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THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK
Drama, 1971, USA, R, * * * 1/2
Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint, Richard Bright. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg. 110 min.
This film probes the needle subculture of New York City -- where love and betrayal, harrowing humor, and tragedy pivot on a pinpoint. Director Jerry Schatzberg and Al Pacino (in his first starring role) have tapped veins of both irony and pathos, but the subplot in which Pacino pulls the upscale Kitty Winn into the sordid depths injects the plot with real tragedy. Scripted by "New Journalists" Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, and scored with scathing street sounds instead of music, Panic has a startling near-documentary buzz.
THE PAPER CHASE
Comedy, 1973, USA, PG, * * *
Timothy Bottoms, Lindsay Wagner, John Houseman, Graham Beckel, Edward Herrmann, Craig Richard Nelson. Directed by James Bridges. 111 min.
Among college students and uncertain pre-professionals, this engaging comedy-drama tells of a first-year law student in an intellectual wrangle with a brilliant, imperious professor (John Houseman) and a romantic one with his daughter (Lindsay Wagner). Director James Bridges, shooting at Harvard and in Canada, perfectly captures the imposing, scary architectural grandeur of an Ivy League college, and Timothy Bottoms is fine as the scholar unwittingly caught in a war of wills. The script, however, has scenes of pomposity and ineptitude, and the tone of much of the film, especially the ending, is pure 1970s disillusionment-is-so-romantic drivel. But the ecclesiastical atmosphere of a law school is splendidly conveyed, and Houseman, who won an Academy Award for this film, brilliantly distills every student's greatest fears into one unforgettable characterization. The film later became an acclaimed television series that ran, first on network, then on cable, for several years.
PAPER MOON Hence, this week I look at a few films that cleverly cast characters with the physical aptitude to fight off your typical horror villains. Not all survive and not all the films are any good, but each deserves a little credit for amassing some worthy warriors. Mulberry Street This surprisingly good After Dark series entry brings the fast vampiric zombie sub-genre into the streets of Manhattan. Not the most revolutionary premise, but Mulberry Street does earn some innovative points for the diversity--both in age and ethnicity--of its featured cast. Middle aged immigrants, elderly hermits, and a few believable teens make a refreshingly real cast, but it’s the skillful integration of physical fitness into everyday New Yorkers that gives some impressive action. Credit goes to writers Nick Damici and Jim Mickle for finding creative ways to smoothly squeeze athletic characters into the story. A retired boxer, recent Iraq war veteran, and beefy bouncer can hold their own against rat-bitten barflies. And while it’s always fun to watch regular folks torn apart by infected cannibals, seeing the victims put up a kickass fight is far more rewarding. Jeepers Creepers 2 Dead teenager films are more common than me getting angry at Emmy snubs, but rarely do the adolescent victim bodies prove to be worth more than their Gap provided wardrobe. Victor Salva’s followup to the surprisingly spry Jeepers Creepers strands a busload of high school basketball players and the least perky cheerleading squad in cinema hist The phrase "timing is everything" is hardly radical, but in the world of concept horror, it can truly make all the difference. Take, for example, Tim Lebbon's novel The Silence. Published in 2015, it tells the story of an average nuclear family in England trying to survive a plague of otherworldly monsters who hunt by sound. Since one of the children is deaf, their fluency in sign language serves as a helpful tool in outlasting the enemy. They hole up in an empty farmhouse and do their best to not make a sound. Yes, I essentially just described the plot of John Krasinski's 2018 sleeper hit A Quiet Place. Much like how Suzanne Collins allegedly knew nothing about Battle Royale when penning The Hunger Games, A Quiet Place was also seemingly developed without any knowledge of Lebbon's book. It also had the good fortune to get its cinematic release well before director John R. Leonetti's adaptation of The Silence, which dropped on Netflix with the ill luck of being seen as a cash-in of both Krasinski's film and the similarly premised Bird Box. All this is to say that The Silence has a lot agains it from any casual viewer's perspective. Having enjoyed the novel and Leonetti's Wish Upon, I was rooting for it. Quick Plot: When a pair of researching spelunkers head deep into a Pennsylvanian cave, an undiscovered species of bat-like creatures emerge, blindly chewing their way through the entire Western Hemisphere. Stuck in the middle is a typical American family headed by dad Hugh (top ten crush list Stanley Tucci), mom Kelly, kid brother Jude, and key to their survival, 16-year-old Ally (Kiernan Shipka). Just three years earlier, a car accident robbed Ally of her hearing, meaning she's now used to living in the titular silence with her ASL-fluent family. This is a huge convenience, as vesps (as the creatures are dubbed) hunt purely by sound. Joined by Kelly's cancer-ridden mom, Hugh's BFF Glenn, and a lovable but barking Rotweiler, .
Comedy, 1973, USA, PG, * * *
Ryan O'Neal, Tatum O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, John Hillerman, P.J.