Scanlines
Practical Magic
Fri., May 7, 1999
with Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing, Dianne Wiest, Aidan Quinn, Chloe Webb.
Preview trailers had most audiences thinking they were about to see a witchy woman film. In a sense, this film is that, but it's a lot of other things too. For one, it's a jumbled mess. Which is not to say it's entirely unbearable, but director Dunne seems to have lost his creative vision about halfway into filming. The film revolves around two orphaned witch sisters, Sally (Bullock) and Gillian (Kidman). As children, their talents were groomed by a pair of magical aunts (Channing and Wiest). Unfortunately, they're plagued with an awful hex: Any man who loves them will perish. Sally ignores the curse and takes a husband, while Gillian becomes a randy party girl. Both learn the errors of their ways. Soon, the film takes a nose dive into bad horror as they struggle with an evil, restless soul and a cavalcade of haunting frogs. Dumb but easy to follow and laughable in several areas. Everyone involved (particularly Channing and Wiest) hams it up for the sake of the subject matter. But as terrible as the finished product is, there remains a (nonintentional) campy charm. True witches, or wiccas, may wince at the representation of their craft, but anyone looking for a shallow slice of the supernatural may be appeased by this simple-minded presentation. --Mike Emery
The Mad Bomber
aka The Police Connection
D: Bert I. Gordon (1972)
with Neville Brand, Chuck Connors, Vince Edwards.
Chuck Connors is the Mad Bomber! Vince Edwards is the Over-the-Top Rogue Cop! Neville Brand is the Rapist! So there you go. Connors hisses and grimaces his way through his role as a deranged, self-righteous bomber who drops parcels of explosives in a women's lib meeting and a few other choice spots in plasticky Seventies L.A., but not before delivering a stern lecture between clenched teeth. Brand is the sleazy rapist who can provide the cops with the necessary information to catch the bomber, once they make him sit through some Identikit slides. It's a pretty unremarkable hard-boiled thriller from the able hands of Mr. Gordon (director of The Amazing Colossal Man and Empire of the Ants), but still good for a laugh as the three stars chew up and spit out every available piece of scenery. Actually, the most remarkable thing is the way that Neville Brand (fourth most-decorated combat vet of WWII) looked by '72. He was never a threat to Clark Gable for matinee-idol status anyway, and the years of hard living had made him look like a mangy old dog by that point (he didn't die until '92; I can't imagine what he had to have looked like by then). His character is in the habit of watching Super-8 films of his wife dancing naked, but you only see the extremely secretarial wife from the shoulders up as she shakes her schoolmarmish booty. Actually, I think many wives would be pretty flattered by their husbands doing that, but to Bert Gordon, that's apparently the height of perversity. The film's not great, but The Mad Bomber is worth a look anyway, just for its crappy TV-movie-gone-to-seed production values if nothing else. --Jerry Renshaw
Detroit 9000
D: Arthur Marks (1973)
with Alex Rocco, Scatman Crothers, Hari Rhodes.
In Detroit, a black congressman's fundraiser is held up by a gang of masked gunmen. In the course of the investigation, a burned-out white detective is teamed up with a black cop, and they begin to uncover all manner of high-level corruption. Arthur Marks (director of Bucktown, Friday Foster, Monkey Hustle, J.D.'s Revenge,and the Starsky and Hutch and I Spy TV series) puts together a punchy tale of inner-city decadence and crime, suffused with plenty of violence and action and an expletive-filled screenplay. In a departure from many blaxploitation movies that portray all whites as being the bad guys (or at least inept and stupid), Detroit 9000 features plenty of heroes and scoundrels among both the black and white characters. Crothers' performance as a crooked, lascivious reverend is a particular standout. Rocco is a familiar TV-movie veteran, and his portrayal of the world-weary detective assigned to the case is also excellent. Though things tend to sag a bit in the middle, there's a terrific lengthy chase at the end that takes the movie through some Detroit neighborhoods that don't look safe for a walk to the corner store, let alone a film crew. All the characters die with a maximum of bodily convulsions and squirting bright-red, latex-house-paint blood. Though it's mostly done with a workmanlike movie-of-the-week sort of style, Marks does manage to infuse some inventive camerawork into the film (such as the mounted cops' cops-eye-view camera POV, complete with extended gun arm). The twist ending is also a rather nice touch, by the way. Kudos to Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Releasing for rediscovering this obscure Seventies blaxploitation entry and bringing it back around again. From the posters: "Visit the murder capital of the world -- where the honkies are the minority!" --Jerry Renshaw
