Twins

My memory of movies is kind of shoddy.  I can remember, in detail, where I was and who I was with for certain movies, but others just float in a memory vacuum.  I remember the movie fine, but I don't know when or why I watched it.  Twins is one of those mystery movies for me.  I know I enjoyed it as a kid, and I can recall a decent portion of the movie, but I don't know why I liked it or who I would have seen it with.  Maybe a look at the trailer will help jog my memory:

Even though I have seen Twins several times over the years, I can hardly believe that trailer was real.  It looks like someone trying to make a legitimate movie from a discarded SNL sketch.  It looks awful.  And yet I have positive memories of it?  I am definitely starting to doubt the merits of my nostalgia.  

Twins begins on a remote South Pacific island, where the inexplicably accented Julius (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is told for the first time that he has a twin brother.  Naturally, he assumes his brother will be a lot like him: impossibly fit, scientifically brilliant, and eager to be reunited with his family. 

Yes, I said "brilliant."  If you suspend your disbelief now, this movie will be much easier to watch.

Julius then hops in a raft and paddles his way to California to find his brother.  Naturally.  As it turns out, Julius' long-lost brother looks and acts nothing like him.  Hint: that's where the comedy comes in!  Vincent (Danny DeVito) is a short, fat, bald weasel of a man.  He aspires to white collar crime, but is willing to settle for stealing cars and selling them to chop shops.  In his free time, he constantly disappoints his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Linda (Chloe Webb).  When Julius finally (after one, maybe two scenes) tracks down Vincent, Vince is in jail.  Being a loving brother, Julius offers to pay the steep bail with his enormous briefcase of cash.  Of course, Vincent doesn't believe he is the twin brother of an Austrian bodybuilder, but he's not going to deny anyone the pleasure of getting him out of jail.  From that point on, all Julius has to do is convince Vincent that they are brothers and track down their missing parents.  And all Vincent has to do is stay one step ahead of some ruthless criminals who want to kill him.  That sounds like a pretty full plate for these two, but keep in mind that they both have to grow as people, learn to love, and waltz to a Jeff Beck cameo.

This is the movie that inspired the "Sounds legit" meme

The acting in Twins, while broad, isn't as goofy as the film's concept.  What is perhaps more surprising, in retrospect, is Arnold Schwarzenegger's competence in a comedic role.  Sure, he'd been funny on occasion in his action movies --- my personal favorite is him punching a horse in the face in Conan the Barbarian --- but this was his first real comedy.  His acting chops are clearly limited...

Arnold, reading his lines

...but his timing is actually pretty good.  Ahnuld is not a natural, but his stilted acting fits the innocence of his character and his broad expressions fit the gags in this movie.  Danny DeVito's performance is harder to describe.  In the beginning of the movie, he is the closest thing the audience has to a character that is thinking what they are thinking --- specifically, the phrase "Yeah, right," over and over again.

DeVito, discussing the plausibility of this script

As the film progresses, though, Vincent starts to believe.  That makes sense, because the audience is (hopefully) going through the same transition, if the film is working.  The way DeVito handles that change is to start acting consistently goofy to match Ahnuld's awkwardness.  That silliness is amplified by the fact that DeVito is forced to carry the dramatic moments in this movie because Schwarzenegger simply can't.  The ladies (Chloe Webb and Kelly Preston) were just fine in their supporting romantic roles.  They didn't have a lot of personality, but it was enough for their limited screen time.  It is worth pointing out that a young David Caruso has a small part in Twins as the parking attendant.  Sadly, he does not wear any sunglasses in this film.

YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHH!

Twins was directed by Ivan Reitman, toward the back-half of his incredibly successful run in the 80s and early 90s.  Reitman's skill set as a director seems to be allowing the talent to do their thing in front of the camera and edit it into a cohesive story later.  That method works when you've got an improvisational master like Bill Murray in your movies.  Replacing Murray with Schwarzenegger doesn't get the same result.  One side effect of that is a reliance on much, much broader comedy in Twins than in Reitman's best films, Stripes and Ghostbusters.  That's not necessarily a terrible thing, but it makes for a far more generic and formulaic comedy.

Except for the part where the brothers prepared to crush those poor, poor children

Reitman deserves credit for taking an absolutely ludicrous concept and making it into a watchable, even likable film.  That was not inevitable. 

