Sharky's Machine: Nothing to do With Sharks or Machines

Burt Reynolds has directed a few movies, did you know that? And some TV shows, too. He's no Scorsese, but at least he's no Edward D. Wood, Jr., either. In 1981, he directed and starred in Sharky's Machine, which was his most successful. It also featured some impressive stunt-work by the legendary Dar Robinson, who performed the highest wireless free jump from a building in a film, although in the final cut of the film cuts short the full extent of this fall.

While undercover, Narcotics officer Sharky (Reynolds) is interrupted by fellow officer Smiley (Darryl Hickman), and the bust goes sour, resulting in a pregnant woman being held hostage, and Sharky having to shoot and kill the dealer. After, Sharky is busted down to Vice, literally in the basement, where a rag-tag group of weirdos and more weirdos struggle at the bottom of the barrel. They accidentally discover a high-class prostitution ring, and a mysterious assassin is picking off high-end clients. During their observation of the $1,000 per night hooker Dominoe (Rachel Ward), Sharky begins to fall in love with her. Eventually she is shot and killed, and Sharky seeks to find her killer, a drug addict named Billy Score. His brother Victor seems to be pulling the strings in the prostitution ring, even being involved with a gubernatorial candidate. Sharky and his "machine" (the group of vice weirdos he assembles around himself) find Dominoe alive (her friend was killed accidentally, because she was staying at Dominoe's), find out that Smiley is involved somehow, Sharky gets tortured by Smiley before killing them, until they finally confront Billy Score.

If that synopsis didn't make much sense, don't worry; it's not entirely my fault. The entire scope of the movie is largely nonsensical, and based almost entirely on action movie cliché, motivations, and characterizations. Sharky seems entirely motivated by the fact he's a cop; there's no real sense of his home life, friends outside of other cops, etc. There's an attempt to show maybe a glimpse of what he's missing by having one of his machine have a wife and family; but he seems uninterested. The machine are motivated by hating being in vice; they look up to Sharky because of his reputation, but also seem to have little of their own aspirations aside from this one particular investigation. Sharky runs around, shooting bad guys, falling in love with hookers (and then threatening her with violence when she stands up to him and refuses to give him some information). I'm sure an entire study on masculine roles, general masculinity and violence, and the roles of females almost entirely as prostitutes, but it would take far too long. It's kind of everywhere, and likely doesn't even attempt to make any apologies for it.

Overall, there's not much to say. It's an early 80s action movie, which means it's still mostly the 70s; there's a lot of Dirty Harry flavor going on here, but it's hard not to say that about any action movie. The "Machine" does get a good bit of screen time, featuring some great character actors, and everyone does actually have their crucial role to play in getting things resolved.

My favorite part is the ending; Billy Score kills his brother Vincent in some sort of drug-rage. Then Sharky confronts him, shoots him, and he crashes through the window, falling like 60 stories to his death. Then, after that, there's a jarringly random shot of Sharky and Dominoe at some sort of playground, and I think she's on the swings. Happy ending! Credits. This was the famous Dar Robinson stunt, where he fell free of wires over 200 feet to an airbag, but the shot only shows him for a few seconds, and then the rest is obviously a dummy. I think Burt Reynolds probably didn't get a good enough usable shot after the first few moments of the stunt, so they had to just chuck a dummy wearing a suit out a window.

The jarring ending actually takes a star away, because it's so random and tacked on. That may not be Burt's fault, but it's still a major issue with the movie. It's kind of funny sometimes, though, and has some decent action; and by "decent action" I mean "really loud gunshot sound-effects and smashing into stuff."

If you like that sort of thing, check it out. If you don't like action movies at all, then you probably won't like it. It's always interesting to see Younger Burt Reynolds, though. I give this movie two and a half nonsensical and frustratingly misleading titles out of five, or two and a half terribly wasted stunts combined with incredibly random and totally unnecessary endings out of five.

