Oliver & Company (1988)

As with The Black Cauldron, I chose to give this movie a review because I have not seen it since its original theatrical run twenty years ago. In fact I have surprisingly vivid memories of the Saturday I went to see this movie when I was eight. You see my family had only lived in Boise for about a year at that point and my dad got lost trying to find the right theater, that and small elements of the film are what stayed with me. For most among those elements is the song at the beginning of the film, ‘Oliver Don’t You Cry’ I believe the name is, and it’s a rather poignet little number performed by Huey Lewis; in fact the whole soundtrack of this film is laced with the work of 80's pop artists, including Billy Joel who was making his acting debut in the part of Dodger.

The film of course is an adaptation of Dickins Oliver Twist, though extremely simplified, and ultimately more watch able then the Oscar winning 1968 musical version. A capable voice cast includes the work of Bette Milder, a young Joey Lawrence, the ubiquitous in animation Dom Delouse, Roscoe Lee Brown, and Cheech Marian as Tito the Chihuahua, the comic break out character to all the kids in the audience. The villain of the picture, a crime lord named Sykes, is quite intense, I remember him being perhaps to intense for my eight year old self, he also falls victim to one of the more violent deaths of a Disney villain, when he is felled by a train on the Brooklyn Bridge. This was one of the first Disney animated films to really make extensive use of computer aids in the animation, and is (according to special features on the DVD) the movie that quality and box office wise ushered in that platinum era of 1988-1994 which would include such classics as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. This movie is however not the great accomplishment that those movies were, despite having a rather strong sentimental value to me. 3 out of 5.

Get Smart (2008)

Adaptation of the 60's TV show benefits from a good cast and sense of restraint, though the plot is nothing special. Watch for cameos by Bill Murray and the original Siegfried. Otherwise, I really have nothing to say about this film, except of course that Alan Arkin is good as always. 3 out of 5.

The New Guy (2002)

The odd looking D.J. Qualls stars in this teen comedy about a long time loser who starts over as the cool kid at a new school. Predictable, not great, but since I don’t see many of these types of movies I enjoyed it. Also featuring Zooey Deschanel on her way up, Eddie Griffin at his peak, and Eliza Dushku on her way down. 2 1/2 out of 5.

A Century of Black Cinema (1997)

A general survey of the black presence in American film from the birth of the movies to the mid 1990's. All the obvious highlights are touched on, Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, Carman Jones, Guess Whose Coming to Dinner, Shaft, The Whiz, The Color Purple, etc. A good primer that may introduce the viewer to some good films that otherwise might be lost in obscurity (like Paul Robeson's Song of Freedom from 1937). Speaking of Robeson, he and other forgotten black performers like him are another reason to see the film, they were pioneers and often quite talented, like Fredi Washington in the original 1934 version of Imitation of Life, or Roscoe Lee Brown whose maybe 10 minutes of screen time in Hitchcock's 1968 film Topaz constitute that movies high point (ironically these two personalities are not really featured in the doc, but others like them are). I would still like to see more of Pam Greer. 3 out of 5.

Film Geek (2005)

Written and directed by Portland based film maker James Westby, Film Geek is a low budget, kind of underground movie, staring Melik Malkasian as Scotty Pelk, the ultimate nerdy film fan. At the start of the film Scotty works at a video rental store, were he constantly annoys the customers and his co-workers with his encyclopedic knowledge about film. A lonely, rather pathetic character (yet still a sympathetic one), Scotty lives in a one room apartment were he devotes his spare time to watching movies and writing about them on his internet film site which nobody reads (ala His Other Band). Events transpire to cost Scotty his job at the video store, and he winds up working at an auto parts warehouse. Socially awkward in the extreme Scotty thinks he may have found some one with whom he can strike up a romantic relationship, a pretty young artist (Tyler Gannon he sees reading a book about David Cronenberg on the bus. The young women talks to him, and they even have a partly successfully date, but as the film maker tells us in one of the special features, while she makes him less of a robot, he’s still plenty robot. A film with which I relate more then I wish I did. The way the ending plays around with our Hollywood expectations contrasting them with real life is worthy of Bergman, even without the beautiful cinematography of Sven Nykvist . 3 ½ out of 5.

Baby Mamma (2008)

Tina Fay and Amy Pohler, whose comic abilities have long been on display on SNL and other TV forums, have at last made a movie together. The basic premise of an uptight business woman who hires a ‘white trash’ girl to be her surrogate for pregnancy, is a natural fit for these two, though it could have been awful under lesser hands. A good, solid comedy, with both buddy picture and romantic elements (Greg Keaner proving a great casting choice as Fay’s love interest), and a fun supporting part for Steve Martin. Well handeld. 3 ½ out 5.

Chicago 10 (2006)

Documentary on the trial of eight protesters and activists for incitement to riot at the anti-war protests held in conjunction with the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago (the number 10 comes from the inclusion of their two lawyers). The documentary makes extensive use of the court transcripts of the trial dramatized through that usually superfluous ‘digital people’ effect, and using all star voices including Dylan Baker, Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeffery Wright. This proves a very effective and compelling way to present the trial, and in fact it was snippets of these sequences which I saw in the documentary’s run on PBS the other week, that inspired me to rent this and see it in full. That Judge comes off horrible, unfit for duty and quite likely rather racist, while the defense attorney a true liberal hero. The ‘eight’ are an interesting, surprisingly diverse bunch, who while sometimes unorthodox weren’t really dangerous. In fact they were all found innocent on the trumped up conspiracy charges, but some were sentenced to prison time for contempt of court, again trumped up charges coming from that sadistic judge. Higher courts later reversed all of these sentences. A fascinating story well told. 4 out of 5.

P.S. I recently learned that Spielburg is doing a movie on this same story.