It could have been much, much worse

What makes Twins work is how warm it is.  Yes, the plot is idiotic.  No, the acting is not very impressive.  Yes, the main concept also serves as the bulk of the film's jokes.  But it's pretty damn cute.  The physical comedy of the two brothers in sync, while not subtle, is well done.  The same goes for the ludicrous plot; as much as I want to hate this movie, seeing DeVito and Schwarzenegger with those puppy dog eyes, asking about their mom is downright adorable.  Is Twins a classic?  Definitely not.  It's pleasant, but utterly disposable entertainment that is almost immune to logic and scrutiny.  And it's pretty good for what it is.

From Dusk Till Dawn

After a month of horror movies, I have come to the realization that there are not a lot of great vampire movies out there.  The premise is sound, but many vamp flicks just fall short of the mark, whether from budgetary reasons, stylistic choices, or simply bad writing.  I have seen From Dusk Till Dawn before, but it has been a few years since I watched it last.  This movie obviously had a budget, since legendary special effects master Tom Savini wouldn't be seen acting in a film without cool effects.  The writing is handled by Quentin Tarantino, back when his dialogue was ridiculous and overly entertaining.  As for the style, it is directed by Robert Rodriguez, features monstrous vampires, over-the-top action, and has a good part of the story take place at a strip club.  Right off the bat, you know that this isn't going to have the subtle moodiness of Interview With the Vampire.

Not the first, but certainly not the last clue

From Dusk Till Dawn opens with the notorious Gecko brothers, Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Quentin Tarantino), on the run from Texas Marshals on their way to the border.  Richard broke Seth out of police custody, and the pair had left a trail of corpses in their wake ever since.  This is partly because they are a couple of no-nonsense villains, but also because Richie is a bit of a psychopath and manufactures reasons to kill. 

They look like brothers, right?

Thanks to Richie's habit of murdering people, it has become harder and harder for the pair to maintain a low profile.  They need to sneak across the border, but how can they do it without being caught?  As luck would have it, a disillusioned preacher, Jacob (Harvey Keitel), is taking his kids on a road trip in the aftermath of their mother's death.  Their motor home catches the attention of Seth as it pulls into his motel parking lot, and suddenly, the Geckos are forcing Jacob to drive them into Mexico.

So...where are all the vampires?  Hold on, they're coming.  Once in Mexico, the crew arrives at the place where Seth is supposed to meet his contact; by morning, Seth and Richie will be on their way to their safety zone and Jacob will be free to take his two kids back home.  The meeting place happens to be a strip club named the Titty Twister, which caters to bikers and truckers.  The place is open from dusk until dawn, so it's the perfect spot for a fugitive to spend a few hours unwinding.  Except everyone in the Titty Twister happens to be a vampire.  Oops.  The best laid plans...

This scene makes me laugh every time

For being a ridiculous vampire movie, the acting is surprisingly solid in From Dusk Till Dawn.  This was George Clooney's first starring film role since he became famous in ER, so it's kind of interesting seeing this as his first step toward super-stardom.  And he is very good here; he delivers Tarantino's dialogue naturally and fits the sleaziness of his character quite well.  His role isn't perfect --- he's on the run and wears a leather vest, of all things, to blend in? --- but he is able to be a bad guy and a fairly charismatic character at the same time.

Even if he has douchebag tattoos

Quentin Tarantino isn't anywhere near as likable, but his character isn't supposed to be.  While I dislike QT as an actor, I will admit that his style fits the abrasive nature of his character perfectly.

Side note: I hate Tarantino's face

Harvey Keitel is pretty good as Jacob, but I think he is awfully stiff given the shitty day he is having; at first, I thought the awkwardness was pretty natural for a hostage, but he never unclenches.  Juliette Lewis plays his teenage daughter, and I guess she was fine.  She's a little awkward, and her screams are kind of annoying, but it was a tough role to be likable in.  Ernest Liu plays her brother and manages to be less charismatic than Lewis.  Seriously, what a dull character.  There are a lot of noteworthy actors in the rest of the cast, but most of them have far less screen time as supporting actors.  Cheech Marin played three different characters for no real reason; he was kind of funny as a vampire and later, as a crook, but his first appearance as a border patrol cop was surprisingly bland.  Salma Hayek writhed around as a stripper --- named Satanico Pandemonium --- who doesn't take her top off, dances with a snake, and lets Richie suck on her toes as she pours booze down her leg.  There isn't any substance to her character, and the toe and snake things kind of gross me out, but it's hard to criticize Hayek's portrayal of a lusty babe.

Nope.  No problems here.

