Dennis Hopper

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Apocalypse Now Redux Review


Essential
Just issued on a remastered DVD, Coppola's 1979 masterpiece gets the director's cut treatment in this Redux version, as 49 minutes of previously edited footage are reinserted to bring the film in line with the director's original vision.

And the result is stunning, making an astonishing film even more powerful ...

but changing it completely in the process.

Continue reading: Apocalypse Now Redux Review

Apocalypse Now Review


Essential
In the grand tradition of movies that explore the reality that is the Vietnam War, one film stands out -- for defying reality.

Martin Sheen stars as Captain Willard, sent upriver in war-torn 'Nam to "terminate, with extreme prejudice" one Colonel Kurtz (Brando), a former green beret who has gone primal all the way in Cambodia and has taken on the guise of a god to the local people of the area.

Continue reading: Apocalypse Now Review

Speed Review


Extraordinary
Speed is to hostage thrillers as Psycho is to slasher flicks. Voted one of AFI's Top 100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies of all time, few hostage movies reach this level of tension and sustain it throughout the entire running time. Audiences may have experienced similar stories before, but they are seldom done this well and with this level of energy.

The movie begins when a deranged mad bomber, Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper), severs cables to an elevator inside a Los Angeles skyscraper. The bomber demands $3 million ransom or he'll blow the emergency cables. LA Bomb Squad members Jack (Keanu Reeves) and his partner, Harry (Jeff Daniels), must defuse the bomb before Payne blows the cables. This situation alone could provoke a feature length thriller, but it merely serves as the first act for Speed.

Continue reading: Speed Review

Unspeakable Review


Terrible
You kinda deserve to have your ass handed to you when you title your film Unspeakable, but when you make a movie as God-awful as this one, you really deserve it.

The story begs for description but truly makes no sense at all. I'll try my best: Serial killer Jesse Mowatt (Pavan Grover, who also wrote the script) is fried in the electric chair, but it just won't take. He keeps coming back to life! Enter psychologist Diana Purlow (Dina Meyer), who has a kick-ass machine that can turn your memories into video. Somehow she feels this will help matters, and though angry prison warden (Dennis Hopper, yeah baby!) doesn't like the idea, she goes ahead anyway. The subsequent gore is balanced by mealworms crawling out of ears and split-open brains plus a bizarre story about Purlow having an abortion secreted in her past.

Continue reading: Unspeakable Review

The Prophet's Game Review


Bad
This rather pathetic attempt at an indie thriller has Dennis Hopper as an ex-cop trying to track down a serial killer whose M.O. involves a riddle game wherein the celebrities identified by the answer are the next to get killed. Want to play along? Sorry -- all the celebrities are fictional, making this for one dull-as-hell thriller. Of course, we expect more out of a Shannon Whirry picture, right? (snicker)

All The Way Review


OK
Dennis Hopper as Frank Sinatra? It's a crazy idea, but not as wild as you might think. From a distance, Hopper bears a striking resemblance to the older, chunkier Frank. And whoever's doing the singing for him reasonably approximates a blend of Hopper's voice with Sinatra's.

Of course, there's a plot you need to suffer through to marvel at the stunt casting, and it involves a presumably true story about Sinatra being wooed to visit Australia in 1974 by a two-bit promoter. Getting him Down Under is only half the fun. Once he arrives, Frank -- in his inimitable way -- insults a reporter (Portia de Rossi) by calling her a whore. Aussie's native sons rise to defend her, and over 100 unions go on strike to ensure Frank won't be able to eat, drink, travel, or take a shower -- much less perform on stage. Hilarity ensues as our promoter friend (Joel Edgerton) tries to patch things back together, dealing with his own love life along the way.

Continue reading: All The Way Review

Giant Review


Very Good
A more apt title you won't find for a movie, as Giant's sprawling epic covers some 30 years in the life of a Texas cattle baron (Hudson), his wife (Taylor), and the upstart kid who becomes rich by discovering oil on his small plot of land (Dean). Compelling in a Gone With the Wind style, yet far too long at almost 4 hours, Giant could have stood for some quite obvious cutting. How many Christmas carols, square dances, and Texas cowboy shanties can one man take?

