Musings from Brian J. Noggle

This movie is a two-fer, at least for where Brian J.’s Rule 5 movie report posts go: It has both Marisa Tomei (from My Cousin Vinny) and Heather Graham (from License to Drive). However, although it probably is the best part of these movie reviews, I am not posting more pictures of these ladies at this time.

The film also features Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson. In it, Adam Sandler plays an executive assistant working for a pet supply company who is mild mannered and less of a man boy than his normal roles. On a flight to St. Louis, he sits next to an obnoxious man and touches a flight attendant to get her attention–which she calls assault, so Sandler’s meek character is tased and arrested. In lieu of jail time, the judge sentences Sandler to anger management therapy–run by the obnoxious man (Nicholson). So he joins anger management group therapy with the usual collection of Sandler character actors (John Turturro, Allen Covert) and, after another incident, gets personal high-contact therapy–Nicholson’s character moves in with him. It leads to some amusing set pieces–Dave (Sandler) picks up Heather Graham in a bar and goes home with her, only to reject her sexual advances because he has a girlfriend; a confrontation with a childhood bully who is now a Buddhist monk leads to a brawl at a monestary; a trial separation between Dave and his girlfriend (Tomei) leads to Tomei’s character dating Nicholson’s character; and finally, the climax at a Yankees game stocked with cameos as self including Rudy Giuliani, Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens, and so on.

So it was amusing, which is honestly the rating I give most comedies. It’s not raunchy (PG-13), but there’s some sexual humor in it. It was a bit different to see Sandler playing a more sedate role and having Nicholson chew the scenery. You know, I am going to run up to the Netflix barrier some day, where Sandler’s films are only available, maybe, online. But I’ve got plenty of his oeuvre to catch up on before then.

Also, in searching the Internet for anger management several times, I might have set myself up for a Red Flag something or other. Which is the risk I run to bring high quality content like this to you.

I saw this film early in the trailer park years–it seems to me that I saw it over and over, which probably meant it was on Showtime but rotated out pretty quickly. Of course, we got our first VCR right after we moved into the trailer, so I suppose we could have gotten it as a rental in the days when every grocery store and some gas stations rented videocassettes. Which, conceptually, is about as dated as this film.

Basically, the film starts en media res–a car is getting chased by a helicopter, and the man driving the car lets a boy out before driving over a cliff; the boy is picked up by an elderly couple and taken into town. My youngest, who was watching the film with me while trying to simultaneously play a video game, got confused immediately because the thought he’d already missed a plot point or two–but that got him watching the film. At any rate, the boy apparently has partial amnesia, so he’s placed with foster parents (Lenny and Mary Beth Hurt). They discover that he’s good at a lot of things, but he’s a little lacking in social skills. He befriends a neighbor boy who teaches him a little about being a kid, and when it’s going good, his “real parents” show up to claim him.

They’re scientists who essentially “built” him. He’s not a robot, really–he’s got the body of a human and will grow and whatnot, but a computer for a brain. They learn that he has become almost human (not that Almost Human) with emotions and preferences. The military shuts the program down and orders the scientists to terminate Daryl. Instead, they break him out of the military facility.

You know, I misremembered the doctor who breaks him out as being played by Dabney Coleman, likely because I saw a lot of Dabney Coleman in those days; however, the kindly doctor is played by Josef Sommer who has played similar characters his whole life (I remembered him from 2000’s The Family Man).

At any rate, kind of a neat film, not high art, but if you’re a kid about Daryl’s age, it might speak to you a bit. I liked it when I was that age, and my youngest son liked it well enough. And the lad did not offer any comment on the “ugly” people in it since the film does not include romantic plot points or women in bikinis, but it did include Colleen Camp.

Continue reading “Movie Report: DARYL (1985)” →

Well, this should have been a blockbuster, ainna? A young Mel Gibson in his heyday, a young Robert Downey, Junior, version 1.0 fresh from the Brat Pack days. A buddy film set, part comedy and part adventure, with corrupt government officials as the bad guys, flying action scenes and stunts, and….

Well, it’s a bit underwhelming.

