Jim's Movie Devotion Database Studio: Miramax Year: 1993 Director: Kevin Smith Cast: Brian O'Halloran Jeff Anderson Marilyn Ghigliotti Jason Mewes Lisa Spoonauer Kevin Smith Movie Synopsis: Clerks follows a day in the life of Dante Hicks, a 22-year old slacker trying to figure out what to do with his life while toiling as a convenience store clerk in New Jersey. Intelligent but lacking self-confidence and ambition, he deserves more than life is giving him and knows it, yet seems unable to break the rut he lives in. His best friend and tormentor is Randal. Randal works in the neighboring video store and otherwise shares the same life experience as Dante. Unlike Dante, Randal seems content, or at least resigned, to his life. He refuses to take himself or his job seriously, and regulary insults customers or leaves the store to visit Dante next door. The other characters in Dante's life include his present girlfriend Veronica, who sees wasted potential in Dante and constantly tries to motivate him out of his rut. Dante secretly pines for his high school sweethart Caitlan. His store is also a mecca for slackers, petty drug dealers and hustlers such as the juvenile Jay and his partner Silent Bob (played by Clerks writer/director Kevin Smith), and a host of other characters. Clerks follows no specific plot, but rather a series of short vigenettes involving Dante, Randal, and the customers and other characters that enter their life over the day. Dante suffers one humilation after another, including being berated by a cigarette-hating gum vendor, being fined for selling cigarettes to a four-year old (thanks to Randal), and dealing with the weirdos that enter the store. Caitlan even shows up unexpectedly, expressing an interest in fulfilling Dante's desire to rekindle their relationship, but even that is dashed by a tragic event that sends her to the funny farm. However, the film ultimately shows that Dante can survive all the indignities and maintain a positive outlook on life, in spite of his often-mentioned fact that he was not supposed to come to work that day. Comments: Clerks represents writer/director Kevin Smith's first screen effort, and ably demonstrates his ability to write characters and dialog. Reminding me of a low-budget Seinfeld episode, the movie's ensemble cast, led by Brian O'Halloran as Dante, maintains a rich and consistent level of realism in spite of the increasingly incredulous situations Dante, Randal, and the others are being exposed to (ex. knocking over the casket at a funeral, play hockey on the roof of the convenience store). Clerks excells at showing the boredom of dead-end, low-paying service jobs like clerking, and how those individuals who find themselves holding these jobs cope. Rather than being preachy or overly depressing, Clerks moves along smartly, thanks to good pacing and hilarious dialog. As a side note, the creator of Clerks, Kevin Smith, originally planned to have Dante killed in a hold-up at the end of the film, as the ulimate indignity to the life of a clerk, but fortunately he changed the ending to a more upbeat conclusion that matches the rest of the film. Links: Clerks - official site Sound clips from Clerks Clerks [Jon Oransky] Jeremy's Clerks Page Recommended Viewing: Slacker Mallrats Chasing Amy Studio: Tri-Star/Sony Year: 1979 Director: Romero George Cast: David Emge Ken Foree Scott H. Reineger Gaylen Ross Synopsis: The recently-dead are returning to life and seeking to eat the flesh of living humans. The U.S., and probably the world, is in near anarchy as society breaks down under the weight of the ever-increasing hordes of zombies. Dawn of the Dead continues with the same theme introduced in the movie's predecessor Night of the Living Dead, except things are much worse now. After beginning with a shoot-out between cops and street thugs amidst a zombie-infested tenement building in the ghettos of Philadelphia, the movie's protagonists (Peter and Roger, two cops; Steve, a traffic reporter/helicopter pilot; and Fran; his pregnant girlfriend) take a helicopter out of the big city to find refuge somewhere. Battling more zombies along the journey, the four eventually land on the roof of an abandoned suburban shopping mall. After gaining access to the mall, which is still functional (complete with zombie "shoppers" roaming the aisles), the four decide to claim the mall and the vast array of consumer goodies it contains for themselves. Despite losing one of their own to the flesh-eaters, our heroes are eventually sucessful in sealing the mall, killing the zombies (a shot or blow to the skull is the only way to stop the zombies), and setting up house. In spite of the material abundance, the solitude and boredom slowly wear the three survivors down as they in effect become zombies themselves. Only when a gang of nomadic bikers assault the mall do our heroes "come back to life" to defend themselves and their home from both the heavily armed bikers, and the masses of zombies that pour in the mall. After fighting off the bikers, but losing the mall and their helicopter pilot friend, the two surviors escape the mall in the helicopter (the girlfriend wisely learned to fly the chopper herself). Low on fuel and with no sense of where to escape, the two fly off into the sunrise as the zombies once again establish their ownership of the mall. Comments: Dawn of the Dead works as both a straight-forward horror/action film, and also as a satire of the American consumer culture, no better typified than by the suburban shopping mall. Written and directed by George A. Romero, who also wrote Dawn of the Dead's predecessor Night of the