Regardless, James Dean (in one of only three roles on film) makes quite an impression, and Taylor reminds us why we ever liked her to begin with. The cinematography is equally Giant as well -- showing off the dusty nothing of central Texas, long low plains with brush and low hills in the distant background. George Stevens (Shane) has always had a knack for landscapes, and he's at the top of his game here. On the new DVD (two restored discs, one of which is double-sided), Stevens' son asks us to reconsider the film and enjoy it one again, 45 years after the making. In a commentary track with critic Stephen Farmber and writer Ivan Moffat, he reflects on his departed father and the trio reflect on Giant's legacy. That second disc has all the usual retrospectives and testimonials we've come to expect.

Continue reading: Giant Review

Hoosiers Review


Essential
It's very simple. When you talk about the best sports movies of all time, there is Hoosiers, and then there's everything else.

Hoosiers stars Gene Hackman as Norman Dale, a former successful college coach with a checkered past, who takes a last chance job coaching small Hickory High in 1951. Despite being located in basketball-crazed Indiana, the Huskers only have six players and they're missing their star, Jimmy Chitwood, a troubled boy who doesn't say much. His soft shooting touch does all of the talking.

Continue reading: Hoosiers Review

Land Of The Dead Review


Weak
More empty and lifeless than the zombies that overrunits banal B-movie post-apocalypse, "Land of the Dead" may bethe return of George A. Romero to the genre he created, but there's littleto distinguish this film from the countless gory imitators the writer-director'swork has spawned.

The fourth picture in Romero's "Dead" series,it takes place in a decimated world where a handful of rich elitists livein a self-contained, weakly defended luxury skyscraper and a lower classof humanity scrapes by in the streets behind protective walls and electricfences. But unbeknownst to all of them, the zombies in the wasteland outsidehave begun to think and organize.

This sounds like a fantastic -- and wholly original --concept that could take the genre to a scarier new level. But "Landof the Dead" fails to exploit the refreshing plot point any furtherthan is necessary to bring the undead through the city's pathetic ramparts,led by the moaning-groaning influence of a single zombie who has developeda primitive ability to reason.

The movie has nothing new to offer, although it is madea tad more watchable by something old -- Romero's simple, straightforwardcinematography that makes all the action (especially the mediocre scares)much clearer and eerily more immediate than the shake-shake, chop-chopstyle applied to most modern horror flicks. Its other great asset is thebody-decay makeup on the legions of walking corpses and the dead staresand lumbering gaits of some of the key zombie actors.

Continue reading: Land Of The Dead Review

Knockaround Guys Review


OK

In a reasonably fresh twist on the organized-crime genre, "Knockaround Guys" is a post-Tarantino-styled slick flick about a quartet of pampered gangsters' sons trying to prove their worth as wiseguys.

"To regular people we're stone f**ing goombahs," gripes sharp-dressed 20-something tough Matty Demaret (Barry Pepper), who has recently given up his dream of going legit as a sports agent because his last name scares the bejesus out of potential employers. "But to knockaround guys, to our fathers, we're nothing but errand boys."

Now Matty's plan for his crew to earn some respect within the mob has gone horribly haywire. Entrusted to deliver $500,000 cross-country, Matty enlists a paranoid, recovering cokehead buddy called Johnny Marbles (Seth Green) because he flies a small plane and can make the trip in a day or two. But while refueling at remote Wibaux, Montana airport, Marbles panics when eyed by the local law and lets the bag of money out of his sight.

Continue reading: Knockaround Guys Review

Dennis Hopper

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Dennis Hopper Movies

Apocalypse Now Redux Movie Review

Apocalypse Now Redux Movie Review

Just issued on a remastered DVD, Coppola's 1979 masterpiece gets the director's cut treatment in...

Alpha and Omega Trailer

Alpha and Omega Trailer

Kate and Humphrey are two wolves, they're both members of the same pack but from...

All The Way Movie Review

All The Way Movie Review

Dennis Hopper as Frank Sinatra? It's a crazy idea, but not as wild as you...

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Giant Movie Review

Giant Movie Review

A more apt title you won't find for a movie, as Giant's sprawling epic covers...

Land of the Dead Movie Review

Land of the Dead Movie Review

More empty and lifeless than the zombies that overrunits banal B-movie post-apocalypse, "Land of the...

Knockaround Guys Movie Review

Knockaround Guys Movie Review

In a reasonably fresh twist on the organized-crime genre, "Knockaround Guys" is a post-Tarantino-styled slick...

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