STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI (2017) ****

You know a movie is special when a father and daughter are simultaneously on the edge of their seat during the final minutes.  The fact that the film in question is the latest installment of the Star Wars saga makes it even more special.  I still remember the feeling of awe I had as a child when I saw the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi in the theater for the first time in 1983.  I can only hope my daughter feels the same way thirty years from now when she looks back on The Last Jedi.  

I think it’s safe to say that she will.  When we got home from the theater, she emulated Rey by sitting in the floor and shutting her eyes.  Concentrating, she reached out her hand and tried to make a book move by using The Force.  If that isn’t a testament to the magic of Star Wars, I don’t know what is.

Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie since 1983.  It takes what George Lucas, and later, J.J. Abrams did, subverts it, and makes it feel fresh and new.  Yes, after the fan service-heavy likes of The Force Awakens and Rogue One, I thought the spark of originality was almost lost in the franchise.  Johnson protects that spark and ignites it into something much bigger.

George Lucas had a knack for making science fiction stories that had personality, quirkiness, and a fierce independence.  Even though they were epics, they still felt like personal independent films.  Whereas The Force Awakens and Rogue One felt like products off an assembly line, this one feels like it could’ve only come from the mind of Johnson.

Coming from someone who had issues with The Force Awakens, it was a sheer delight to see how Johnson thumbed his nose at Abrams’ “safe” storytelling decisions.  I won’t spoil anything, but you pretty much get all the answers you wanted to know from The Force Awakens and then some.  Like a Jedi Mind Trick, Johnson resolves just about every lingering plot thread with the wave of a hand.  (He even answers a question fans have been asking since the original trilogy:  Just where does blue milk come from?)  In fact, the film almost feels like the conclusion to a trilogy in many ways.  

Speaking of trilogies, there’s enough stuff in here to fill an entire Star Wars trilogy.  Much has been made of the length of The Last Jedi.  What is so amazing is that it never feels long.  Could Johnson have trimmed some stuff here and there?  Maybe, but I was so engrossed over every second of it that I honestly didn’t want it to end.

The Last Jedi is what Star Wars, and movies in general are all about.  It’s moving, harrowing, hilarious, tragic, and exhilarating; sometimes all at the same time.  I laughed.  I cried.  I was literally on the edge of my seat multiple times.  Johnson really puts you through the wringer.  Few blockbusters nowadays truly move viewers.  If you walk away nonplussed by this one, you might be a droid.    

Even if you don’t like the directions Johnson is taking the franchise (and judging by the internet, there are some that don’t), you’re guaranteed to feel at least SOMETHING when you leave the theater.  At least Johnson is taking chances, ones that pay off big time in the finale.  After J.J.’s safe bet greatest-hits collection, this is a breath of fresh air.  

I felt cheated by the lack of Luke in the last episode.  He was always my favorite character, so I felt shortchanged to have him reduced to a mere cameo.  I mean I waited thirty-four years to know what happened to Luke after the Battle of Endor and Johnson doesn’t disappoint at all.  While Luke isn’t really front-and-center that much (there are a LOT of characters to juggle, which is fine because Johnson can juggle with the best of them), when he is… well… all I can say is that it’s 1983 and I’m five years old again and I’m clapping and cheering over a Star Wars movie. 

EVERYONE has a moment to shine.  Most poignant of course is Leia because of Carrie Fisher’s untimely passing.  There was only one cheesy bit of the movie, and that belonged to her, but everything else she did was beautiful.  From arguing with Poe Dameron to commanding the fleet, this is a grown and mature Leia that still has a heap of spunk to her.  It’s unfortunate Fisher’s no longer with us because her presence will be sorely missed in Episode IX.

I liked where Kylo Ren was at.  He’s still feels haunted by the murder of Han Solo.  Will the guilt of killing his father pull him towards the light, or set him off into a more extremely unstable path?  His arc is one of the more interesting and unpredictable in the movie.

Then there’s of course Rey, who spends most of the film begging to be taught the ways of The Force.  Her interactions with Luke (who is clearly relishing a chance to play a cantankerous mentor) are some of the funniest and most heartfelt in the entire series.  The fact that Luke pushes her away gives her something in common with Kylo, and their shared recognition of that (and possible allegiance to one another) is one of the gray areas the film has fun exploring.

As someone who’s favorite new character from The Force Awakens was BB-8, I was not disappointed.  I’m glad to report he has plenty of hilarious moments in this one.  He even got at least one big hero moment that made me cheer.  

Even the new characters, who arrive hitting the ground running, are likeable, fully realized, and feel fresh.  Vice Admiral Holdo, Rose, and DJ still follow motifs from previous episodes, but they are integrated with the older cast so seamlessly that it feels like they’ve been around forever.  I certainly hope to see more of them in episodes to come. 

Speaking of new characters:  Porgs.  They’re further proof that, like the Ewoks, Star Wars characters can be cute AND awesome at the same time.  I loved them.