Night Shift: Hookers, Corpses, and The Fonz

I really love the 80s. I mean, what other decade can Shelley Long play a prostitute, and not be considered churlish. It's also the time for funny Michael Keaton, early Ron Howard, synthesizer music, and bizarre cameos of later-famous actors. Specifically, I'm here to talk about Night Shift, released in 1982. Directed by Ron Howard and starring Michael Keaton in his first film role, and Henry Winkler in an amusing mid-Fonzie role. Co-starring Shelley Long and featuring a brief appearance of a young Kevin Costner as a frat boy, a very young Shannon Doherty, and enough corpses, hookers, pimps, and a disturbingly young Richard Belzer to fill some bizarre quota you didn't even know you had.

An oddly simple plot allows this movie to simply run around like a hyperactive toddler, following a relatively cohesive storyline, with surprisingly good pacing. Henry Winkler plays a decidedly anti-Fonzie milquetoast Chuck Lumley, a former Wall Street stockbroker who now works in a morgue to reduce stress. He gets moved to the Night Shift, and he just accepts it. He meets Bill "Blaze" Blazejowski (Keaton) a young, hip, exuberant crazy person just hired to work at the morgue. He almost immediately breaks the rules by using the hearse as an impromptu limo (and uses it to take a young Clint Howard to the prom). When Chuck finds his neighbor Belinda (Long) in the elevator, beaten up, he realizes that she's a prostitute whose pimp was killed in the opening scenes of the movie. Somehow, Bill convinces Chuck to become "nice pimps" to Belinda and a handful of other women. Needless to say, things get wacky, weird, crazy, and a little scary. Belinda's pimp's killers are looking for them, since they're muscling in on their racket with their stock options, benefits, and flex-plans or whatever. A shoot-out ensues, and eventually things turn out ok for everyone, except for the pimps, I guess.

Ok, I need to work on making my summaries a little more succinct. But I can't help it! This film is a classic in the Lady's household, and I'd never seen it up til a few weeks ago. I do have to say, Netflix has been a lifesaver lately.

I've always been a Ron Howard fan; a little trivia, the year before I was born (the year before this movie was released), my parents were in California visiting friends, and while out to dinner, they saw Ron Howard and his wife having dinner. They also had little baby Bryce Dallas with them, too. Anyway, good ol' Opie knows how to direct a movie, and he started to show his real chops with movies like Night Shift. Some of you out there may not know this, as well, but Michael Keaton was originally a purely comedic actor. In the 80s he gave us such gems as Beetlejuice and Johnny Dangerously. And now I realize that Night Shift fits that category as well. Henry Winkler is a great actor, as we see his transformation to hip, awesome, cool Fonzie into meek, antacid-popping Chuck. Of course, both Chuck and Bill learn some valuable life-lessons along the way.

I was never a fan of Shelley Long, though. Having her portray a heart-of-gold hooker doesn't do much to make her seem any cooler, either. She's a little Julie Hagerty to me, a little too waif-y and skinny and interesting looking to be pretty. Luckily, we don't see much of her anymore.

It's also interesting to note that Kevin Costner appears in this movie; he literally doesn't speak. He's a Frat Boy at a party that Bill decides to throw inside the morgue with the prostitutes. He also had a brief role in The Big Chill, released the next year, but his scenes were cut. Within ten years of Night Shift, he was literally directing, producing, and starring in an Oscar-winning movie. What the hell, Kevin Costner. If you can do that in less than a decade, why haven't I wanted to watch a movie you've made in longer than that? It's crazy.

Overall, this was kind of a rambling post. But the main point to take away is: It's funny. It's not ridiculous; well, it is a little, but in an oddly believable way. It's early enough in the 80s that it's not all hypercolor and neon and velcro Reeboks and whatnot, but it's not totally 70s anymore, either. The characters are interesting, fairly round, and easy to identify with. The premise is just outlandish enough to fit in with the era of Airplane!, Animal House, and the like, but real enough to not be some sort of bizarre spoof.