Living Dead, Dawn takes up roughly where Night left off (in spite of a 10 year gap between timeframes). The living human's inability to contain the zombies, despite their being slow moving, idiotic, and largely unorganized, stems mainly from the living's inability to detach their memories of their living loved ones from the flesh-eaters they have now become, and thus kill the living dead when they have the chance. As society starts to come unravelled, people seek refuge anywhere they can, despite the appearance that the zombie phenonema is world-wide. The fact that our heroes eventually do find (temporary) refuge in a giant surbuban mall seems ideal on the surface, but in reality the mall is a prison for them, showing that in an altered reality, the consumer goodies mean much less. The second film of George Romero's "zombie trilogy," the success of Dawn in turn led to the final film, "Dawn of the Dead, in which zombie culture has become dominant, and the living a but a small, desparate minority seeking survival. Links: Page of the Living Dead Monroeville Mall Revisited Gaz's Dawn of the Dead Website Zombie Farm: Dawn of the Dead Preservation Page Recommended Viewing: Night of the Living Dead Texas Chainsaw Massacre Evil Dead Studio: Warner Bros. Year: 1987 Director: Stanley Kubrick Cast: Matthew Modine Lee Ermey Arliss Howard Vincent D'Nofrio Adam Baldwin Synopsis: Taking place during the Vietnam war circa 1967-68, Stanley Kubrick's (2001, A Space Odessy, The Shining) Full Metal Jacket follows a U.S. Marine Corps bootcamp platoon in training. Led by the unforgetable Drill Sgt. Hartman, the principal recruits include Pvt. Joker, an educated smart aleck, Pvt. Cowboy, Jokers buddy who hails from (where else) Texas, and Pvt. Gomer Pyle, an overweighted dim-wit hopelessly out of his element. Tired of the company punishment Hartman inflicts upon the entire platoon for Pyle's constant mistakes, they subject Pyle to a midnight "blanket party" beating. This beating seems to have a profound experience on Pyle. He soon shows an exceptional aptitude towards marksmanship, and Hartman begins to let up on him. While Pyle's performance in bootcamp improves, his becomes increasingly psychotic. On the night following their bootcamp graduation, a crazed Pyle confronts and shoot Hartman in the lavatory in front of a horrified Joker, before turning the gun on himself. The movie then moves to Vietnam shortly before the 1968 Tet holiday. Joker is a member of a Marine journalism unit writing for Stars and Stripes magazine. The Tet offensive explodes all around their base at Da Nang. Following the unsuccessful Viet Cong attack on the base, Joker and his young, gung-ho cameraman, Rafterman, travel to cover a major battle in the ancient Vietnamese city of Hue. There he is reunited with his bootcamp buddy Cowboy. Joker, Rafterman, Cowboy, and Cowboy's squad fight their way through the bombed-out streets of Hue. A sniper pins the squad down, inflicting heavy casualties among the squad, including Cowboy. Rafterman kills the sniper and saves Joker, achieving his goal of being a "heartbreaker and a life-taker." The most memorable acting in the film is performed by Lee Ermey (later R. Lee Ermey, Seven and Prefontain, a former Marine Corps drill sergent. His character has set the bar for drill sergeant characterizations that will probably never be matched. Full Metal Jacket has had a profound effect on pop culture, and has made a more lasting impact than its chief rival Vietnam movie, Platoon. Ermey's characterization of Sgt. Hartman, and dialog from the films two prostitution sequences (me so horney), has been used and copied in everything from rap songs to beer commercials. Comments: Full Metal Jacket came out soon after Platoon during a period rich in quality Vietnam war films. The story is mainly taken from Gustav Hansford's The Short Timers, with many references to Michael Herr's Dispatches (particularly the scene where the helicopter door gunner talks about how he can shoot women and children. The most memorable acting in the film is performed by Lee Ermey (later R. Lee Ermey, Seven and Prefontain, a former Marine Corps drill sergent. His character has set the bar for drill sergeant characterizations that will probably never be matched. Full Metal Jacket has had a profound effect on pop culture, and has made a more lasting impact than its chief rival Vietnam movie, Platoon. Ermey's characterization of Sgt. Hartman, and dialog from the films two prostitution sequences (me so horney), has been used and copied in everything from rap songs to beer commercials. Links: X Full Metal Jacket Lincoln's Vietnam War Movie Tribute Page Kubrick References in The Simpsons Stanley Kubrick Recommended Viewing: Platoon Apocolypse Now Go Tell The Spartans Studio: Paramont Year: 1972 Director: Francis Ford Coppola Cast: Marlon Brando Al Pachino James Caan Robert Duval Richard Castellano John Cazale Talia Shire Synopsis: The Godfather, based on the novel by Mario Puzo (The Sicilian), follows the story of the fictional Corleone mafia family in post-World War II New York. Lead by patriarch Don Vito Corleone, also known as The Godfather, the Corleones battle rival mob families for dominance and survival in a rapidly changing society. Corleone, his sons Sonny, Fredo, and Michael, step son Tom Hagen, and trusted lieutenants Clemenza and Tessio operate the most powerful and well-organized mob family in the East Coast, and thus are constant target of rival mobs. Beginning with lavish wedding of Don Corleone's only daughter, Connie, the movie establishes youngest son and war hero Michael's ambivience towards his family