"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
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Alan Parker is one of those directors who seems to have made it his life’s work to attempt to film as many different genres as he possibly can before he dies; how else to explain a filmography that contains titles as diverse as "Bugsy Malone", "Midnight Express", "Birdy", "Shoot the Moon", "The Commitments" and "Evita", to name just a few. Because he so heedlessly travels between genres, there is an faintly uneven quality to his work when seen as a whole-for every genuine masterpiece such as "Pink Floyd-The Wall", there are unspeakable atrocities such as "Mississippi Burning", "Come See the Paradise" and the spectacularly bad "The Life of David Gale". However, the strangest, most atypical film in a career seemingly dedicated to atypically has to be 1987’s "Angel Heart", a voodoo-influenced film noir that mixes sex, violence and an unspeakably twisty storyline into a final product that still has the ability to provoke and perplex in equal measure.

Set in the 1950’s, the film stars Mickey Rourke, at his most compellingly seedy, as a down-on-his-luck private eye hired by a mysterious stranger (Robert De Niro, doing a wicked spoof on longtime friend/collaborator Martin Scorsese) to track down the whereabouts of a long-missing big-band singer who disappeared after signing a contract. Inevitably, the case sends Rourke on a trail littered with exquisitely gruesome corpses and takes him from New York to Louisiana, where he meets a voodoo child (Lisa Bonet in her first and last grasp at big-screen stardom) who might hold the key to everything. Rourke and Bonet are also involved in the film’s most infamous scene-a blood-drenched sex scene that initially garnered an "X" rating because of the amount of blood and the number of pelvic thrusts. Of course, the shock over that is nothing compared to the one generated by the final scene-one of those that forces you to re-examine everything that you have previously seen and which enrages as many as it enraptures.

To tell the truth, I was one of those enraged by the finale the first time I saw it-without giving it away, I realized that if I had paid more attention to the first appearance of a key character, I could have figured the whole thing out in ten minutes. Now at a time where every other film seems obliged to have a twist ending, the climax feels more natural and also seems like an uncanny precursor to the likes of "Fight Club". Once the surprise of that scene wears off, though, the rest of the film is still a hugely entering stew of seamy, steamy ingredients that will probably repulse and annoy more straight-laced viewers but which fans of the off-beat will have a blast watching.

ACNE: Written and directed by Alan Parker. Starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet and Charlotte Rampling. 1987. Rated R. 112 minutes. A Lion’s Gate Home Video release. $19.98

DRACULA: PAGES OF A VIRGIN’S DIARY (Zeitgeist Video. $29.98): If you go to see the wonderful "The Saddest Music in the World", you will no doubt leave with a taste for both a glass of beer (preferably one with a leg as well as a head) and the films of Canadian auteur Guy Maddin. This 2002 experiment is one of his best to date-a film version of an adaptation of the Bram Stoker classic from the Royal Canadian Ballet and shot in the style of an old silent film. Brilliant and unclassifiable, it works both as a ballet film (it is head and shoulders above "The Company") as well as being one of the most provocative versions of "Dracula" ever filmed.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (MGM Home Video. $29.95): Two of the best DVD releases of last year were the elaborate packages granted to two of Sergio Leone’s greatest epics-"Once Upon a Time in America" and "Once Upon a Time in the West"-and it looks like another will be among the best of this year. This package of the 1967 conclusion of his loose "Dollars" trilogy of spaghetti Westerns has everything that a fan could hope for; a fully restored cut featuring long-deleted scenes, commentaries and documentaries about the man and his work and even an animated piece illustrating one sequence that was never filmed. Oh yeah, the movie itself is nothing to sneeze at either-if you have seen it, no further lucubration is necessary. If you haven’t, what in God’s name are you waiting for?

MIRACLE (Buena Vista Home Video. $29.95): I have no interest in the Olympics, rah-rah iconography or hockey (mostly because I can never figure out that blue line/red line crap) and yet I found myself completely caught up in this docu-drama about how coach Herb Brooks took a rag-tag group of college hockey players and turned them into a team able to beat the feared Soviet team at the 1980 Olympics. Much of that was due to the great performance by Kurt Russell as the late Brooks (who died right after filming)-Russell has always been a thoroughly underrated actor and this is a turn that is genuinely worthy of recognition.

WALT DISNEY TREASURES (Buena Vista Home Video. $29.95 each): One of the best series of DVD’s in the history of the format-collector’s tins of classic cartoons, TV shows and arcana from the Disney vaults-continues with this latest installment of four titles (mysteriously delayed from last November). This group of two-disc sets includes "Mickey Mouse in Living Color: Volume 2", a continuation of the mouse’s solo cartoons; "The Chronological Donald Duck: Vol 1", an in-order compilation of all the Donald Duck cartoons produced from 1934-1941; "Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond", a collection of TV shows revolving around how the not-too-distant future was seen back then; and the eagerly-anticipated "On the Front Lines", a collection of cartoons, training films and even a feature (the long-unseen "Victory Through Air Power") that were commissioned by the U.S. Army to help in the war effort during World War II. All of these discs are filled with enough trivia and information to satisfy the most ardent scholars but they are still entertaining enough for the kids to enjoy as well. (However, a parental lecture about the joys and agonies of propaganda might be a good idea before the war cartoons.)

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.