I liked this movie. I miss the comic days of Michael Keaton, the days that Kevin Costner didn't say anything, and the days that Shelley Long was a star. I miss nerdy Henry Winkler (he kind of reminded me of a less insane version of Henry's Barry Zuckerkorn character from Arrested Development. Ok, not really, I just wanted to remember Arrested Development for a minute). I think this post is getting so rambling because I'm watching part of the movie in my head as I write this. I liked it, and want to watch it again.

I recommend it. Go rent it. Find it, it's worth checking it out. And it's pretty low-key, so you can belong to a pretty cool exclusive club. I give it four start-up corporations featuring benefits, insurance, stock options, all for hookers out of five, or four strange senses of disbelief that Shelley Long could make a living as a prostitute out of five.

Tiptoes: Literally One of the Worst Movies I've Seen

In 2003, a movie was released with such a ridiculous premise, such an outlandish plot, that one would assume it had some redeeming qualities. I assumed that it would be one of those movies that was so weird, so utterly idiotic, and so utterly stupid, that it would almost certainly have to be entertaining. If I was a betting man, I'd owe Ben Franklin an iPod, because this movie is absolutely terrible.

Seemingly written, produced, and cast purely on a bet, like Scottish cuisine, Matthew Bright's TipToes "stars" Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman, Peter Dinklage, and Patricia Arquette. Sounds like a pretty good cast, right? Oh, that's what we thought, too. Anything with Gary Oldman simply must have something good about it. Again, I think this is based on dares or bets or blackmail; Gary Oldman plays a dwarf named Rolfe, who is the twin brother of Steven (Matthew McConaughey), who is not a dwarf. Kate Beckinsale plays Steven's girlfriend Carol, who didn't know Steven's family was all dwarfs until the movie. What's more, she's totally pregnant with his child, and she's (I'm serious) deadly concerned the baby might be a dwarf. You know what's weirder? Steven, who grew up with dwarfs and goes to annual conventions, is dead-set against the baby, again because of the fear it will be a dwarf. So she gets to know his family, may or may not fall in love with Rolfe (it's never clear), and SPOILER ALERT the baby is in fact born a dwarf.

At first (nothing against little people), I thought the movie must be spun as something of a comedy. But it's as melodramatic as an emo Nicholas Sparks after being stood up at the prom. They fight, they yell, they scream at each other, and they seem to have had entire discussions about starting a family where it never once occurs to Steven that his genetic proclivities may produce a dwarf. Also, I apologize if I'm using any un-PC variations here; I can never remember the rules. I suppose I should switch to "little person."

In addition to the "story," the other cinematic features of this "film" are questionable. The editing is haphazard and most often abrupt. Transitions are nonexistent or nonsensical. It never quite seems to do what you expect it, but in a jarring, alarming way. Many of the shots are set up awkwardly to accommodate Gary Oldman's costume; they use some fairly poor tricks to make it appear as though he's a little person.

The characters are all vaguely uninteresting, fairly flat, largely underdeveloped, and licking in common motivation. Often times, they do, say, and react in ways that make no sense at all. Coupled with a plot that rapidly deteriorates into pure melodrama and unrelenting conflict, with an incredibly dissatisfying hackneyed ending that completely refused to actually resolve anything, or complete even a coherent thought. It just simply ... ends.

Apparently this film debuted at Sundance, and I can't imagine it received any rave reviews, awards, etc. The rumor is that Oldman was the driver of the project and wanted to play this dwarf character. Although in general he's a fantastic actor, even he couldn't save this abysmal production. Up to this point, Matthew Bright had only directed odd action/comedy films (Freeway, Freeway II, and Bundy), so this serious, romantic drama seemed a bit beyond him.

If you see this film and think "wow, that may just be wacky enough to be good," or "hey, this may be funny, it's extremely not what you think. It may be entertaining if you're drunk, but I highly doubt it. I wouldn't even really recommend this film out of morbid curiosity.

