December 20–27, 2001

movies

Screenpicks

by Sam Adams

Bad Taste

($39.98/$19.98 DVD)

Young filmmakers, take heart; instead of feeling washed up because you haven’t made your Citizen Kane by the time you hit 25, consider this: Peter Jackson may be the lord of Lord of the Rings now, but when he was 25, he was making this scattershot, borderline-unwatchable (and yet still somehow strangely amusing) psychotronic splatter flick. Set in an unspecified and not particularly explained future, Bad Taste is mainly a collection of gross-out gags laid end to end. Defending the earth from an invasion of alien drones who aim to package human beings as intergalactic fast food — they particularly like the "chunky bits" — our human heroes find every possible way to dismember their human-looking foes, and Jackson lays on the fake blood (and brains, and guts) as thick as can be. Though it obviously prefigures the obsession with special effects and other worlds that piqued Jackson’s interest in LOTR, it’s hard to get through more than several minutes of this earliest feature without your attention wandering — and when a ravenous alien scooping brains out of a dead human’s half-exploded head can’t hold your interest, there’s something really wrong. Skip to the end and savor the truly bizarre climax, which features a colonial house blasting off into outer space, or savor the occasional deadpan zinger and Jackson’s borderline-insane performances — as both a ravenous E.T. and an alien hunter whose brain keeps falling out of his head. Disc two of the pricier two-disc limited edition features a half-hour making-of featurette that will no doubt please fans (and Bad Taste certainly has them — check out badtaste.iscool.net), but is hardly worth the twofold increase in price.

The Score

($29.98 DVD)

At long last, a movie that encapsulates the worst in Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Edward Norton’s careers. Frank Oz’s listless heist flick (the worst in a year that saw a string of them) is shot like a Visa commercial, all glossy light and acquisition porn. Between Brando’s inexplicably fey bankroller, De Niro’s sleepwalking one-last-time safecracker and Edward Norton’s pointless grandstanding as the young Turk who apparently needs to play retarded to sneak his way into the vault, The Score is like a how-not-to tutorial for the Actors Studio, and it offers some pretty good advice on how not to direct as well.

Cape Fear/Cape Fear

($24.98 DVD each)

And speaking of bad De Niro performances, Martin Scorsese’s 1991 boot to the skull features Bobby D. at his most extravagant and least interesting, hiding behind accents and tattoos while doing little more than scowling and mugging for the camera. Scorsese is too intellectual a filmmaker to wholeheartedly embrace domestic schlock, so the film (still his biggest hit) plays like a Pavlovian exercise in audience manipulation, the closest he’s ever come to being Oliver Stone.

Luckily, Universal’s paired Marty’s remake with a reissue of the 1962 original, a no-frills slice of harum-scarum with a lusty, frightening turn by Robert Mitchum at its center. As the ex-con terrorizing lawyer Gregory Peck’s family, Mitchum is a beast unleashed, an id on legs. As the attached making-of recalls, Peck developed the project but gave himself the less flashy role, handing a plum to Mitchum while settling for a prune himself.

Planet of the Apes

($29.98 DVD)

Tim Burton has become a hack, and that’s depressing, but at least, as it turns out, he’s a pretty good hack. Planet of the Apes has plenty of opportunity for (formerly) Burton-esque wackiness, but instead the film hews straight to the middle, concentrating mainly on letting cinematographer Philippe Rousselot make everything look pretty. And look pretty it does — gorgeous, in fact, which is strange for a movie with such a dystopian premise. Sure, there’s not an ounce of inspiration anywhere, and the plot makes no sense at all — just listen to Burton tying himself in knots on the commentary track trying to explain the ending. But even as you’re mourning the Burton that was, you can take comfort in Planet’s lush scenery. Turns out the road to hell is paved with primate greenery.