Month: November 2021

When El Jefe discovers his teenage daughter was knocked up by Alfredo Garcia, he places a million dollar bounty on Garcia’s head. Warren Oates, seeing it as an easy payday since he knows Alfredo is already dead, takes his girlfriend on a road trip to Garcia’s grave to retrieve the head. Unfortunately nothing is as easy as it sounds. An ugly, brutal film, Oates brings a grizzled, weariness to his role, especially as the body count mounts up and his desperation grows. There is a single-mindedness to completing the job even when it doesn’t seem to make any sense to continue doing so.    

In the Hollywood Golden Age board game, Johnny Weissmuller is worth -1 point. I figured I owed it to the maligned Weissmuller to check out his most famous role. It is not without its problems. African locals are either treated as savages or spectacles. There is a lot of black face, including an entire race of people comprised of little people in black face. The entire reason Jane and her white compatriots are on the continent is to amass huge amounts of ivory from elephants and they, particularly her father played by C. Aubrey Smith, are willing to kill anything that even sort of gets in their way. Other than all that, it’s a fine, albeit a bit long, adventure film with loads of footage of real life jungle animals, including real Indian elephants with unfortunate attached ears and tusks. It also celebrates the advent of the iconic Tarzan call. That said, the film came in a set with three other Tarzan films and I don’t feel a desire to continue visiting the character.

Robert De Niro is a mobster who seeks help from psychiatrist Billy Crystal. Story-wise, the first one is better than the sequel. It’s a comedy version of The Sopranos focusing mostly on the doctor-tough guy relationship with some mobster drama and Crystal’s impending nuptials thrown in for added tension. Acting-wise, it makes sense that De Niro made Meet the Parents in between these two comedies. He seems to have a better grasp on the kind of comedy required in these roles. Unfortunately the story is a mess with De Niro facing psychosis to get out of prison and then finding himself as a consultant on the set of what is essentially The Sopranos. There are dueling crime families that weren’t in the original and a heist that suddenly comes out of left field. Together, the two films are a pair of mostly harmless, mostly forgettable comedies.

I watched this through twice and I’m still not sure what to think of this. Emilio Estevez is a punk who is recruited into becoming a repo man by Harry Dean Stanton. There’s a girl, televangelists, aliens, and most importantly a ’64 Chevy Malibu that you shouldn’t open the trunk of. Estevez looks prettier than he ever did with his blonde crewcut and smooth tanned skin. The quality Stanton brings is above everything about this film, but manages to keep it cool. It definitely has a vision at its core and there’s a bit of commentary on life, particularly in Los Angeles, during the Reagan era.