2 Days In The Valley (1996)

2 Days in the Valley follows a formula that was used in a lot of movies that I saw in the late 90s. This was the mid 90s so maybe this was the start of the trend. The formula has to do with taking a bunch of seemingly unrelated wacky characters, and weaving a story that has them all interacting with each other at various points through out the film. Of course eventually it all culminates in a twisted often hilarious ending.

In this instance they plug into the formula: a couple of hit men, an Olympic skier, vice cops, a sexy Swedish lady, and a suicidal washed up movie director. The premise is simple and that is probably the best way to do it. Because a lot of the fun in watching this movie comes in the scenes in which all of the characters are together being extreme and crazy.

I am not going to rattle off a quick recap of the plot because it doesn’t really matter. You could probably brainstorm a million crazy stories with the characters listed above and that is what makes this fun. I have a feeling they just sat around a table, drew some words from a hat, wrote as much of a screenplay as they could in one hour, and then shot the movie. That’s not a slam on writer director John Herzfeld because everything he did here worked, but it just seems like that would be a good way to make these type of movies.

One thing I am quickly finding is that there are a lot of actors that I have never given any attention to that really deserve some. Danny Aiello is definitely one of them. Just looking at IMDB this guy has been in tons of stuff and from what I have seen he is really good. He was in Once Upon a Time in America, just a small part but he really nailed it. In “2 Days” he plays a washed up hit man and he steals every scene.

Here's a short clip of Aiello (the one with the gun).  

I am really excited to see what he can do in the next movie on the list, Jacob’s Ladder. I know that Tim Robbins in the start but I hope that Danny Aiello continues to be awesome.

The House on Carroll Street (1988)

I am glad I gave Peter Yates a second chance. The House on Carroll Street is a pretty good drama that takes place during the McCarthy communist witch hunts. It stars 80s queen Kelly McGillis and a pretty young Jeff Daniels. Mandy Patinkin also throws in a great performance as a corrupt government official, but he’s good in everything that he does.

The story centers on Emily , a young woman that works as a photo editor for LIFE magazine. She ends up stumbling on a plot to smuggle Nazi war criminals into America. She also happens to be under investigation by the House of Un-American Activities for her role in a socialist club, but that is never really fully developed. The movie is mostly about her getting mixed up in the smuggling of the war criminals. Jeff Daniels plays an FBI agent that is supposed to be watching Emily but ends up falling in love with her and helping her solve the Nazi scandal.

The movie gets kind of silly when Emily is being chased on some ridiculous things like the rafters at Grand Central Station and through subway tunnels all while wearing high heels.
It’s pretty fun to see a movie that takes place during the red scare. The McCarthy hearings have always been very interesting to me. I only wish the movie would have been more about that instead of the Nazi smuggling.

I wouldn’t say this movie is a lost gem, but it’s not a complete waste of time like Eyewitness. Which is probably the worst film I have watched so far on my way to 300. A ranking list is definitely in order when this is all said and done. To get this done I am probably going to have to have a few days this year where I watch like 8 movies back to back. So if anyone is up for a film watching endurance test feel free to join me and help keep me awake.

Jeff Daniels takes us to the next movie which is 1996’s crime film 2 Days in the Valley.

Eyewitness (1981)

Eyewitness is an absolute boring waste of time. I can usually find something entertaining in the movies I watch, but this film has no redeeming qualities. The performances are flat and the story is a muddled mix of a crime thriller and a creepy romance. I am not going to waste time discussing this one in any kind of detail. James Woods was pretty good considering the material he had to work with, but Sigourney Weaver was just terrible.

A quick synopsis of the story goes something like this: William Hurt plays the lonely Vietnam Veteran who happens to now be a janitor in an office building. He has an unhealthy obsession with a TV reporter played by Sigourney. James Woods comes in as the wacky friend of the Janitor who is always in trouble. Long story short, the janitor tries to get a relationship going with the TV reporter by leading her on about how much information he has about a murder that took place in his building. He tries to come on to her and she shoots him down. This happens like 10 times. They barely reference the murder and that story line just kind of fades into the background. Either director Peter Yates is incompetent or the screenplay was absolutely horrible.



I am going to give Peter Yates a second chance and check out his 1988 drama The House of Carroll Street. It stars Jeff Daniels and I hope it doesn’t suck as much as this one did.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

This is a movie I have wanted to see for a very long time. It’s also a movie that you really need to schedule some time to watch, because it boasts a demanding 230-minute run time. This is director Sergio Leone’s last feature film and possibly his most masterful. Leone’s utilization of distinct sound effects, dramatic close-ups, and intertwining tender moments with very violent images is the work of a true cinematic genius.

The story presented in this film is very epic in nature. It chronicles the life of gangster David “Noodles” Aaronson, played by Robert De Niro, as he and his gang of misfit friends grow up during prohibition and get involved in organized crime. Leone freely plays with time as he goes back and forth throughout the narrative and makes excellent use of Ennio Morricone’s amazing score to tie it all together.



If you know Leone then you know Morricone. His scores have been used in most if not all of Leone’s films. His western scores are instantly recognizable and iconic. His score for this film gives it a timeless feeling and really helps tie all of the different time periods together nicely.

Let’s jump to the performances, De Niro is a force to be reckoned with but James Woods was the real surprise for me. I am not as familiar with Woods as I should be. Looking through his filmography I have seen a lot of his work but I guess I have just never paid attention to him. He is very powerful in this film as Noodles’ best friend and partner in crime. He exhibits some pretty raw emotion as his character deals with demons from his past and the more dangerous elements of his lifestyle.

Another cool thing about this movie is that during the childhood segments of the story all of the child actors are really good. I really hate when bad child acting ruins a good movie and Leone makes sure that doesn’t happen here.

