When I started thinking of writing about my favorite opening credits to movies, the first which came to mind were the ones for “A Few Good Men.” Directed by Rob Reiner, it is based on the play by Aaron Sorkin who also wrote the screenplay, and it is about the court-martial of two United States Marines who have been charged with the murder of a fellow Marine. Furthermore, it deals with the difficulties the lawyers are forced to endure in their defense, but you knew this already as the film stars Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson and Kevin Bacon among others.
What I love about these opening credits is the military exercises, or choreography if you will, by the Marines on display. They were performed here by the Texas A&M University’s Corps of Cadets Fish Drill Team, and I was enthralled at how in sync each member of this team was with the other. Throughout, they all move and react in a uniform way to where there is no weak link in the bunch. These military officers have been trained thoroughly to act as one unit, and it shows here as not one of them misses a beat throughout their exercises. They do not even have to look at one another to make sure they are in sync as all of them move like a well-oiled machine.
The drill these Marines perform during the opening titles hang over the rest of “A Few Good Men” as the film deals with many characters who are forced to deal with the death of a recruit whose passing has now put this platoon completely out of sync. The unity is now broken, and it may be a permanent break unless those in power can fix the situation to where everything is back in balance. But what will it take to put this platoon back to a unifying standard While some suggest charging the two marines with murder, others come to see they were only acting under orders by their superiors who had a different, yet illegal, way of bringing order to chaos. The whole movie, in essence, is about bringing an unbreakable unity back to a military system which has been seriously run off course by those whose powers have long since become corrupt.
Please check out the opening titles of “A Few Good Men” down below:
There was a time long ago, before he decided against paying taxes, when Wesley Snipes was one of the biggest action stars working in movies. When you see an actor like that suddenly sink into the almost inescapable realm of direct-to-video films, you cannot help but feel a little sad. Seriously, Snipes is a better actor than many give him credit for these days. He wowed us in “New Jack City” and the “Blade” movies among others. But in between all that, he starred in crappy movies he usually proved to be the most watchable thing in. “Passenger 57” is one of those crappy movies but, for what it is worth, it is never boring for a second.
Snipes stars as John Cutter, a security specialist for an airline corporation who is taking a flight to Los Angeles to take a new job. He is the kind of character you might see in Sylvester Stallone movies like “Cliffhanger;” a man who has suffered a terrible tragedy and is now heading on to the road to redemption. Cutter watched his wife get shot to death in front of him during a convenience store robbery, so you can understand why he doesn’t smile a lot. Along with him on the plane is flight attendant, don’t dare call her a stewardess, Marti Slayton, played by Alex Datcher. Cutter just got through a training session with her where he chewed Slayton out for improvising a move where she succeeded in disarming a terrorist. Now he is trying to make it up to her, but she is not making it easy for him. Ironically, the thing Cutter chewed Slayton out about becomes their only option for survival.
Unbeknownst to Cutter, aboard the plane is terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) who is being shipped under the guard of FBI agents to await trial where he will most certainly be found guilty. Payne plays the villain of the piece with a seething glare you can find in any Stanley Kubrick film. It is a one-note performance, even if his character has the excuse of feeling no pain. At the same time, Payne does create a threatening presence as a villain to where he has us desperately wanting him to experience the most intense pain humanly possible. Seriously, karma has got to visit this asshole at some point.
Now this brings me to one of the key idiotic moves in this film. Charles Rane is responsible for all of these terrorist acts of destruction, many of them involving airplane explosions. So of course, the FBI has the bright idea of transporting him to trial via airplane. Not by car, train, or even in a cage or some contraption that they would use for Hannibal Lecter. Of course, if they didn’t take him on a plane, there would be no movie. I doubt it would have been anywhere as exciting to see Mr. Rane hijack a 1970’s Pinto. Then again, that might have made for some interesting fight scenes between him and Cutter.