and the mob world in which he exists. When Don Vito declines a partnership with a rival mob to import heroin into the U.S., he is subsequently badly wounded in an assasination attempt. Repeated attempts on his father's life eventually persuades Michael to become an active member of the Corleone mob family, and successfully kills both his father's intended assassin and his police chief body guard. After returning from hiding in Sicily, Michael takes over the family from his semi-retired father and begins his plan to both move the family operations to Las Vegas in an attempt to leave the old mob ways and become a part of mainstream business society, and also to settle the score against the rival New York City mob families. On the day of Connie's (his godson's) baptism, all the rival mob leaders and killed in a tightly-coordinated operation. Michael, and the Corleone family, are now the undisputed leaders of the mafia society. Comments: Based on the rather lurid and more pulp-like bestselling novel by Mario Puzo, The Godfather film went on to become one of the most acclaimed American movies of all time, winning Best Picture, Best Director for Francis Ford Coppola, and Best Actor for Marlon Brando, who sent a chicana actress using the name Sacheen Littlefeather to accept the award and use the Oscars as a soap box for the mistreatment of the native American people. In spite of Marlon Brando being the featured actor, it is actually the character of Michael, played by a youthful Al Pachino, who is the real star of the film. He has by far the most screen time, and it is his evolution from reluctant son of a mobster to the undisputed king of the New York mob that the film is truly about. Two years later, Coppola released The Godfather, Part II, an equally ambitious and successful film that continued with Michael and the Corleone family through the 1950's, including an extensive portion of the film taking place during revoluationary Cuba at the end of the Batista era. This film also won Best Picture, making it the only sequal of a Best Picture to also win Best Picture. Links: Godfather script Corleone Home: A Tribute to The Godfather Trilogy Vikram's All-Time FavFlics: The Godfather I/II Godfather Trilogy Recommended Viewing: Godfather II and III Goodfellas Casino Studio: Tri-Star/Sony Year: 1997 Director: Paul Verhoeven Cast: Caspar Van Dien Denise Richards Dina Meyer Neil Patrick Harris Michael Ironside Synopsis: Startship Troopers, based on the famous and controversial 1959 novel by Robert A. Heinlein, tells the story of a recent high school graduate, Johnny Rico, and several other of his classmates who enlist in the military service of a united Earth government several centuries in the future. A fascist but seemingly peaceful and successful society modeled somewhat modeled on the old Roman government, Rico and his friends seek government-sanctioned "citizenship" as a reward for "Federal" or military service. Further complicating things is a love triangle involving Rico, his girlfrind Carmen, a female admirer of Rico named Dizzy, and a rival to Carmen's affection named Zander. All join up, Carmen and Zander going into the Navy-like Fleet service to fly starships, while Rico and Dizzy choose the more earthy Mobile Infantry, a future version of the traditional foot soldier. War breaks out between Earth and a race of giant bug-like arachnids from the planet Klendathu following the annihilation of Rico's home city of Buenes Areas by a meteor dispatched by the arachnids. On the verge of the quitting Mobile Infantry bootcamp after both being dumped by Carmen and subjected to harsh punishment for a training accident, Rico rejoins the fight to avenge his destroyed family and city. Once through with bootcamp, the movie follows a series of desparate. Rico and Carmen and eventually reunited on a bug-inhabited planet while hunting for a "brain bug," a leader of the bug colony that directs much of the bugs actions. The brain bug is captured, and although the war continues, the tide has apparently shifted to Earth, but only at the cost of many of Rico's friends and fellow warriors. Comments: Starship Troopers is both an over-the-top action/science fiction war movie, and slyly subversive satire of a militaristic future society. While holding to the spirit of Robert H. Heinlein's 1959 novel, the film by director Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct) takes its own path in the portrayal of the film onscreen. The ultra-modern equipment and weaponry of the novel has been significantly toned down to the point where the film looks more like a traditional World War II movie, with our ground-pounding foot soldiers battling bugs while on search and destroy missions. Also veering from the original novel is a traditional three-way romance that is established at the beginning and followed for most of the film. Besides the spectacular battle scenes, which has the most convincing computer generated graphic seen in a film to date, Starship Troopers also does a nice job of portraying an ancient Rome-like future world society that actually works quite well. Racism and especially gender bias is a thing of the past, and the world seems like a very pleasant place, in spite of occasional incoming bug meteors. It is interesting to hear Verhoeven and the film's writer explaining how the film is meant to be anti-fascist, and yet they have portrayed a society where fascism is rather attractive. Links: Sony Starship Troopers Page Matt's Starship Troopers Website Unofficial Starship Troopers Information Website SS8 Rodger Young Recommended Viewing: Alien Series Star Wars Series Stargate