Twilight Zone: The Movie (June 23 at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE screens Friday June 23rd at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Rod Serling’s revered TV half-hour anthology The Twilight Zone, aired originally from 1959 to 1965, told different sci-fi and fantasy-tinged morality plays each week. It’s long shadow inspired this Warner Brothers big-budget movie anthology that made its theatrical debut in 1983 – an era when the blockbuster box-office returns of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg fantasias led the entertainment rackets to lavishly remake, relaunch and reboot all the way-out properties they owned the rights to. Whether the studios “got it” or not.

Three parts of the four installments in TWILIGHT ZONE – THE MOVIE remake favorite TZ episodes, but the first, directed by John Landis (hot after AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON) is an original. It's about a bigoted businessman (Vic Morrow), ranting about losing a job promotion to a Jew, who instantly finds himself cruelly knocked about the whole 20th century, suffering the same persecutions as blacks in the Jim Crow South, Jews in the Holocaust, and Indochinese during the Vietnam War. This was the featurette in which actor Morrow (and two child actors) died in an on-camera accident, perishing beneath a crashing helicopter while filming the Vietnam section. The horrific waste made even more disappointing by the segment itself, a one-note bashing of a nasty guy that feels like something whipped up by slumming liberal Hollywood film-school students.

Repost: The Blues Brothers (February 18th at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Adutiorioum)

Clevelanders get DIRECT TV and watch all of your favorite movies!

[THE BLUES BROTHERS screens Saturday February 18th at 7 pm and 9:30 pm at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Adutiorioum. Admission is free.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

Of all the stuff that's remembered about THE BLUES BROTHERS, perhaps the most important is one least remarked on. Yes, kids, this was the trailblazer, the brave pioneer, the groundbreaking movie milestone…The first feature that was a spinoff of a Saturday Night Live recurring-character sketch.

True, without the existence of the somewhat culty 1980 John Landis epic it's still possible that WAYNE'S WORLD, IT'S PAT, MACGRUBER, THE LADIES' MAN, CONEHEADS etc. etc. etc. argh! might have still happened. Never underestimate Lorne Michaels, AKA Dr. Evil. But this one opened the floodgates, for good or ill. Good, I guess, if you're into budget Halloween costumes, because the matching Men-in-Black suits, sunglasses, briefcases, handcuffs etc. now allows most any two whites to become Jake and Elwood, AKA John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, two extremely Anglo-looking guys who sing blues music (the race switch was the essential joke, I’m told, but Aykroyd has since been an iconic partner in the House of Blues restaurant and music-venue chain and thus puts his money where his schtick is).

Burke and Hare (November 27th and 28th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[BURKE AND HARE screens Sunday November 27th at 6:30 pm and Monday November 28th at 8:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

The place is Scotland, the year is 1828. As our narrator, an affable executioner (Bill Bailey), informs us, the locale is in the midst of something of a medical renaissance. Even faster progress might be made in the pursuit of medical knowledge if only there were more cadavers to dissect, but alas only the bodies of executed criminals may be used for medical study, and there just aren't enough people being executed of late. That trickle all but dries up for Dr. Knox (Tom Wilkinson) after his rival Dr. Monro (Tim Curry) finds a way to get all the corpses for himself. Stepping in to meet the demand are a couple of Irish scam artists by the name of William Burke (Simon Pegg) and Willaim Hare (Andy Serkis). The first corpse the pair sells died of natural causes, but when finding another fresh subject proves difficult, the pair resorts to murder with little hesitation.

BURKE AND HARE begins with the statement that, “This is a true story. Except for the parts that are not.” That's usually the case with any film that purports to be “based on a true story”, but I do admire the filmmakers' forthrightness in this case. And indeed, a great many of the factual details have been changed. I just don't quite understand why. Normally if you're going to tinker with a true story, it's to juice up the action, make the story flow better, and/or emphasize particular themes and ideas the director wants to focus on. The changes co-writers Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft have made, however, feel arbitrary.

The Blues Brothers (July 2 at 9:30 p.m. and midnight at the Cedar Lee)

[THE BLUES BROTHERS screens Saturday July 2nd at 11:59pm at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

Of all the stuff that's remembered about THE BLUES BROTHERS, perhaps the most important is one least remarked on. Yes, kids, this was the trailblazer, the brave pioneer, the groundbreaking movie milestone…The first feature that was a spinoff of a Saturday Night Live recurring-character sketch.

True, without the existence of the somewhat culty 1980 John Landis epic it's still possible that WAYNE'S WORLD, IT'S PAT, MACGRUBER, THE LADIES' MAN, CONEHEADS etc. etc. etc. argh! might have still happened. Never underestimate Lorne Michaels, AKA Dr. Evil. But this one opened the floodgates, for good or ill. Good, I guess, if you're into budget Halloween costumes, because the matching Men-in-Black suits, sunglasses, briefcases, handcuffs etc. now allows most any two whites to become Jake and Elwood, AKA John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, two extremely Anglo-looking guys who sing blues music (the race switch was the essential joke, I’m told, but Aykroyd has since been an iconic partner in the House of Blues restaurant and music-venue chain and thus puts his money where his schtick is).