Some movies have gaping holes in plot logic which don’t bother me because I don’t always realize they are happening while I am watching a movie. But when you have plot holes as big as the ones those dinosaurs could have walked through, it’s kind of hard to not notice them. “Passenger 57” is full of plot holes, and they left me scratching my head constantly. We have already gone over transporting an airline hijacker by airplane, but how does this terrorist manage to get on board after being taken off by the police? He has some guy shooting the officers taking him back on board, but how did he get all the way out there? Did the FBI even bother checking the backgrounds of the flight crew and passengers? Really, you can see it in the eyes of Rane’s henchmen. Then again, looks can be deceiving. And is it really possible for Cutter to get inside an airplane by sneaking up through the landing gear while the plane is taking off and not get crushed or blown away in the process?
To a certain extent, it almost shouldn’t matter as “Passenger 57” is entertaining enough. But if these logic loopholes give you a big enough headache, like being in the front row and staring right up at a movie like “JFK,” then it does. You can only be allowed to insult the intelligence of the audience so much before they get right back up in your face.
The other really big problem is that the majority of the acting here is God awful. Granted, Snipes is always fun to watch, and I even have good things to say about Elizabeth Hurley as well. The other actors, however, all speak as if their feet are nailed to the floor, and they emote more than anything else. This is especially evident on the ground when Snipes is confronted by a bunch of hillbilly cops that are clichéd and racist in inescapable ways. How rare it is that you see this much bad acting in a motion picture which was released theatrically.
Then again, you do have Tom Sizemore on board as Cutter’s friend of sorts, Sly Delvecchio. Even if he was on drugs while acting in this movie, he is never ever boring and raises the acting level ever so slightly for the rest of the cast. Then again, that helped only so much.
The movie was directed by Kevin Hooks who has done a lot more work these days in television than he has in feature films. But considering that he has worked on such shows as “24,” “Alias,” and “Homicide – Life on The Street” among others, it is clear he has a good hand for action and character than this particular motion picture would quickly suggest. Maybe the movie was so low budget that they didn’t have time to work on things more. If they did have more time, it would have ended up being far more entertaining and enthralling than what ended up onscreen here.
As I write this, Snipes has since gone through a career renaissance thanks to the combined efforts of Craig Brewer and Eddie Murphy who allowed him to let loose and go crazy in “Coming 2 America” and “Dolemite is My Name.” Seeing him in “Passenger 57” serves as a reminder of the kind of action movie star he was once upon a time, and he does make this one more watchable than it might be otherwise. Thanks to Snipes, he keeps me from giving this particular movie a more brutal review.
In the end, I can’t say I hated “Passenger 57,” but I never got bored by it either. This was made back when we had dozens of “Die Hard” knock-offs, and this one can safely be described as “Die Hard on A Plane.” If you want a better version of this movie, check out “Executive Decision” with Kurt Russell and Steven Segal which has better acting and characters. Better yet, check out “Air Force One” which stars Harrison Ford and was directed by Wolfgang Peterson.
After all this time, I can’t believe Roger Ebert liked this movie more than “Air Force One.”
It is only with a surprising amount of free time that I found myself watching “Stepfather III.” Its reputation is so bad that it did not even merit a theatrical release. Yes, it was made for television, but it looks too cheap even for Cinemax. Even Terry O’Quinn, who was so terrifying as Jerry Blake in the previous “Stepfather” movies, bailed on this one. Still, curiosity overtook me as I sat down to see how Jerry’s quest for the perfect family could continue even after being stabbed more times than any mortal being can possibly endure. Plus, it was free to watch on IMDB.
When “Stepfather III” begins, Jerry (played here by Robert Wightman) has already escaped the psychiatric institution in Puget Sound, Washington. This is the same place he was imprisoned in and escaped at the start of “Stepfather II,” and it makes me wonder why anyone would bother sending him back there after he stabbed a psychiatrist who thought he was making progress with him. Why not just send him to prison? Well, in horror movies like this, everyone gets a second chance, and then a third, and then a fourth. Just like Sideshow Bob from “The Simpsons,” there are idiots out there willing to give him a free pass.