Frequent Rodriguez collaborator Danny Trejo makes a brief appearance as a tough guy vampire, which adds a whole new layer of depth to his acting oeuvre.  Fred Williamson also gets to play a bad-ass, which is about the only thing he has ever done in his life.  Tom Savini didn't get much dialogue, which speaks to how little Tarantino trusted him to act, but he kicked a lot of vampire ass, which is plenty good enough for me.  There are also some noteworthy bit parts in the film; Kelly Preston is a news reporter, John Saxon is an interviewed FBI agent, Michael Parks introduces his Texas Marshal character for the first time (he pops up again in Kill Bill and the Grindhouse double feature), and John Hawkes delivers the most vintage Tarantino dialogue in the whole film as a liquor store clerk.  And to think, I was impressed by the cast of Interview With the Vampire!

Since this is a vampire movie, it is important to take a quick look at the creatures.  This time around, they are normal-looking people who transform into hideous monsters.

Danny Trejo, before transforming

Post-transformation, the creatures sometimes resemble their human selves, but not always.  The are super-strong, but their bodies are mushy, so blunt force attacks are effective against them.  They are vulnerable to sunlight, crosses, holy water, and wooden stakes, although you can just opt to punch holes in them, too.  Pretty standard stuff, but you never know what the rules are going to be in a vampire movie.

I really enjoyed the special effects in From Dusk Till Dawn.  They don't really come up much in the first half of the film, but once people start vamping out, there is a ton of very cool makeup and practical effects in every scene.

That also means that there is a good amount of gore in this movie.  Hearts get pulled out, heads get melted, and there is an absolute ton of blood.  Honestly, there isn't much more you can ask for in an action/horror vampire story.

Unfortunately, this isn't just an action/horror vampire story.  In fact, the first half has very little action or horror at all.  It's a crime yarn that makes a left turn and winds up in the unfamiliar territory of the supernatural action/horror sub-genre.  I'm not complaining, mind you; both halves are very entertaining.  However, the shift in tone, pacing, and style makes this feel like two separate films.  I knew that going into this viewing, but the effect was still jarring.  The first half feels like it could have been taken from leftover Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction scraps (I mean that in a good way), except for the fact that the most likable character (Seth) is obviously a complete bastard, instead of the usual cool-guy-that-does-bad-things type Tarantino usually creates.  The second half doesn't play to Tarantino's strengths, as there is very little dialogue, and even less of it is clever.  The action scenes are staged well, though, and Robert Rodriguez is able to keep the film entertaining, even as is shifts its focus.

He kicks ass for the lord

I'm not saying that From Dusk Till Dawn is a bad movie, but it is far from the best work of either Rodriguez or Tarantino.   Objectively, this movie lacks solid pacing and focus.  The writing is uneven, and the acting takes a back seat to the effects in the second half.  It's fun, but a little empty.  Of course, this film was never meant to be a critical darling.  It feels less like a cool story that the filmmakers really wanted to tell and more like a couple of friends having a blast, making the type of movie that would have blown their minds as teenagers.  In that, they are successful.  This is silly, cheeky, gory, and absolutely ridiculous, which makes it very entertaining, warts and all.

10 to Midnight

Do you know something that you never hear Charles Bronson referred to as?  If you guessed "Hispanic," then you haven't seen Once Upon a Time in the West.  No, I was thinking of the phrase "actor's actor."  I'm not saying that Bronson didn't make some good (usually ensemble) movies, but his work was never a tour de force of the craft.  You already knew that, but I think it is important to point that out before discussing 10 to Midnight.

This film tells the story of a Los Angeles police detective, Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson) and his hunt for a serial killer.  The killer in question has a very particular MO.  He finds a girl he likes, makes obscene phone calls to her (partially in Spanish), and eventually gets completely naked before stabbing his victim to death.  The police have no leads, but Kessler has a hunch that the wealthy, socially elite Warren Stacy (Gene Davis) is the killer, despite several strong alibis.  Kessler's hunch is correct, but he is never able to get any evidence to back up his claim to others, or even to verify it to himself.  Sounds like a typical detective story so far, right?  Well, that takes up close to an hour of this 100 minute movie.

