With all the recent talk about global warming, the slow-food movement and even right on this blog-site, the local food market, the 1973 Richard Fleischer directed Sci-Fi film, Soylent Green, has a lot to say to our modern problems.

In Soylent Green, Charlton Heston, the 60’s and 70’s films’ American man, plays a detective in a starving and overpopulated 2022 New York City.  With the absence of CGI, the future does not look so bright in Fleischer’s film. The neighborhood scenes look as though they are outtakes from The Westside Story and although the apartment scenes from the more wealthy New Yorkers portray a very retro magnificence, in the year 2008, we know that architecture and design may be taking a slightly different path.   To combat the starvation problem, a corporation called Soylent Corporation has developed a food by-product called Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow and finally Soylent Green.  Triggered by the murder of a wealthy man affiliated with Soylent Corporation, Heston’s Detective Thorn is lead to the discovery of the main ingredient in the population’s food, known as Soylent Green.  Soylent Green reeks of the late 60’s and 70’s.  This is not always a bad thing.  Like other retro films, it is enjoyable to watch as the present dictates what a generation may have envisioned for their future. For instance, the opening credits and soundtrack seem to imply that we are about to watch Love Story; yet, the film does progress into a very retro funfest of Heston debauchery partnered with some 70’s pre-feminist lingo.  Charlton Heston plays a role in which he is very familiar.  We have seen him in this manly, man role in Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man.  I, for one, cannot get enough of him.  I am freakishly attracted to his dated ability to force himself upon a woman or an ape and lavish her with kisses, while in the same scene, like in Soylent Green, telling the “furniture” (women) to stay in line and mind their business.  In addition to the late, great Heston, Soylent Green, like Planet of the Apes, spawned one of the most famously quoted movie-lines of all times. 

Everyone should know what Soylent Green is…Soylent Green will be shown this Friday night at Vintage next to Savvy Gourmet as part of the Dinner and a Movie Friday Night Film Series.  The film begins at 7:30 doors open at 6 pm.  Dinner will be prepared by local produce guru, Jim Bremer  (Get it…greens for Soylent Green).  Details are on The Savvy Gourmet website or call 504-895-COOK (2665).

Friday Night “Dinner & a Movie”

Vintage (4523 Magazine St., next door to The Savvy Gourmet)

7:30 p.m. Fri., July 18

Tickets $5 for both films

Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is the darkly disturbing story of a thief (Michael Gambon) who spends his evenings brutally tormenting those around him, which includes the mesmerizing Helen Mirren as his wife. The setting is in a London restaurant and nothing is off-limits to the thief. Many critics claim Greenaway uses his art to make a statement about Thatcher’s politics. Even with politics at its base, the film’s violent and sexual nature tempted the MPAA to give The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover an X rating. However, Miramax (which released the Greenaway film in 1989) opted to issue the film as “unrated.” The costume design is by Jean-Paul Gaultier, who did it for free just to work with Greenaway. The all-but-unwatchable violence crossed with the seminal set and light design (watch as the room colors change the shade of Mirren’s dress) makes for a film that is enviable to directors such as Tarantino who aspire to mix violence and design so skillfully. The late movie (10:30pm start), Less Than Zero, features ’80s Robert Downey Jr. pre-Iron Man. Dinner is available for the early show (menu to be announced on Thursday) with a full bar (wine, beer and cocktails). Visit Savvy Gourmet’s Web site for reservations.

“Don’t You (Forget About Me),” by Simple Minds, is the theme song to the 1984 teen hit, John Hughes, The Breakfast Club.  Don’t worry Mr. Hughes, this product of the eighties, will never forget this gem of a movie or any of the great stars who fulfilled the classic stereotypes of the high school paradigm. This is a love letter to the heroes of The Breakfast Club, my coming-of-age movie.

Molly Ringwald: I love you as the princess and I still wish for the janitor closet encounter with Judd Nelson (Pretty classy, being a diamond earring and all..) I am sorry, Molly, that we the children of the eighties, sold you out to the Lifetime franchise and even made you move to France for a while.

Ally Sheedy: I love you because you taught the teens of the eighties that a “basket case” can be really cool and that sometimes a make-over is not really who you are.  I apologize for the years of movie mishaps such as Maid to Order.  The eighties were hard on all of us. Read the rest of this entry »

 We have all seen some of our favorite television series pay homage to the film that is truly in love with the Big Apple.  In Gossip Girls, we see Blair (Leighton Messer) relive the famous “breakfast” scene made popular by the one and only Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. In another on-screen affair with New York City, we see hints of Breakfast at Tiffany’s revived in scene after scene of the television series Sex and the City. Fashion and the iconic Audrey Hepburn are sprinkled in almost every televised and filmed moment portraying party girls in NYC.  Why not see where it all began? Read the rest of this entry »

Both M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening and Atlanta filmmakers Jacob Gentry, Dan Bush, and David Bruckner’s The Signal deal with a group of people under siege by an apocalyptic case of the psychotics. One of the film’s signal sends humans into a suicidal mode, while the other film’s signal sends them into a killing mode.  In The Happening, it is discovered that the signal being transmitted is organic and the humans’ one way to survive is through technology; in essence, the ability to contact one another through television and radios.  In The Signal, radios and televisions are the messengers of the deadly signal and one of the central characters claims he was spared the whole psychosis of this signal by the sunlight; thus, making nature a helpful aspect in The Signal. Read the rest of this entry »

Mayor Nagin began his comments at the news conference by saying, “How am I gonna stand up and say, I’m a ‘vagina-friendly’ Mayor to these cameras after ‘Chocolate City’ and some of the other stuff that I’ve done. But you know what? I’m in.” In context, Nagin’s comments are welcoming the tenth anniversary of playwright Eve Ensler’s empowering tale, The Vagina Monologues. After watching the directorial debut of Mitchell Lichtenstein, Teeth, which was the prized independent film at the Sundance Film Festival of 2007, one wonders if Nagin knows of the consequences of crossing the V. Teeth had its’ theatrical release in 2007 and has been released on DVD this week. Read the rest of this entry »

In the mood for a romantic comedy? At least one is usually released on DVD weekly and this does not include the many that go straight to DVD without a theatrical release. So, one might suppose that a romantic comedy with a huge theatrical release and this month’s “it” girl might be original or at least entertaining. Not true!

