"Amateur": Deadpan humor fills intriguing plot

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

The landscape of the American cinema is littered with enormously talented people you've never heard of. Hal Hartley is a writer-director you probably don’t know, and that’s too bad. His previous films, “Trust,” “The Unbelievable Truth” and “Simple Men,” are gems savored by the select few who saw them play in art houses or festivals or, possibly, who rented them by accident at the video store.

Now comes Hartley’s latest, “Amateur,” and he’s lost none of his edge or his talent for finding humor in the oddest places.

“Amateur” stars frequent Hartley collaborator Martin Donovan as a man who awakens in a New York City alley, injured and suffering amnesia. He wanders into a cafe, his head bleeding, and is rescued by a former nun, Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert). She takes him home, and together they set about trying to find out just who he is.

"Get Shorty"

Probably my favorite author is Elmore Leonard. I love his work. So when a respectful adaptation of his fantastic “Get Shorty” was made, it was time for a celebration. I had fun with the writing style on this one.
“Get Shorty” one of this year’s best

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

There’s this guy, name’s Chili Palmer. Works as a shylock for a Miami outfit -- you know, mob.

So, he’s a debt collector, right? Gets sent to L.A., supposed to find a movie producer owes this Vegas casino a wad of green. But when Chili gets to L.A., he falls in with the producer, Harry Zimm. They decide to make a movie together. The movie’s about Chili’s trip to L.A., only Harry doesn’t know about that just yet.

Chili's makin’ it up as he goes.

This is the movie, called “Get Shorty.” It’s based on the Elmore Leonard novel. Leonard’s books have been made into movies before. Or should I say ruined by the movies before? Watch Burt Reynolds’ “Stick,” and you’ll know what I mean.

“Get Shorty” was made by guys who liked the book. Respected the book. Its tough-guy dialogue, its humor, its grit. In Leonard’s books, the characters talk like this. In short sentences. No wasted words.

“Pure Formality” a nice surprise; “Paradiso” director turns to intrigue

“A Pure Formality” has one of the best surprise endings I’ve seen in years. I have heard people say they saw it coming, but I don’t believe them.

The film is the latest from Italian writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore, who has charmed American audiences with “Cinema Paradiso” and “Everybody’s Fine.” While those two films depended upon his ability to create bittersweet evocations of nostalgia, “A Pure Formality” sets aside the sweetness, retains plenty of bitterness and cranks up the intrigue.

The film opens with a famous author, Onoff (Gerard Depardieu), running through a raging downpour.The police stop him, take him into custody and transport him to the local police station. The building is a ramshackle affair, with an incessantly leaking roof and big, drafty rooms filled with books stacked hither and yon.

Finally, the Inspector (Roman Polanski) arrives to begin an interrogation. A body has been found nearby, beaten so badly the authorities cannot identify it. The Inspector asks Onoff where he’s been, and what he’s been doing.

A trio of vampire movies

Since the second installment of the "Twilight" series is set to open in theaters soon (I haven't read the books, nor did I see the first film), I looked back and found three reviews of vampire movies to post. The first is a Mel Brooks spoof of the genre, though focused mostly on the classic "Dracula," and it doesn't work too well. The next is an Eddie Murphy romp. And the third -- the one worth a look, if you can find it, is an atmospheric, interesting exercise.

“Dracula” needs more life

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
Mel Brooks’ new comedy “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” is one of those good news/bad news movies. While it may be better than “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Spaceballs,” it doesn’t come close to “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein” or “High Anxiety.”
Brooks’ tenure in Hollywood has been meteoric: It burned white hot, then plummeted.

“Dracula: Dead and Loving It” marks a partial return to old form for the once-master spoofer. He lampoons not only the movies that have been adaptations -- loose, and otherwise -- of the classic horror novel “Dracula,” but also the novel itself. In his own offbeat way, he remains as close or closer to the source material than many previous adaptations, including Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and Tod Browning’s 1931 version of “Dracula” starring Bela Lugosi.

Leslie Nielsen (“The Naked Gun”) stars as Count Dracula, and Peter MacNichol plays his mad slave, Renfield. Together, they travel from Transylvania to London, where the count sets about gnawing on the necks of a pair of local women. Out to stop him are the uptight Harker (Steven Weber) and famed vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing (Brooks).
The film is about equal parts funny and stupid. The best scene begins with this exchange between Harker and Van Helsing, upon entering the crypt where a vampire sleeps:

“She’s dead,” observes Harker.

“No,” counters Van Helsing.

“She’s alive?”

“She’s nosferatu.”

“She’s Italian?”

Jeffrey Boam interview, June 1995

This is not a complete transcript of the interview. My vague recollection was that I was facing a pretty tight deadline, and so I skimmed through the recording and only transcribed the notes I thought I might use in the interview story. That said, the nuggets here are pretty interesting, given the way things played out:

* On “Lethal Weapon IV”: Jeffrey got no credit whatsoever. It turned out to be another bad “Lethal Weapon” experience with Warner Bros. and Richard Donner. Before the interview, he sent me a copy of the screenplay. At the time, I suspected he was eager to talk about it because he felt like it might be slipping away and going to another writer, and so he was trying to salvage it. His script, if I’m remembering correctly, involved the Los Angeles Lakers on a jet and a terrorist attack.

* He also mentions “The Phantom,” which he alluded to in our earlier interview. That movie bombed.

* On the fourth “Indiana Jones” movie, he didn’t get a credit, either. But what little he says about it sounds like George Lucas had the story pretty well set even back in the mid-1990s.

Don Porter: THE RIGHT-WING TERRORISM THING SEEMS PRETTY DEAD-ON.

Jeffrey Boam: “It seemed kind of far-fetched when I wrote it. [The Oklahoma City bombing] kind of spooked me a little bit, actually.”

The Jeffrey Boam interview, 1992

In the late 1980s and early '90s, I guested a couple of times a week on KALL-AM radio in Salt Lake City with DJ Peter Boam, who went by the on-air handle of "Peter B." He's a great guy, and we had a lot of fun talking movies and showbiz. It was during the waning days of so-called "full-service" radio, when listeners got music, news and talk all rolled into one.

Peter's brother was the late Jeffrey Boam, who unfortunately passed away in January 2000. Jeffrey was a tremendously successful screenwriter who penned scripts for movies including "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," "Lethal Weapon 2," "Lethal Weapon 3," "Innerspace," "The Dead Zone," "Funny Farm," "The Lost Boys" and "Straight Time." (He also was a writer-producer on one of my favorite, but sadly short-lived, TV series, "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.")

I first met Jeffrey in 1989 or 1990. While the family was vacationing at Disneyland, I took a few hours in the middle of the day and drove up to the Warner Bros. lot -- where Jeffrey was under contract -- and interviewed him in his offices there.

"Se7en" (1995)

Cast, crew can take pride in “Se7en”

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

There is a serial killer on the loose. He’s imaginative, devoted and, as one of the homicide detectives working the case gravely intones, “He’s patient.”

As bizarre and abnormal as these serial murders are, this killer has made them even more of a novelty, basing each on one of the so-called “Seven Deadly Sins”: gluttony, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and wrath.

That’s the premise of “Se7en,” a well-made but grisly, disturbing thriller starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt as the cops assigned to crack the case before the killer can dispatch all seven of his intended victims.