Whatever the case, the filmmakers decided to skip over the escape part and cut straight to the chase. Jerry meets up with a back-alley plastic surgeon (played every so shamelessly by Mario Roccuzzo) who proceeds to alter his face while smoking an endless number of cigarettes. Yes, this is how sterile he keeps his workplace. This leads to one of the few interesting moments as director Guy Magar ended up filming an actual plastic surgery procedure which is more unnerving than what any makeup effects professional could have come up with. And again, this sequel has a ridiculously small budget, so filming the real thing must have saved Magar a few pennies.
With his new face, Jerry does what some would do to keep from going bankrupt due to high medical costs; he kills the doctor. Hey, medical insurance in America doesn’t cover everything. Besides, some companies would say being psychotic is a pre-existing condition.
Yes, yes, I know, this is a back-alley doctor who doesn’t deal in paperwork, but let me have some fun here.
Anyway, Jerry makes his way to Deer View, California where he lives under the alias of Keith Grant and works at a plant nursery. This makes sense as he has previously shown just how good he is with gardening tools and other sharp instruments. It’s also no surprise to see how good he is with a shovel.
While at a church dance where he dresses up as the Easter bunny, Keith ends up meeting Christine Davis (Priscilla Barnes), a divorced school principal with a son who is psychosomatically paralyzed. Surprise, surprise, the two quickly fall in love and get married because, you know, why wait in a movie like this? As you can imagine, there is a jealous ex-boyfriend who is quite possessive of Christine, and Christine’s son is busy doing detective work because kids are smarter than we think and are always cutting through their parents’ bullshit.
If there is an interesting angle in this dreaded “Stepfather” sequel, it’s that the story has a bit of a twist. Keith ends up meeting the widow Jennifer Ashley (Season Hubley) who has just moved into town with her son, and he begins courting her. So instead of one potential bride to start a family with, there is another for him to consider. From there, this sequel could have turned into a far more suspenseful motion picture as you wonder which lady will live and die. It’s like a demonic season of “The Bachelor” where a contestant gets a knife in the heart instead of a rose, or perhaps this more resembles one of the many twisted reality shows which aired on Fox back in the 1990’s.
Whatever the case, “Stepfather III” is a horrible waste of time for everyone involved and people like me who made the mistake of watching it. Moreover, this movie drags its way to a pitiful conclusion which utilizes a wood chipper in a way nowhere as memorable as what the Coen brothers did with one in “Fargo.” At least, the filmmakers here gave Jerry/Keith a more permanent conclusion. While he may have survived a dozen knife wounds, I imagine he has as much luck of being put back together as Humpty Dumpty ever did.
Speaking of dragging, this sequel has a running time of almost two hours. Whereas the original “Stepfather” ran a mere 89 minutes and “Stepfather II” is only 93 minutes long, someone decided they could get away with adding another 20 to 30 minutes of footage. On top of “Stepfather III” being boring and terribly made, it feels like it lasts forever. Towards the end, I couldn’t care less about who lived or died. I just wanted this awfulness to be over and done with.
In regards to Robert Wightman, I don’t know whether to pity him or feel sorry for him. Stepping into a role which O’Quinn handled ever so brilliantly was never going to be an easy feat, and Dylan Walsh didn’t have it any better when he starred in the inevitable “Stepfather” remake. O’Quinn brought both a real pathos and a humanity to Jerry Blake, and this made the character all the more frightening. While Wightman does get Jerry’s old-fashioned mannerisms down well, and lord knows this man is far too old-fashioned and polite on the outside, he is unable to make the character the least bit terrifying. In fact, he comes off looking quite harmless even after impaling a man with a rusty shovel.