I give Tiptoes a well-deserved one obviously fake and laughably unconvincing dwarf Gary Oldman out of five, or one painfully awkward series of events, plot points, and the stilted dialogue of Anne Rice fan-fiction out of five. Did that last one make sense? Doesn't matter; this movie didn't.

Toy Story 3: Holy Lord Those Toys Are Freaking TALKING

We haven't had a new Toy Story movie since the last century. Can you believe it? Can you?! You can't, you liar. The third installment in the immensely popular Disney/Pixar film has been highly anticipated; the last one came out before I was a legal adult! That's crazy to think about. It was worth the wait.

While not directed by John Lasseter, it found itself in the capable hands of Lee Unkrich (Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo), and is truly epic in its scope, scale, and animation. Where the original Toy Story pioneered the use of this level of computer animation for a full-length film, Toy Story 3 kicks it up a notch. It does have 3D, yes, which is done tactfully and tastefully (adding depth and weight, rather than trying to throw things at the camera), but I don't assume it's essential to the process (as 3D generally isn't "essential"). I had heard rumours that the plot was slightly derivative, and I didn't find that to be the case. It calls back quite strongly to the original movie (almost skipping Toy Story 2 references entirely, with the exception of Jessie and Bullseye), and it was actually nice to see all the main characters back together.

Andy, the little boy, is now a young man. He's 17, and going off to college. He's gotten rid of most of his toys, but has kept the main cast of characters; Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Bullseye, Ham (John Ratzenberger), Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles & Estelle Harris), Slinky-Dog, and T-Rex (Wallace Shawn). All the voice actors are back, with the exception of the late, great Jim Varney for obvious reasons (voiced this time around by Blake Clark). The characters have always been wonderfully defined, so they fall back into their old routines without a hitch, and are familiar instantly. Even Andy has the same voice actor, in John Morris, who has grown up with the character.

The plot is somewhat new, but also mixes up several elements of the first two movies. As Andy's going off to college, the toys are afraid they'll be thrown out. Andy wants to take Woody to college with him, and put the other toys in the attic. Andy's mom, however, mistakes the bag of toys for trash, and the toys think they've been rejected. They're donated to a day-care, which is run by Lotso, a strawberry-scented old teddy bear (voiced by Ned Beatty). The toys soon find out that there's more to this daycare than meets the eye, and desperately seek a way to escape and get back to Andy.

The story also focuses somewhat more than usual on the human characters; we get a sense that Andy and his family have been fleshed out in more ways than just their updated appearances. Laurie Metcalf returns as Andy's mom, and Andy himself is shown to feel a strong connection and love for the toys. I had heard rumours that the plot was similar to The Brave Little Toaster, an incredibly melodramatic (and slightly terrible) animated movie about appliances that seek to reunite with their owner (inexplicably a child). I'm not sure why this kid loved his frigging toaster and vacuum cleaner so much, but it's creepy. We know that Andy loves his toys, and it's understandable that he's reluctant to let these go and grow up. I assume that there are a lot of members of the audience bringing their children to this movie, after having seen the first one fifteen years ago. I don't have kids, but in the future, I can definitely imagine showing these movies to them.

The film is honestly frightening in several scenes. It has an intense climax, and a deeply heartwarming and unstoppably tear-jerking ending that fully, aptly, and satisfyingly wraps up the film series. It's the best ending the films could have. I highly recommend that you see this movie, in 3D or in regular ol' 2D. If you have kids, nieces, nephews, grandkids, you need to take them along. It's a fantastic family movie, a great ending to a wonderful series, and it's actually a great story, set of characters, music, computer generated effects, it's all over great.

I give the film 5 creepy old strawberry scented evil bear monsters out of five, or five Spanish Buzz Lightears dancing the flamenco or lambada or tango or some such nonsense out of five.