The plot is that a helicopter traffic reporter (Downey) loses his job and gets his license to fly revoked stateside, but a secret government agency recruits him to join an outfit in Laos that flies and drops supplies to various locations in southeast Asia, from guns to friendlies and aid to outlying villages. He meets the crazy pilots who are already in country, who do the flights by day and party really heartily at night. One (Gibson) takes the new pilot under his wing, and the new guy learns that the old hand is amassing arms to sell to finance his retirement. After Downey and another pilot crash, the local warlord, an ally of the leaders of their outfit, rescue some “flour” and leave the fliers stranded. So Downey plans his revenge on the local opium processing plant, which involves setting up a couple of grenades–but it only throttles production for a little bit and kicks up a hornets’ nest of revenge. Subplots involve a senator (Lane Smith, last seen in My Cousin Vinny) on a fact-finding mission looking for evidence of drug smuggling and an American aid worker working with refugees whose underdeveloped storyline only exists to provide a redemption story for Gibson’s character (the refugee camp is located in poppy fields that rival factions converge on to harvest).

It’s hard to say why it doesn’t really work. The pacing? Are the characters just outside the relatable range? Is the pacing a little slow? Is the main problem or conflict under-defined so we don’t really know what’s at stack until the middle or end of the movie? I mean, Gibson and Downey should be at the height of their charisma, but it’s kind of wasted. A script that is not sure how buddy it is or how serious it is with a message? Probably all of these things.

So it will go into the library and not represent something I watch over and over again, but I guess it’s good for completeness’ sake in the ouevres of Gibson and Downey.

You know, gentle reader, I am so old now that I think of things from long ago as recent–so I think of this as a recent Clint Eastwood movie, perhaps because it’s from the 21st century, and Eastwood’s filmography goes way back. But he has been making and acting in films up to the present day (I posted a Toby Keith song with clips from the really recent movie The Mule here, although it’s only really recent now–if you’re reading it seven years from now, maybe not recent any more).

At any rate, I will explain the plot for those of you who are later to the 21st century movies than I am. Eastwood plays a recently widowed Korean War veteran whose Detroit neighborhood has changed around him. It’s become a bit dangerous, and Hmong immigrants have moved in, including next door. The first scenes deal with his wife’s funeral and its aftermath, including Walt (Eastwood) watching his children and grandchildren’s behavior at the funeral and the cold cuts at his home after. The priest of the parish church wants to look after Walt as the priest promised the late wife that he would, but Walt rebuffs him.

A local gang tries to initiate the teenaged son of the next door neighbors by having him steal Walt’s pristine Gran Torino, but Walt prevents it. To atone, the Hmong neighbors offer the boy as a worker to help work off his offense; Walt doesn’t think much of it and tries to rebuff this gesture, but then takes the boy on, tasking him with helping to clean up and repair houses in the neighborhood, which makes Walt a little more popular with the new neighbors and introduces him to them. Walt takes on mentoring the young man and protecting him from the gang with escalating violence which leads to the ultimate violent conclusion.

Spoiler alerts, kinda.
Continue reading “Movie Report: Gran Torino (2008)” →

I watched this film with my boys since I’ve got a son who’s going to be soon eligible for a learner’s permit (what? at eight? he’s not eight any more? what sorcery is this?). This movie came out when I was 16 and was, hence, by age eligible to learn to drive. However, my high school drivers’ education classes were held in the summer, which I spent with my father in Wisconsin, so I did not really get much shot at learning to drive in my high school years aside from a couple hours with a private driver’s school and Pixie’s then-husband driving with me once.

But, somehow, I got to watch this film over and over again on Showtime…. while we lived in the trailer? That hardly seems possible, since I would have moved to the house down the gravel road (which did not have cable for a while). But I did then.

Enough to write a quiz program on my Commodore 128 based on the film and use it for my own written portion of the test, which you had to pass in Missouri to get your learner’s permit.

At any rate, the plot: A slacker (played by Corey Haim) fails the computer-based part of his license test, but passes the driving part in a hard urban environment while his sister passes. As he (Corey Haim, Les Anderson, whatever; he’s playing the Corey Haim part) has backed into a date with one of the hottest young ladies at school (played by Heather Graham in an early role), he pretends that he has actually license–but his parents find out, so he cannot use the family car. He sneaks out in his grandfather’s special Cadillac; Mercedes (not the car, Heather Graham’s character) discovers that her now-former boyfriend, an Italian out of high school, is also seeing someone else, so she becomes intoxicated. Les (Corey H.) ends up picking up his friends (played by Corey Feldman as the Corey Feldman character and some other guy as the guy who is not Corey Feldman). They go to the best drive in which is way out of town and….