What else? The music score sounds like it was done on one of those Casio pianos from the 1980’s (understandably, this movie could not afford any orchestra), the acting is terrible, the story is mostly predictable as we have been down this road before, the cinematography particularly at the beginning is bizarre, and the bloody effects look even worse than what Bob and Harvey Weinstein forced Jeff Burr to add to “Stepfather II,” and those efforts looked ridiculously fake.
While I’m at it, what are Priscilla Barnes and Season Hubley doing in this trash? Barnes played a Bond woman in “Licence to Kill,” Rob Zombie made great use of her in “The Devil’s Rejects,” and she was on “Three’s Company” for crying out loud! As for Hubley, she had an unforgettable scene opposite her then-husband Kurt Russell in “Escape From New York,” and she held her own opposite George C. Scott in Paul Schrader’s “Hardcore.” Surely their agents could have gotten them something better than this dreck.
Look, I did not expect much of anything from “Stepfather III” as any movie in this series lacking Terry O’Quinn is just asking for a severe round of bitch slapping. But still, I have seen many horror movies with worse acting and writing, and they proved to be far more entertaining and scarier than this one. Was anyone involved in this sequel’s making the least bit interested in making something the least bit thrilling, or were they more interested in making a quick buck? All we get here is a pathetic excuse of a motion picture which still has not gotten a DVD or Blu-ray release in America. I bet even Shout Factory doesn’t want to touch this one.
I still remember watching this particular trailer before Phil Alden Robinson’s highly entertaining comedy caper, “Sneakers.” Most movie trailers do follow a certain formula as marketers are determined to sell their product to the widest audience possible, but every once in a while, we get one which breaks the mold and gives us something different and unforgettable. This came with the teaser trailer for Barry Levinson’s “Toys” which featured Robin Williams improvising in a field which he called the largest studio on the 20th Century Fox lot, and I almost believed him when he said the field was inside one building. Back then, Williams was at the height of his box office powers, and this trailer quickly reminded me of how brilliant a comedian he was.
This trailer essentially has Williams riffing on the various ways this movie could be promoted to the public, and each of them proves to be hilarious even as certain references have long since become dated. And if you didn’t know about the existence of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, you certainly did after watching this trailer. And yes, we can agree it is not the right holiday to release this movie, let alone any movie, on.
The only downside of this trailer is it made “Toys” look like a full-on comedy. For those who saw it, however, they can agree it was hard to put Levinson’s movie into one particular genre. In fact, it proved to be one of the most experimental movies released by a major Hollywood studio back in the 1990’s as well as one of the biggest box office flops of that decade. But for those willing to go into “Toys” with an open mind will find it to be strikingly original and one of the most powerful anti-war movies ever. At the very least, you have to love Ferdinando Scarfiotti’s art direction which he spent more than a year working on.
“Patriot Games” was the second Tom Clancy novel adapted to the big screen after the huge critical and commercial success of “The Hunt for Red October.” But in the process of bringing Clancy’s heroic character Jack Ryan back for another adventure, many changes ended up taking place. John McTiernan stepped away from the director’s chair and Phillip Noyce came on board, Alec Baldwin was replaced by Harrison Ford, and Basil Poledouris stepped aside for James Horner who at the time was an A-list composer very much in demand.
La La Land Records has released a remastered and expanded soundtrack to “Patriot Games” which contains a lot of music never before released, source cues and the Clannad song “Harry’s Game.” The film has Jack Ryan stopping an IRA assassination attempt on the Royal Family, but this makes him the target of a renegade faction of terrorists, especially Sean Miller (Sean Bean) whose brother Ryan ended up killing. In scoring this action and suspense film, Horner creates a surprisingly understated score which features lovely Irish and Gaelic flavors, and he combines both electronic and orchestral music to highlight the movie’s action set pieces.