The action is off the chain.  This is a Star Wars film, and Johnson brings the wars.  It often feels like a non-stop assault.  Like some of the best entries in the franchise, this is a Chase Movie in the best sense.  It almost feels like Stephen King’s The Long Walk, but with space ships.  On the ground, in outer space, and with the lightsabers, there are some all-time Star Wars moments to be had.  The Praetorian Guard scene melted my brain.  It was like watching a futuristic Shaw Brothers Venom Mob movie.  Although it’s still a little early to tell, I have a feeling these guys might be the new Boba Fett.  This sequence also contains one of the most crowd-pleasing moments in a Star Wars flick since Han swooped in on the Millennium Falcon in the original.  Yes, it’s that good.

The new planets are great too.  Canto Bight, the casino planet (which is basically like a Cantina version of Monte Carlo), gives us a glimpse of how the class system works in the Star Wars universe.  While some of this was a little on-the-nose, I wouldn’t change a moment, especially when it leads us to the stirring final shot.

I honestly have no idea where the series can go from here.  It’s like Johnson mic dropped the series back into J.J.’s lap.  One thing’s for sure, J.J. has some big shoes to fill.

SCOUNDRELS (1982) ** ½

Ron Jeremy is an unhappily married shrink whose wife cheats on him with his best friend.  He’s having an affair with his secretary, who also happens to be balling his best friend.  His daughter is a nympho too and she soon takes to selling herself to satiate her desires.

It might not sound like it from that plot description, but director Cecil (Platinum Paradise) Howard didn’t set out to make a typical XXX movie.  He fills the movie with a lot of surrealistic touches and gives some sequences a dreamlike feel.  I can’t say it’s successful or anything as the scenes of the family in white face paint confessing their sins to an omnipotent being (okay, some guy waving a flashlight) get repetitive after a while.  

There are a handful of solid sex scenes here and Howard does a nice job of giving each one a distinct style.  Unfortunately, the best scenes are mostly weighted towards the beginning of the film.  I can’t rightly know if you’ll be turned on by them though.  I mean the horrifying sight of Ron Jeremy dressed like a mime is enough to kill any chance of arousal.  

Without Howard’s stylish touches, Scoundrels would’ve been instantly forgettable.  Even with them, it still isn’t all that great.  If anything, it’s a reminder of a time when directors could sneak a little artiness into a porno, just as long as he had enough sex in there to satisfy the paying customers.

SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS (1971) **

A reporter named Gregory (Jean Sorel) is found comatose in the bushes.  He's still conscious, but his heartbeat is too faint to detect.  Presumed dead, the mortician prepares Gregory’s body for an autopsy.  He tries to get everyone's attention to stop the autopsy while wracking his brain to remember how he wound up in this predicament. 

The old “I'm not dead” yet cliché has been used by everyone from Edgar Allen Poe to Stephen King.  Director Aldo (Who Saw Her Die?) Lado is neither.  Maybe that’s because Poe and King’s tales were short stories.  The morgue scenes are mildly amusing and sometimes effective, but the mystery surrounding his appearance on the autopsy table just isn't interesting enough to sustain a feature length movie. 

This is one of those thrillers that basically save all the horror for the final reel.  Even then, it's kind of a bust.  The big reveal is okay I suppose, but the autopsy finale is a big letdown. 

Mario (Man Hunt) Adorf is pretty good as Sorel’s buddy, but it’s Barbara Bach who leaves the biggest impression as his luscious girlfriend.  Unfortunately, she disappears much too quick and her presence is sorely missed.  Sorel doesn’t have much charisma or anything, but he does sport a wicked head of hair.  In fact, his hair looks better when he’s dead than most men do when they’re alive.

AKA:  Paralyzed.  AKA:  The Short Night of the Butterflies.  

BETTER WATCH OUT (2017) **

A babysitter (Olivia DeJonge) watches an awkward teenage boy (Levi Miller) while his parents are at a Christmas party.  He has a big crush on her, so he gets drunk on champagne and tries to put the moves on her.  Before long, they’re menaced by a psycho who makes threatening phone calls and vows to murder them if they leave the house.

To tell any more would ruin the surprise.  (Imagine if Bret Easton Ellis wrote a John Hughes Christmas movie and that might give you an idea of what to expect.)  Better Watch Out does have a rather good twist that occurs early on; right after the first act, in fact.  By placing the twist so early in the narrative, it doesn’t really leave the movie anywhere to go.  It also causes the tension to flatline and the plot quickly gets repetitive from there.  

There’s a ring of truth here if you’ve been a boy that’s too old to have a babysitter, and a hot one at that.  This was done slightly better than The Babysitter though.  Even though that movie was a bit more outrageous, it still found a nice balance between the sitter and the sittee.  