27 Dresses starring Katherine Heigl as a plain Jane, actually named Jane, with an affinity for being a bridesmaid in weddings (27 to be exact), is a cut and paste of about every romantic comedy which has preceded it. Jane is in love with her boss, played by a drab Edward Burns, but unable to tell him, even though both of the characters are so dull that it is immediately apparent they would be the perfect couple. Unfortunately, for Jane, her baby sister comes back from Italy only to set her pretty blue sights on Mr. Drab himself. Next thing you know, Jane is asked to be the Maid of Honor in the wedding of her sister and her boss, who she secretly loves. Read the rest of this entry »

I do not remember ever seeing The Good Night theaters. Nor, do I remember even reading about this film in any “Coming Soon” articles. The first time I even heard of it was in the video store. There it was staring at me from the shelves. It is surprising to me that this movie went straight to DVD because the cast consists of Gwenyth Paltrow, Penelope Cruz, Danny Devito and Simon Pegg, who is growing ever more recognizable. Oh, did I mention, The Good Night is written and directed by Jake Paltrow, brother to Oscar-winning Hollywood starlet, Gwenyth? The Good Night has the potential to be good (excuse the pun), but it just misses the mark of eccentricity and becomes essentially just plain odd. Read the rest of this entry »

On another journey to the local video store, I picked up two new releases that appear to have little in common. However, it seems that many films of all genres are jumping on the “post-apocalyptic” band wagon. I did not want to like I Am Legend starring Will Smith. On the other hand, I wanted to love the long-awaited Southland Tales directed by Richard Kelly, of Donnie Darko fame, and starring Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Justin Timberlake, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Mandy Moore. Both films deal with the annihilation of the human race in two major U.S. cities—New York City and Los Angeles.

I Am Legend relies completely on Will Smith. It is set on the island of Manhattan after a virus, meant to cure cancer, has turned most of the population into sun-starved, blood-sucking, rabie-infected creatures. The film is partly an analogy of a major metropolis’s destruction and the virtual destruction of a man by consuming loneliness. The other part of the film is a horror film with your typical zombie/creatures, which we have seen before in films like 28 Days Later and The Descent. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, so it is never a good idea to watch a DVD when the box garnishes the quote, “Awake does for operations what Jaws did for the beach.”  Awake features the most ludicrous story line possible, except for maybe Lindsay Lohan’s I Know Who Killed Me.  The movie opens with a type of factual documentation of “anesthetic awareness,” which rivals most documentaries opening clarifications.  This occurrence is when a surgery patient is paralyzed physically, but still remains conscious of the surgical procedure.  So, this does not sound so bad, but add total out of body experiences where the patient can actually wander around and figure out who killed them  (unfortunately, just like Lohan),  and we have completely  reinvented the medically proven experience of “anesthetic awareness.”

Horrible acting and just a flat out stupid premise makes this film unbearable.  Hayden Christensen, who I only can pray is descent in Jumper, is a rich New Yorker with a weak heart, but of course, not weak enough to not have a hidden affair going on with Jessica Alba.  I must stray for a moment to say that I would be hard pressed to name a more horrible actor than Ms. Alba. Even Jessica Simpson seems to have more range.  Maybe that is too harsh, but does anyone forget a movie like Honey?   When I rant about Alba, many people like to remind me of Dark Angel and the sort of cult following that ensued.  My response to any demands that I should recognize her for her work in this TV sci-fi series would only be that it cannot be very hard to play the living dead when your acting is just dead.  And, what happened to Terrence Howard?  He comes out swinging with an Oscar nomination for Hustle & Flow and then gets the Cuba Gooding syndrome and starts taking any script sent his way.  In Awake, Howard is the surgeon who will perform a heart transplant on Christensen’s character, against the wishes of Christensen’s mother (played by Lena Olin).  Here is where it gets just plain silly.  Christensen is like a young Donald Trump and we are supposed to believe that he would allow a team of surgeons, at what looks to be a local urgent care clinic in Manhattan, do a heart transplant for him?  Also, we are told that Howard’s surgeon has had four malpractice suits against him, making it even more unbelievable that Christensen would find his “friendship” enough to risk a successful transplant.

Whenever there is money involved, there is likely to be deceit.  Of course, in Awake what Christensen discovers in his state of anesthetic awareness is that Howard and his surgical team is plotting to kill the young tycoon.  Although, to some the discovery that Alba, the love interest, is not on the up-and-up, may be shocking, to others it seems like the same old recipe to another ridiculous thriller.  Not to ruin this movie for anyone, but the martyrdom of the mother by the end almost turns Awake into a spoof of  The Sixth Sense.  If you do not want to place yourself in an “anesthetic awareness” where you are paralyzed with stupidity, please don’t watch this film.  Count backwards from ten and make sure you are completely unconscious!