Now most action scores start off with a thunderous main title to get the audience all hyped up, but the main title for “Patriot Games” is surprisingly subtle and not the least bit bombastic. This turned out to be an excellent move on Horner’s part as this film proves to be a more personal one for Jack Ryan than “The Hunt for Red October.” Among my favorite tracks are “Attempt on the Royals” which underscores Ryan’s heroic save and the loss of Sean Miller’s brother, “The Hit” in which Jack rushes after his family to save them from the vengeful Sean, and “Assault on Ryan’s House” where IRA terrorists make their last effort to eliminate the brilliant CIA analyst. I’ve always been a sucker for adrenaline pumping film music, and Horner was one of the masters at composing it.
At the same time, I really liked the low-key music he comes up with like “Closing Credits” which is a piece of music great to fall asleep to. I kept thinking it was one of the singers from Clannad who did the backing vocals on this track, but it was actually Maggie Boyle whose voice is nothing short of heavenly. Horner is great at finding the humanity in the characters inhabiting an action movie, and his music can be both thrilling and highly emotional at the same time. Not many film composers can pull off such a feat.
Among the previously unreleased tracks, it was nice to see “Sean Obsessing in Jail” on this release as Horner gets at what is eating away at Sean whose obsession for avenging his brother’s death continues to grow and grow, and I also got a kick out of “Cooley Escapes” which follows a minor character in the film who suddenly discovers he is under police surveillance. As for the source cues, they include the “Washington Post March,” some traditional Irish music and some pieces composed by Mozart, I’m not sure how necessary they were to this edition of the “Patriot Games” soundtrack. At the same time, those additions prove just how serious La La Land Records is about giving fans the most complete soundtrack to a movie they could ever hope to have.
One interesting thing about this particular La La Land Records release is it doesn’t contain the original commercial release of the soundtrack. Other releases of theirs have had them on a second disc as a bonus for those who liked the original version. But in the end, I guess they decided not to include it because everything from the original release is on these two discs anyway. I do need to point out, however, there are two different versions of “Closing Credits” on this expanded version. One is listed as the film version, and the other is listed as the album version. The difference between the two is the film version is in English and the other one is not. Regardless of which version you find yourself liking more, it is great to have both of them here.
And like many La La Land Records releases, it does come with a booklet detailing the making of the soundtrack and the movie itself. The booklet is entitled “The Pluck of the Irish,” and was written by Jim Lochner who is the managing editor of FSM Online and the owner of the website FilmScoreClickTrack.com. Now I have reviewed several La La Land Records releases, but the booklet for “Patriot Games” is one of the best they have ever put together as Lochner covers just about every single detail about the movie more than ever before.
Among the memorable passages are why Neufeld didn’t bring McTiernan back for “Patriot Games,” how Baldwin reacted to not getting cast in the film, and how Clancy was constantly upset about the changes made in bringing his book to the big screen. In describing Horner’s score, Lochner writes it is a “subtle, understated score that percolates underneath the surface, conveying the tension of a family under siege and the terrorists’ patriotic Irish roots.” I think this is the perfect description for the music of “Patriot Games,” and Lochner, in writing about the other tracks, makes the case for why Horner should have received more attention for it when the movie came out in 1992.
Once again, La La Land Records has given film music fans another remastered and expanded soundtrack which is a must buy. In a career that has seen him create unforgettable film scores for “Titanic,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and “Glory,” Horner’s score for “Patriot Games” stands out as one of his most unique. It is at times an understated and at other times a pulse pounding listen, and the Irish elements he puts in reminds us of what a masterful composer he was. Now it has the soundtrack edition it has long deserved.
We are now at the 25th anniversary of the release of “Lethal Weapon 3” in theaters, something I have a hard time accepting as I still remember seeing it for the first time like it was yesterday.
With it being the third movie in a highly successful franchise, “Lethal Weapon 3” settles into a familiar formula which, as this sequel proves, still works. Director Richard Donner and stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were interested in making this film more of a comedy, and we get the usual gunfights, explosions and car chases which are all expertly filmed. In addition, we also get another thrilling music score from the composers who worked on the previous “Lethal Weapon” movies: Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton, and David Sanborn.
