told in ten minutes but is padded to an hour and a half very comfortably with just some music and a short, not-terrible stop to develop a love interest.

Gift this movie: If your favorite youngster to disappoint likes cats and is easily disturbed by Christopher Walken telling a young man he’s going to watch him as he sleeps, as he’s been watching him his whole life.

Don’t gift this movie: if the only thing the kid didn’t like about the Shrek franchise is the lack of easily singable songs.

The Hudsucker Proxy. Poly Gram Film Entertainment 1994.

Before watching the movie:

The plot reminds me vaguely of Trading Places, without the “trading places” part. A guy lands in the CEO position of a major company because somebody above him is plotting nefariously. It’s a comedy! Tim Robbins and Paul Newman are in it! It’s made by the Coen Brothers! It’s a comedy!

I’m hoping for Wall Street meets The Secret of My Success.

After watching the movie:

Fresh out of the Muncie School of Business class of 1958, Norville Barnes heads to New York to make a name for himself, and ultimately finds himself in the mailroom of Hudsucker Industries on the day that company president Waring Hudsucker decides to take a flying leap out the window 40-odd stories up. Without heirs, his supermajority of company stock will be placed on open market on January 1st, just a few weeks away, and Chairman Sidney Mussberger has a scheme to make the stock worthless enough for the board himself to buy up control: find the most worthless employee (Barnes) and make him the new President. Two problems: a female ace reporter has planted herself in Norville’s office, and his circular dingus idea… you know, for the kids (a hula hoop) is just crazy enough to catch on.

When I said Wall Street meets The Secret of My Success… I didn’t expect to be so on the money. At the same time, it’s entirely different, since it’s grounded in a world familar enough to be recognizable, yet whimsically exaggerated, like a bleaker How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying or a brighter Brazil. It’s different enough that when the finale takes a left turn out of nowhere, it’s a surprising stretch, but not unbelievable.

There’s no mistaking the Coen style. They don’t do anything small. This is a medium-sized story with all the stops pulled out. From the opening sequence, a fly through a snowy New York gothic skyline, one can tell that this is going to be writ large. And yet, the performances aren’t extravagant. They may be a little caricatured, but they’re people, not hams.

Most of the work is in beautiful gothic/art deco setpieces, and in the thoughtful cinematography. They compliment a tightly-knit screenplay that I can’t so much describe as just promote. The writing even elevates Family Guy-esque cutaway gags to an art. If I had to criticize it for one thing, it’s that the drama isn’t so much dramatic as melodramatic, but it passes for drama in the world that’s been created.

Watch this movie: For great writing with fun gags in a visually pleasing package.

Don’t watch this movie: if you prefer the ideas of an ignoramus.

The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood. Charles Fries Productions 1984.

Before watching the movie:

The concept sounds like fun. A goofy take on Robin Hood, no competence to be found with anyone, Robin needing to take out loans to support a rebellion. There are also some pretty big name stars involved.

The concept sounds like it could be funnier than Men In Tights, but I’m not seeing very promising reviews, and there’s the fact that I never heard of it and it all looks very cheap. We’ll see how this goes.

After watching the movie:

As usual for Robin Hood stories, Prince John is regent in his brother King Richard’s absence, and taxing the living daylights out of the English people. Robin Hood leads a band of outlaws living in Sherwood Forest, loyal to the King but mostly just harmlessly jeering at the Prince. When it comes to light that Richard is being held for ransom, John and sir Guy of Gisbourne scheme to add a new tax supposedly to pay the ransom but actually leaving Richard to rot. Queen Mother Eleanor and Lady Marion ask Robin to find a way to raise the money for the ransom, but after attempting to rob the rich on behalf of the poor, it turns out there isn’t any money left in England, so they have to find other means.

The best parts of this movie are the show-stopping comedy scenes. Occasionally, an all-plot scene comes up to try to counterbalance them and get the story moving, but they fall completely flat. It feels like they were trying to do a linear sketch film much like Monty Python’s Holy Grail and Life of Brian films, but weren’t quite brave enough to completely unhinge it.

I’ve seen this movie criticized for leaning too much on anachronism, and in a few places I do feel they were stretching the limits (Sir Guy has a golden card with his name on it that “I never leave home without”, Eleanor asks Marion to put a zipper on her mouth and Marion doesn’t know what a zipper is) but I enjoy anachronism and for the most part it comes off very well. The flip side to references to inventions that haven’t been invented yet is jokes about the historical period they’re in, and they do that very well in my opinion. Especially where it concerns the actual history of King John.

Some may say that the story isn’t compelling, or the actors’ performances aren’t convincing. Those aren’t the point. It’s a farce, you judge it on the comedy. I mostly enjoyed it, but my sense of humor isn’t the same as everyone else’s.

Watch this movie: for a silly yet sneakily smart take on the Robin Hood story.

Don’t watch this movie: If you don’t have patience for a bunch of modern people dressing in tights and pretending it’s the 1200s.

Dark Star. Jack H. Harris Productions/University of Southern California 1974.

Before watching the movie:

This movie is selling itself to me hard as a comedy, and I see the potential, but it’s working so hard on that that I don’t have much else to go on but the genre. Apparently the main plot concerns a planet-destroying bomb stuck in a colony scouting ship that gets delusional and considers exploding in the hold. Like I said, not much to go on. It sounded like a fun movie, and one I’d probably have a lot to say about, but leaves me even more uninspired than usual in this section.

Bearing in mind that it’s a student film, but one of high acclaim and penned by some famous names in sci-fi, this could get interesting.

After watching the movie:

Long into their mission, the crew of the colony scouting ship Dark Star are responsible for going into deep space, finding planets in unstable orbits in star systems otherwise ripe for colonizing, and destroying them with intelligent planet-killing bombs. Their ship keeps having malfunctions, sometimes humorous (one of the storage bays blew up, taking their entire stock of toilet paper), sometimes life-threatening. Bomb #20 keeps receiving errant deploy messages, ultimately causing it to get fed up with silly things like safety and overrides, resulting in the finale that is the only part anyone seems to talk about.

This felt much more like the kind of student film I’m used to seeing/working on. Several sequences seem to only be there to show off the effects they can do or figure out those effects, which is fine for a student film, but makes for a rather dull story. Even so, it doesn’t seem so much to me like a story as a series of somewhat related events occasionally contributing to a foreshadowed conclusion.

The dialogue was delivered in a slow and occasionally stiff manner, especially when the editing was responsible for the pacing, or when a voiceover character (there are three or four, depending on if Bombs 19 and 20 count as one or two) is involved in the conversation. The visual effects, however, are mostly pretty good for the times and budget (reportedly $60,000), and the sets and costumes and such are fairly well done, though obvious random items sometimes show up, like the muffin tin on a spacesuit’s chest. On the other hand, the alien beach ball-like pet gremlin, which seems to not so much be mischievous as “evil in a way that is supposed to play as cute” looks exactly like what it is, a painted beach ball with claw feet.

The humor the DVD case wouldn’t stop talking about long enough to describe the story? There’s a small joke here and there, and exactly three sequences that are pretty funny (the elevator shaft, talking philosophy with Bomb 20, and the very end), but overall, it’s a long string of broken dialogue and effects telling the story of a broken-down ship and a crew at each other’s throats, which sounds like it should be funnier and/or more dramatic than it was.

Watch this movie: If you’re a John Carpenter fan, or like existential warheads.

Don’t watch this movie: If you’re in the mood for a laugh riot.