DeJonge has a Kristen Bell quality about her.  She’s especially good when trying to reason with her attacker.  Miller is a bit too annoying though.  While he plays the whiny teenager role adequately enough, he just isn’t up to the task later in the film.  At least Patrick Warburton and Virginia Madsen get some laughs as Miller’s kooky parents.

AKA:  Safe Neighborhood.

BREAKING POINT (1976) **

Bob Clark had an interesting filmography.  He could direct anything from horror classics like Deathdream and Black Christmas to family-friendly movies like A Christmas Story and Baby Geniuses.  From raunchy comedies like Porky’s 1 and 2 to unheralded masterpieces like Rhinestone and Turk 182.  He also made this ho-hum thriller.

Bo Svenson stars as a happily married family man who witnesses a Mob hit.  Robert Culp is the cop who gets Bo to testify against the assailants.  When the Mob comes after Bo’s family, Culp puts them in the witness protection program.  Even though he repeatedly tells them not to contact anyone from their “old” life, Bo’s stupid step kid calls his dad, which leads the mobsters right to them.  After his family is threatened, Bo finally decides to stop hiding and faces the mobsters on their own turf.

The look of the film is similar to Black Christmas.  (It even takes place at Christmas.)  The giggling hitman certainly sounds like the killer from that movie.  Whereas Clark’s ‘70s horror movies had a knack for invention and economical use of their low budgets, this one is content to rest on tired revenge clichés.  It’s competently made, but it just feels like Clark’s heart wasn’t in it.  

Svenson is decent enough in the lead.  He basically just plays Buford Pusser again, minus the redneck aspect (he even hits a guy with a 2x4 at one point).  Culp is usually magnetic, but even he has a time finding a way to breathe life into his cliched character (whose only plot function is to be constantly wrong).  John Colicos is unnecessarily hammy as the Mafioso who wants Svenson’s family dead and the lack of a quality villain further prevents the film from kicking into gear.

THE ZERO BOYS (1986) **

Daniel Hirsch and his friends play weekend warrior survivalist games in a ghost town.  The leader of the rival team puts his girlfriend (Kelli Maroney) up as the prize and Hirsch wins her hand.  After the game, Hirsch and his team stumbles upon an abandoned house and begin to party it up.  There just so happens to be a knife-wielding maniac on the premises who quickly puts the friends’ survivalist skills to the test.

Directed by Nico (Hired to Kill) Mastorakis, The Zero Boys is an unsuccessful blend of action and slasher movie.  It’s surprisingly more fun during the early scenes where the gun-toting heroes try to act macho.  It helps that a lot of their banter is genuinely funny.  Maroney is particularly fun to watch as the Final Girl of the piece.

The horror cliché elements are a long time coming, and when Mastorakis finally gets around to exploiting them, they come off a little weak.  Even though it takes a while before the killer starts doing his thing, the stalking sequences themselves have an appropriate amount of atmosphere (there’s lots of fog in some scenes).  Unfortunately, the horror scenes are frustratingly low on chills.  That’s mostly because a lot of the kills revolve around guns and hunting and not good old hacking and slashing.  I guess it’s novel seeing the heroes fighting back against the killer using machine guns.  That doesn’t mean it works though.

Hirsch gets the best line of the movie when he pins up a picture of Rambo and says, “Eat your heart out, Sly!”

SNAKEEATER’S REVENGE (1991) ***

Soldier (Lorenzo Lamas) witnesses two people overdose on cocaine cut with rat poison and decides to take matters into his own hands.  He knocks on the dealers’ door, guns them down, and is promptly arrested.  He is then sent to a mental institution where the other patients quickly take a shine to him.  They eventually agree to help him escape so he can burn the pushers’ operation to the ground.

Snakeeater’s Revenge is, of course, the sequel to Lorenzo Lamas’ immortal Snakeeater.  It’s not as off-the-chain awesome as the other entries in the series, but there’s plenty of fun to be had.  I mean it’s hard not to love a movie that has characters named Soldier, Torchy (Ron Palillo), and Speedboat (Larry B. Scott).  Besides, any film that can combine elements from Death Wish and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is OK by me.

While Snakeeater’s Revenge is more routine than its predecessor, it does have at least one jaw-dropping bonkers moment.  Naturally, I’m referring to the scene where Soldier faces off against a hulking opponent in what can only be described as Wheelchair Thunderdome.  If you thought the wheelchair race in Days of Thunder was awesome, wait till you get a load of this!

Snakeeater’s Revenge gives Lamas another opportunity to shine.  He gets plenty of funny one-liners and garners some laughs while flirting with his shrink.  (The ink blot scene is memorable.)  Scott makes for a likeable sidekick, but Kathleen Kinmont (Lama’s then-wife) isn’t really given anything to do as a detective on the case.

AKA:  Snake Eater 2:  The Drug Buster.  AKA:  Vengeance of Fire:  Cobra Killer 2.  AKA:  Soldier.