It then makes a peculiar shift in tone from a detective story to a call to vigilantism; Kessler plants blood evidence from a murder victim on some of Stacy's clothes to get Stacy arrested.  When Kessler's partner (Andrew Stevens) figures that out and refuses to back Kessler's play, Kessler admits to planting the evidence and Stacy is released.  You would think that conflict would take quite a bit of time, but it happened in about the time it takes to read that sentence.  Kessler then starts to do his best Dirty Harry impression and openly stalks Stacy in public.  Stacy gets mad and does the most logical thing a serial killer can do: punish the man that clearly has little to no problem going outside the boundaries of the law to catch you, and murder his daughter.  Serial killers are funny like that sometimes.  The film reaches a climax with Stacy, buck nekkid and armed with a knife, chasing Kessler's daughter (Lisa Eilbacher) through the curiously empty streets of Los Angeles at night.  SPOILER: When Stacy is surrounded by the police, naked and armed in the street, he tells Kessler that he will plead insanity and eventually get out of jail, and then he will kill Kessler's entire family.  Kessler just says "No you won't," shoots him in the head, in front of about thirty policemen, roll credits, the end.  Well, that wraps things up with a nice little bow, doesn't it?

With a story that "good," you can safely assume that the acting is around the same level.  Yes, Charles Bronson is the lead here, so you know that he will perform with all the energy of a mustachioed cactus, but surely the other actors will pick up the slack.  Or not.  Lisa Eilbacher (of Beverly Hills Cop fame) and Andrew Stevens (of Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure, "fame") managed to spark a fairly unconvincing romance on the screen.  It's one of those movie romances that start out with the characters being all like, "I can't stand him/her" and then, magically (because there is no on-screen time given to the development of their relationship), they admit to a mutual attraction and affection.  Blech.  Gene Davis plays the killer and they decide to spend equal parts of the movie shooting from his point of view (okay, it's kind of a slasher film, that's fine) and from behind while he's attacking people.  That means that his butt gets about as much screen time as his face.  If they had just stuck some googly eyes on his butt, they wouldn't have needed to bother with the face; he's quite the actor, believe me.  There are some noteworthy actors in small roles, though.  A young Kelly Preston plays one of Eilbacher's roommates, who is apparently deathly allergic to knife wounds.  Wilford Brimley plays Bronson's police captain, although I have a hard time judging his work; whenever he speaks, all I hear is him rambling about oatmeal.

Director/co-writer J. Lee Thompson was certainly no stranger to serial killer movies or even vigilante movies at this point in his career, but the man had definitely peaked by 1983.  When a director willingly works with Death Wish sequels-era Bronson, you know they have really given up trying.  Thompson later directed Death Wish 4, too.  I blame Thompson for a lot of this film's problems.  The pacing is very lopsided; the vigilante part is not foreshadowed well, so it feels very abrupt, although nowhere near as abrupt as the ending.  Of course, the acting is just terrible, but some of it could have been fixed by just suggesting that Bronson not read his lines like he didn't understand the words.

The worst aspect of this movie is its lame attempts at being intelligent.  Thompson throws a lot of pseudo-psychology in the script and it just comes off as corny.  Why does Stacy kill all these people?  Because he hates his mother.  Oh.  I'm surprised there aren't more teenage girls out murdering strangers in the night.  Even Bronson gets in on the psychology, saying that "anybody who does something like this, his knife has to be his penis."  So...your best suspect is a bed bug?  Isabella Rossellini would be so mad!  And yet, there is no explanation given for the killer's motives.  Yeah, he seems to hate his mother, but if a movie is going to waste my time with stabs at couch psychology, then it might as well give him a tragic origin.  If he's just supposed to be a jerk monster, then why not cut out those motivational scenes and save us some viewing time?

This is a sloppy movie, too.  Where does a murder victim hide her diary?  In a cheap box labeled "My Diary."  How many stab wounds does it take to kill a person?  Just one, and they're all immediately fatal.  The killer spends a lot of time naked on-screen, so there are an awful lot of crotch-level props shown.  Grown women sharing an apartment share one bedroom with one closet and two double beds?  In what reality is this movie taking place?  Oh, and the title has absolutely nothing to do with the story at all.  What happens at 11:50 PM?  I have no idea.  I'm not saying that fixing these details would fix this movie, but it would help disguise the awfulness of it.

10 to Midnight starts out as a fairly conventional detective story that could have been half-decent.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda, I know.  Dabbling in the slasher and vigilante cop genres just muddled the story in a movie that should have been very straight forward.  The ending is what drops this from "bad movie" to "utter crap," though.  Is there a message in the ending?  Is Kessler to be admired for his actions, or condemned?  I don't really care, because the characters were unappealing, but I honestly don't know what the point of this movie was.