RiffRaffMcKinley

I never saw it when I was actually a child. But recently, I thought I'd give it a viewing considering it had music by Jerry Goldsmith and the National Philharmonic Orchestra (together, responsible for such brilliant scores as "The Omen" trilogy, "Legend," and several others). I was instantly blown away. The prologue, in which wise but weary Nicodemus (voiced by Derek Jacobi) ponders some heartbreaking news, is exceptionally powerful. The animation style is simply gorgeous, on par with the best of Disney. The voice casting is universally exceptional (Dom DeLuise, I think, takes home the gold as an eager-to-please, outgoing, clumsy crow who really wants a girlfriend). And although it is geared towards little kids, many scenes are actually quite dark and compelling. The crown jewel in this beautiful treasure trove is Goldsmith's breathtaking score, so elaborately lush, heartwarming, and at times haunting that it's impossible not to be humming the theme music ("Flying Dreams") before the halfway point. You will, unfortunately, notice the early use of Don Bluth's disastrous hallmark as a solo animator: characters who preposterously flail to express every little emotion. But unlike, say, "Anastasia," it evens out because the characters aren't human anyway and the story is so fantastical and so majestically realized. I consider this among the best fantasy films of all time, the best animated films, the best family films, and the best of Goldsmith, and certainly Bluth's best work. You know how "fun for the whole family" is so overused it makes your head spin? Well, "The Secret of NIMH" is, quite simply, wonder for the whole family. Enjoy it.

What makes "First Blood" so bizarrely effective is how it works on more than just a literal level. Fans of simple shoot-'em-up action can revel in the film's near-implausible carnage, but underneath it all is a metaphor that feels more genuine than anything seen in a long time. Rambo struggles to survive via violent, chaotic clashes with the bullying police and the comically inept National Guard that represent something deeper and more common: the struggle of Vietnam survivors to readjust to life in the United States. As he wails and screams in his climactic monologue about the war, he finds himself having his freedoms and rights taken away by the very people whose freedoms and rights he went to Vietnam to protect. It's a brilliantly complex analysis of the war and its tumultuous, far-reaching effects, one that defies politics and platitudes. I've never seen such a seemingly over-the-top action extravaganza done with such a convincing and shatteringly powerful "ulterior motive." Shot in British Columbia, the movie has a dingy, foggy, where's-that-bright-yellow-thing-from-the-sky look to it. There are certain visual parallels to "The Deer Hunter," but "The Deer Hunter" this ain't. Stallone gives what is arguably his one great performance, a sobering blend of anarchic physicality and perfect on-cue histrionics-- combined with a level of articulateness that mercifully takes this character in the full opposite direction from Rocky Balboa, which I was not expecting. And while the music score isn't one of Jerry Goldsmith's best, the main theme is one of his best individual compositions, and the music is well above average for both building suspense and evoking sincere emotion. Though it doesn't have the character name in the title, this may be the only "Rambo" movie that was actually about Rambo-- the real Rambo, not the human action figure-- and as such it is vastly under-appreciated.

Given the epic nature of James Michener's thousand-page novel "Hawaii," if the first film did any kind of positive business whatsoever, a sequel was bound to happen. The result is actually quite good, though nowhere near as good as George Roy Hill's original. Practically none of the original cast or crew has returned. Hill was succeeded as director by Tom Gries; Trumbo and Taradash are replaced on script duty by James R. Webb ("How the West Was Won," "Cheyenne Autumn"), who certainly had a bizarre gift for crafting intelligible and reasonably entertaining stories out of momentous historical hoopla. And since it takes place a couple generations after the end of the first film, obviously the cast is all gone. Charlton Heston adds more than prestige (he also adds presence and strength) to the central character of Whip Hoxworth, with Geraldine Chaplin decent but underused as his odd wife Purity. Mako is terrific as a Chinese peasant farmer who comes to Hawaii after cheating himself a new wife-- Char Nyuk Tsin, played by Tina Chen in a performance that starts off rather uninteresting but blossoms into a real stunner. The story goes on through racial strife, economic and ecological developments on the islands, political turmoil, and personal tragedy, very much in the spirit of the first "Hawaii" but without all the buildup (remember how much time had passed before we saw the islands in the first one?) and with a quicker pace. The film is lush, intriguing, and adequately enacted, but there are a few obstacles to overcome before you can really get into it. The worst of these is Henry Mancini's tacky, obvious, ethnic cliché-infused score, which comes nowhere near the scope, emotion or wonderment of Elmer Bernstein's original. If Bernstein couldn't have been secured, surely there was a better option (Jerry Goldsmith springs to mind) than Henry "The Pink Panther" Mancini. But the score does have a few moments of... well, adequacy. Given that the film obviously failed and-- having never been released on either VHS or mass-market DVD-- both suffers in obscurity while toiling in notoriety, and given that the first film was (at least to this reviewer) almost thoroughly a masterpiece, "The Hawaiians" is much better than can be expected. And compared to the lame sequels that stuff the cineplexes these days, it plays off like a "Citizen Kane" or a "Godfather."