IN: Review: THE WATERDANCE (1991) The main character of The Waterdance, played by Eric Stoltz, finds himself in a rehab center with some others similarly injured. And there he must face an harsh new life, confined to a wheelchair. It's an interesting, and promising premise, but unfortunately, it fails to deploy. What ensues instead is largely Hollywood schmaltz, with some interesting moments. Certainly the cast (Eric Stoltz, William Forsythe, Wesley Snipes, et al) is brilliant, and perform well here as one would expect, but their talents are wasted. The characters are mainly stereotypes of one kind or another, and most of them are thoroughly unlikeable (the Snipes character being the exception). I suppose this is some kind of attempt to break through people's ideas about the handicapped being "crippled" or "weak", by depicting them, for the most part, as in-your-face pricks, but it makes for an entirely annoying experience. Admittedly it will show you something of what those with permanent disabilities go through, in a way that is not softened or romanticized, which is useful, and a good idea, but while the process being depicted can make one a difficult person to get along with, and that's worth dealing with, it is not part and parcel to that that these characters must be, to varying degrees, despicable. They wouldn't have to be Disneyfied, either; surely there's a middle ground somewhere. By the film's conclusion, the Eric Stoltz character has come to accept his status as a handicapped person, but since he is such a flaming narcissistic monster from the beginning of the film to the end, we couldn't care less.

In addition to its character problems, the film suffers from that weird syndrome that so many Hollywood movies suffer from; the syndrome doesn't really have an official name, but you might call it "Inexplicable Forgiveness Syndrome". It goes something like this: characters abuse the crap out of each other, and then without so much as an apology, all is forgiven (an especially obnoxious example of this is in the movie The Breakfast Club, in which one character spends most of the film verbally bullying everybody within earshot; as a resultthey love him. In one of the the latest examples, Spiderman 3, supervillain The Sandman lays waste to a chunk of Manhattan, then wails on Spiderman for what seems like about 15 monotonous minutes before being waved off with what amounts to "bye, now"). The most egregious example of IFS in The Waterdance is a sequence in which, after being called the n-word by William Forsythe's racist biker character and his friends in the previous scene, the Wesley Snipes character whoops it up with the same Forsythe character in the next scene, as if nothing had just happened just a short time hence. Again, without so much as an "Oh yeah, sorry about that business back there where I, you know, called you the n-word". It makes me wonder, do these people actually watch these movies before they release them, or do they just film them with their eyes closed, kind of slap them together in the editing room according to scene number, and call it a day's work?
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: I figured that any horror film with Orson Welles in it would be weird. Necromancy sure was but it was a little too weird for it's own good. The film does indeed have a creepy feel as it deals with a coven of satanists/witches in a small town and a young woman's attempt to escape them. The director though seems to be deliberately trying to confuse the audience by using flashbacks and dream sequences. By the finale, there are too many unanswered questions. What's worse, as the story is so confusing, it's pretty hard to root for any of the characters. It seems odd that Welles would agree to headline this film especially since he doesn't have that much to do. Maybe someday they will put out a tape of the outtakes and bloopers from this movie. Now that would really be fun!
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: They had an opportunity to make one of the best romantic tragedy mafia movies ever because they had the actors,the budget,and the story but the great director John Huston was too preoccupied trying to mellow out this missed classic.Strenuously trying to find black humor as often as possible which diluted the movie very much.And also they were so uncaring with details like sound and detailed action.Maybe it was the age of the director who passed away two years later.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: DVD has become the equivalent of the old late night double-bill circuit, the last chance to catch old movies on the verge of being completely forgotten like The Border. There were great expectations for this back in 1982 a script co-written by The Wild Bunch's Walon Green, Jack Nicholson in the days when he could still act without semaphore and a great supporting cast (Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates, Valerie Perrine), Tony Richardson directing (although he was pretty much a spent force by then) but now it doesn't even turn up on TV. The material certainly offers a rich seam of possibilities for comment on the 80s American Dreams of capitalism and conspicuous consumption, with Nicholson's border patrolman turning a blind eye to the odd drug deal or bit of people trafficking to finance his wife's relentless materialism, until he rediscovers his conscience when he finds out his partners are also in the baby selling business. Unfortunately, he never really gets his hands dirty, barely even turning a blind eye before his decency rises to the surface. The film feels always watered down as if too many rewrites and too many committees have left it neutered and, sadly, the recent DVD release is a missed opportunity to restore the original, nihilistic ending where Nicholson goes over the edge and firebombs the border patrol station that was cut after preview audiences found it too downbeat but which still featured prominently in the film's trailers.

While that probably wasn't too convincing considering how low-key Nicholson's crisis of conscience is in the film, it had to be better than the crude reshot climax where the film abandons logic and even basic rules of continuity: at one point he's holding characters at gunpoint, then he's somewhere else and they're free trying to kill him, one character goes from injured at his house to hopping around like a gazelle on the banks of the Rio Grande while Valerie Perrine's character gets dumber on an exponential level. The villains of the piece are disposed of with absurd ease (and one impressive car stunt) in time for a clumsily edited happy ending and you start wondering if you somehow found yourself watching another film entirely. What makes it all the more clumsy is that the rest of the film is so flat and underwhelming that the sudden lurch into melodrama is all the more jarring. Unfortunately Ry Cooder's beautiful title song, Across the Borderline, says it all much more economically. But if you want to know the film's real crime, it's completely wasting the great Warren Oates in a nothing bit part. When even he can't make an impression, you know something's really wrong. All in all, all too easy to remember why I found this so forgettable at the time.
What is this review like?
OUT:
negative