Time After Time (1979) ****

Nicholas Meyer's Time After Time is an interesting film. It takes two of the most prolific figures of turn of the century London H.G. Welles (Malcolm McDowell) and Jack the Ripper (David Warner, the photographer that loses his head in the Omen, or for you younger fans is the thug working for Billy Zane in Titanic.) and sends them to 1979 San Francisco. This probably sounds idiotic and ridiculous, but the film uses Welles folklore (mainly the time machine) to give the film a little more credibility as Welles chases Jack after his identity is revealed to the authorities. It's a basic fish out of water story for Welles, yet The Ripper fits right into the violence of late 20th century America. Welles does find a girl named Amy (Mary Steenburgen, who ironically ends up with another time traveler in Back to the Future Part III).

Time After Time is a film that is actually better than you would expect. The story is far fetched, yet you can still believe H.G. Welles is wandering the streets of San Francisco. Malcolm McDowell delivers his best performance since Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange. His out of his element face and emotional force when needed makes you feel for his character and what he goes through later in the film. David Warner is equally great as the creepy Ripper, making you see where he's coming from when he tells Welles that he was made for this violent age. Steenburgen is cast in a conflicted role that has her liberated one minute and totally dependent on Welles the next. She pulls it off with great ability and succeeds in keeping up with her two co-stars.

A fast paced adventure in our own back yard if you will, Time After Time is a great combination of thriller, adventure, and romance that delivers a film that far exceeds the total of its parts.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) *****

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid isn't your basic western. They're not patrolling the west killing Injuns and protecting homesteaders. They're robbers. They rob trains and banks, cavort at cat houses and practically share a local school mom, but people still love the hell out of them. Except for H.E. Hariman of the Union-Pacific railroad who puts together a "super posse" to eliminate Butch and Sundance because they are constantly robbing his trains. What ensues in the middle of the film is one of the greatest chases minus automobiles in film. Eventually the pair escape from their pursuers and wind up in Bolivia with the school teacher walking a tightrope between going straight and continuing their thievery.

Paul Newman is Butch Cassidy and plays him as the likable guy that most of Newman's roles turn out to be. He plays Butch not as a wisecracking good old boy, but a cynical guy trying to find the bigger and better deal. Newman fills the role perfectly and creates another trademark persona to his long resume. A young Robert Redford plays Sundance, who is deadly with a gun and seems cold to the world when the situation calls for it, but is just as cynical as Butch in private. Redford balances the need to over act or under act as the script calls for by keeping everything in tune with a performance that is smooth throughout the film. Katharine Ross is the glue that holds the boys together as Etta Place, the school teacher the two almost share between each other. Butch is like an older brother and Sundance is her love, though sometimes the roles seem a little blurry. Ross tends to be stiff at certain points in the film but it doesn't take away from the performance or the film as a whole.

Directed by George Roy Hill, who would garner an Oscar a few years later for pairing Redford and Newman up again in The Sting, gives us a film that honors the westerns that come before it (especially John Ford during the super posse chase) but builds the film into something that the world had not really seen before: the buddy movie. All of those buddy films that filed past the following forty years can tip their hats to Butch and Sundance, just as this film can slightly tip its hate to the Hope and Crosby road pictures from 20 years before it. The film benefits from George Roy Hill not making a straight bio-pic and going with this route and turns what would have been a rank in file film into something extraordinary.

Butch and Sundance is one of those classic films that not only benefits from its substance, but it also gains more momentum from the era that it was released. Rebels were a hot commodity in the year that Woodstock happened and anti-authority movies were what was selling (consider a year later that George S. Patton would be called the first rebel and win an Oscar for George C. Scott). Beyond that, Butch and Sundance gives us two great actors at their best in the leads and a finely constructed film that remains a classic and ironically a favorite for many people who don't even care for westerns.

The Black Dahlia (2006) *1/2

The Black Dahlia follows a fictional story about two LAPD detectives (Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart) who are part of a task force to solve the butchering of an aspiring actress who is found hacked up in Hollywood. The death is true. The rest of the bullshit that De Palma throws onto the screen is not as you are treated to two hours of bad acting, direction, screenwriting, but at least the costumes look good.

For such a grade A cast the acting in Black Dahlia is below high school theater class level. I think this is the first time I can say that is 100% all around. Everyone sucked in this film. What's more is that the worst casting of the decade has to be Hillary Swank as the femme fatale who is the dark key to the whole thing. Oh yeah, she just won an Oscar. Who gives a shit if the role is right for her. What was De Palma thinking?

Of course Brian De Palma has accomplished nothing as a director in almost twenty years. His tombstone will read that here lies the guy that directed Scarface, that over rated, over produced film that turned Pacino into a screamer. De Palma keeps reaching for something and never quite grasps it.

So if you're into two hours of mess, try the Black Dahlia that throws every cliche known to man onto the screen. If you're expecting Zodiac, don't bother. Apparently a straight crime story isn't enough for De Palma and company.

Texas Chansaw Massacre: The Next Generation (aka Return of the Texas Chanisaw Massacre) (1994) 1/2

The biggest pile of shit from the 1990's. Dental work is preferable to what amounts to a cheap remake of the original film that doesn't go anywhere new, makes no sense, and features acting on par with a three year old reading the script to Porky's Revenge.