Well, hijinks ensue. Cars get demolished. And it works out in the end. It’s a comedy, after all.

As to the important question. Corey Haim versus Corey Feldman.

My boys said “Corey Feldman.” The cooler Corey, and the only one still with us. Still, based on this film, which I saw over and over, and not The Lost Boys which was not on Showtime, I identify more with Corey Haim. Also, I might have failed a driver’s license test or two in my time.

As to ugly women, my youngest did not deem Heather Graham ugly. Which is good, gentle reader; as you might know, I was born in the same hospital as Heather Graham, albeit two years later (a fact I have not brought up in conversation in a professional networking event since Wednesday–yes, June 16, 2021–look at my self-discipline!). So I would feel some sort of affection to the starlet of later films such as Bowfinger (which my boys have seen) and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (which they’re almost ready for–as a boy, I would have watched it, but as a father, I cannot condone it unequivocally). But let’s review. Continue reading “Movie Report: License to Drive (1988)” →

This film is a Jason Statham film, so you know what you get: Jason Statham being tough and whatnot. The plot, which is told at the outset in flashbacks that jumble the main characters’ recent-ish lives leading up to now, but omitting some important details until the story is under way. A mixed martial arts fighter accidentally wins a fight he was supposed to throw when he knocks his opponent immediately–which not only puts the fight promoter in the bind, but upsets the local Russian mob who bet a bundle on his loss. The Russian mob kills Jason Statham’s wife and leaves him alive, but telling him that they will kill anyone he gets close to, starting with his landlady if he’s not out of his home in 24 hours. So we get a montage of his experience on the streets until he’s thrown out of a store after being pickpocketed, but the police detective who rousts him recognizes him as a former police officer who ruined the corruption a collection of crooked cops were running, so they beat him and encourage him to consider suicide. Meanwhile, also in flashback, a young Chinese girl is very good at math. She embarrasses her school teacher, gets picked for a special school in Beijing, but in reality, it’s a job for a Chinese mob working with numbers and memorizing things because the mob boss does not like computers. She is brought to the United States and works in Chinatown (New York) in memorizing and analyzing details. The MacGuffin of the plot is that the Chinese triad want her to memorize a long number, and she will be required to memorize another long number and then get further instructions, but before this happens, the Russian mob tries to capture her, but in evading her, she meets Jason Statham as he’s about to jump in front of a subway, and then Statham happens.

So Statham takes on the Russian mob and the Chinese mob and the corrupt cops to protect the girl and to find out what they’re after. During such a time, we learn Statham is not only a mixed martial arts fighter and former cop, but a highly trained operative tasked to the New York police force after 9/11 to help eliminate criminals while normal cops pursued terror suspects. Or something. And the ultimate boss level fighter is another operative with a similar mission that is hoping to sell out to the Chinese mob with an elaborate and, frankly, unbelievable MacGuffin.

So, basically, this movie is a retelling of Mercury Rising; in that film, the balding hero (played by Bruce Willis) protects an autistic freshly orphaned young man who ran afoul of a government agency. Although this story has a bit of For a Few Dollars More/Last Man Standing (the Bruce Willis, not Tim Allen, version) in it. It’s more frantic as befits the times, and it keeps one’s attention–I probably wandered off less during its run than other non-comedies.

Also, gentle reader, there’s a subtle visual cue when I have recently watched a Jason Statham film: I think, hey, maybe the stubble look would work for me. However, my facial hair color is so subtle that it does not stand out on my face.

I’ve got three day’s of stubble here, and it’s invisible; I have to grow a fold-over length beard for it to show. So every year or so, often coinciding with a Statham film, I grow a little facial hair for a couple of days until I think it looks ridiculous. Which is scheduled for Friday this week.

Also, who can forget my Facebook submission for the 10 Year Challenge on Facebook in 2019?

The ten year challenge.

Man, have I changed.

I know, I know: Why have I given up on Bruce Willis as my role model? Because Statham’s closer to my age. Bruce Willis can draw Social Security these days, and I would prefer to pretend I’m a long way from that.