If you love the Godfather or Goodfellas or any mobster film then you owe it to yourself to see this. If you are not a fan of the genre then watch this film just to see a master craftsman at work. In the days of cookie cutter blockbuster fare it is a really nice change of pace to see something that is created with passion and a love for the medium of film.

It’s time to look more into the work of James Woods. Up next I am going to watch his 1981 thriller Eyewitness. He stars opposite the gatekeeper herself Sigourney Weaver.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

To place this film in the horror genre is unfair. It seems more like a melodramatic cautionary tale to me. A cautionary tale of what, you might ask. A cautionary tale of the horrors the industrial revolution is going to unleash of course. The only people that could possible find the story of Frankenstein scary would have to be from way before the 1900s, when science was evil and the most practical way of healing a physical ailment was amputation. There are only two things scary about this movie and they are: (1) Helena Bonham Carter and (2) Richard Branagh’s over the top Shakespearian acting.

Another way to make sense of this movie is to look at it as a classic revenge story. The creature, played by Robert De Niro, is pissed off at Dr. Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh, because the good doctor created him and then immediately tried to kill him. Not only did he try to kill him, he abandoned him in a backwoods eastern European town where he would be repeatedly hit
with sticks and chased with torches.



When the creature is on his own in the countryside he has some pretty neat interactions with the locals. These scenes are the film’s best parts. He spends about a year’s time hiding next to a farmhouse and helping the family out under the cover of darkness. When he finally reveals himself to the family he is again repeatedly hit with a stick. This is his breaking point, and he then is determined to kill the doctor that created him and kill everyone the doctor cares about. He kills the doctor’s wife, played by Helena Bonham Carter, by punching through her chest and ripping her heart out. At least the film has a couple good kills.

I am still not sure how I fell about De Niro’s interpretation of the monster. When he talks there is a tiny bit of Brooklyn and I am not sure that works for a creature that was made in Eastern Europe. I also think that he talks more than I would like the monster to talk. Other Frankensteins mutter one word sentences, but this one can talk at length and sound quite educated at times.

Overall it’s a pretty decent film and is totally worth watching just for the scene in which a naked De Niro is wrestling with a shirtless Kenneth Branagh in gallons of amniotic fluid.

I am going to continue with De Niro and follow him to a movie I have wanted to see for quite a long time, Sergio Leone’s American crime epic Once Upon a Time in America. It will be good to see De Niro back in his mobster element.

Fierce Creatures (1997)

British comedy and I have never really gotten along. I do enjoy SOME Monty Python stuff and I really do love the British Office, but this whacky, silly, sex comedy, monkey business that for some reason always involves Mr. John Cleese doesn’t do anything for me. To help illustrate my point I’ll briefly explain the plot.

Jaime Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline are put in charge of a small London Zoo that is currently being run by silly old John Cleese. His goof ball antics have gotten him in some trouble and Curtis and Kline are there to set him straight. John’s character Rollo had the big idea to only have “fierce creatures” in the zoo because violence brings in the most amount of revenue. This plot device sets up endless gags about how violent some of the cute animals can be. It gets very old very fast. There are also seems to be an endless supply of bestiality jokes pouring from the hands of the two writers of this film, John Cleese and Ian Johnstone, which can be funny under the right circumstances, but here they simply are not.



Director Fred Schepisi and I are not off to great start together, as I have not really enjoyed either of the films that I have watched from his filmography. Maybe it’s his style of directing heavily dialogue driven scripts, or his lack of interesting visuals.

There just isn’t too much to talk about with this one. It kind of sucks that I didn’t like two movies in a row, but there are so many more movies to watch. I already see a pattern developing, in that I defiantly write more about the movies I really like and a lot less about the movies I did not care for.



Up next is a horror movie that I can remember seeing previews for when I was younger, a version of Frankenstein starring Robert De Nero of all people. I hope I like this one more than the last couple. John Cleese will be the one that takes us there and I hope he leaves his collection of bestiality jokes behind.

Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

The problem with films adapted from plays is that they often don’t take advantage of the visual story telling elements that the moving picture can provide. This is exactly the case with Six Degrees. The entire movie feels like watching a theatrical production that happens to have been filmed, instead of a film that happens to be an adaptation of a play. That’s not to say that some elements of this film don’t work, because certain cast members do a great job carrying this movie with dialogue.



The three leads, Donald Sutherland, Will Smith, and Stockard Channing, each turn in a solid performance, most notably the young Fresh Prince. When this movie was made all Will Smith had done were some small supporting roles and three seasons of The Fresh Prince of Bellaire. So seeing him in a role that involves having gay sex would have been quite a shock to the average Fresh Prince fan. In this early role he does give a glimpse at the charm and charisma that he would later use to great effect in movies like: The Pursuit of Happiness, Hitch, and Bad Boys.

Donald Sutherland, the man we followed from Aurora Borealis, plays a distinguished art dealer. He does a good job at pulling of the snooty New York aristocrat. I didn’t enjoy him in this as much as in the last film, but he was still solid and shows some very subtle emotion in a few key scenes.

Stockard Channing is an actress I am not very familiar with, except for her role as Rizzo in Grease, but her role here as wife of Donald Sutherland’s character is really very good. By letting Smith’s character into her life she discovers so much about herself that she never knew existed and transforms into a new person at the end. The transformation takes place during an emotional monologue and probably the film’s best minutes.

The lack of visual storytelling was really hard for me to get past and even the good acting was not enough to help me enjoy this one. Just one to many long stretches of dialogue without much interesting happening on screen.

That’s it for Donald Sutherland for now. Next we follow this films director Fred Schepisi to his 1997 comedy Fierce Creatures that looks like it stars all the British actors in the world. I haven’t been a big British comedy fan in the past so we will see how this one goes.