I still remember the first time I saw “Lethal Weapon 3” and how gleefully entertained I was while watching it. I also loved the score for it as well even if it sounded recycled from the previous two films. After seeing this sequel twice in one week, I couldn’t wait to buy the soundtrack in the hopes it would have more of the music I expected to hear on the soundtracks to “Lethal Weapon” and “Lethal Weapon 2.” But yet again, the commercial release of the “Lethal Weapon 3” soundtrack left me disappointed despite some good tracks (“Armour Piercing Bullets” was the standout) included on it. Furthermore, it only had a portion of Kamen’s, Clapton’s and Sanborn’s music score on it.
But now we have a brand-new expanded and remastered soundtrack for “Lethal Weapon 3” which includes two compact discs containing all of the music cues I prayed would be on the 1992 commercial soundtrack release. It is being released as part of La La Land Records’ “Lethal Weapon Soundtrack Collection” box set, and it is gratifying to listen to this score in its entirety.
This film score starts off with a whimsical feel as Riggs and Murtaugh try to disarm a bomb and end up failing to do so quite explosively. Busted down from detectives to beat cops, they are at the scene of an armored car robbery and immediately jump into action. This leads to one of my favorite tracks on the first disc entitled “Armoured Car Chase.” Hearing the three composers come together to create such a thrilling piece of music made watching this sequence all the more exciting.
My other favorite tracks on this expanded soundtrack are “Gun Battle” which is the same piece of music as “Armour Piercing Bullets,” and it always succeeds in getting me super excited to where I can see myself in appearing in an action movie. Another is “Fire/Fire Battle/A Quiet Evening by the Fire” which gives the movie’s action climax an equally thrilling and highly emotionally effect which reminds you of how the “Lethal Weapon” movies are as big on character as they are on unforgettable action set pieces.
The second disc of “Lethal Weapon 3” features the commercial release of the soundtrack which includes the songs “It’s Probably Me” by Sting and Clapton, and “Runaway Train” performed by Clapton and Elton John. The rest are pieces of the score by Kamen, Clapton and Sanborn, and there are some additional tracks featuring alternate versions of music cues. I have to give credit to La La Land Records for including the original album on this special release instead of just trying to bury it under a rug or something.
Jeff Bond, whose booklet “Some Movies Don’t Invent Genres: They Just Perfect Them” accompanies the “Lethal Weapon Soundtrack Collection,” writes about how Donner decided to put more of an emphasis on comedy and family with this sequel. Still, there were some new additions like renegade ex-cop Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson) and Internal Affairs officer Lorna Cole (Rene Russo) to give “Lethal Weapon 3” the dark edge it needed. It also was revealed Lorna was originally written as a male character. For those who have seen the movie, I think we can all agree the change in gender was a very welcome one. Who else but Russo could have inhabited this role so memorably?
In regards to the score, Bond makes it clear Kamen, Clapton, and Sanborn did not phone this one in at all. Unlike the previous “Lethal Weapon” movies, this one starts out with a song performed by Sting. The song was “It’s Probably Me,” and Bond quotes Sting as saying his idea behind it was that Riggs and Murtaugh are such macho guys to where they wouldn’t express their love for one another right away.
Bond also points out Kamen did intentionally stick with the formula which made the scores to the previous movies work so well. But at the same time, this score shows how talented Kamen and company are in scoring the most humorous scenes as well. In “Lethal Weapon” and “Lethal Weapon 2,” Kamen succeeded at balancing action spectacles with character driven moments. But in “Lethal Weapon 3,” he also proves to be a master at adding to the endless laughs which were to be had in this sequel.
Once again, La La Land Records has given us another great special edition of a soundtrack long overdue for an expanded release. Here’s hoping they release more remastered and expanded soundtracks I have spent decades waiting for in the future. Can an expanded release of Harold Faltemeyer’s film score for “Fletch” be far behind?
The Ultimate Rabbit 