Incredible Shrinking Man

GRANT WILLIAMS has his hands full in "The Incredible Shrinking Man."‘

Incredible Shrinking Man’ no small film

VIDEO VIPER in WEEKENDER, Jan. 29, 2010

So we were going through some old, dusty VHS tapes when we came across a cheesy promo for a movie called “The Incredible Shrinking Man.”

It was one of those campy, 1950s science fiction movies. You know, during the nuclear tests, Hollywood fed on fears by giving us men and women who grew super tall or short because of our meddling with nature. Hollywood also had those tests unleashing all kinds of prehistoric creatures, not to mention disruptions from other planets.

"The Incredible Shrinking Man" was in that mode.

So I found the film on Netflix, added it to my queue and had it two days later.

It opens with Scott Carey, played by Grant Williams, enjoying a vacation in a borrowed boat with his wife, Louise, (Randy Stewart), drinking in the sunshine. He asks her to get him a cold beer. She mockingly declines, saying she too is on vacation.

But of course, being the good 50s wife, she relents and goes inside to fetch the beer. Good thing, too, because soon Scott sees a thick, unworldly mist coming at him. He can't escape. It leaves a film on himself and his clothes. His wife, getting the brew, is unscathed.

Months later, the incident long forgotten, he tells his wife the dry cleaners are messing with his clothes, because his pants are too long and his shirt hangs on him.

A typical 50s explanation: His wife says he's been working too hard and not eating properly.

Still dogged that something isn't right, he visits his doctor, played by William Schallert. Schallert went on to play the father on "The Patty Duke Show" as well as a similar medical role in the film "Matinee," which parodied films like "Shrinking Man." Schallert is still working in his late 80s, most recently appearing on “Desperate Housewives.”

The Schallert character gives our boy Scott a logical explanation and says he can't physically be shrinking. But as Scott shrinks more, a subsequent visit has Schallert sending him to a research clinic for further study.

There he is met by a more eminent doctor / researcher, played by Raymond Bailey, who went on to regain his hair and become Banker Drysdale on “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

This is a pretty interesting and fun film and the special effects aren't nearly as bad as you might think. The funny instances are when there has been a gap in time and suddenly when we see him, he is less than four feet tall.

By the way, there is preproduction going on for a sequel to the film, to be made this year.

Around him are obviously larger-than-life props of furniture, ashtrays and the like.

He feels a kinship with a sideshow little person until he realizes he has suddenly shrunk smaller than her. (Researchers had told him they found a way to at least stop the shrinking.)

Later, we find him living in a dollhouse.

Sometimes these B movies are so dumb they are boring. You find yourself planning the next day while watching.

But this one is pretty good. You may not want to allow young children to watch. They may never look at the family cat the same way after it goes after poor Scott.

The ending is also rather schmaltzy. Even though he is shrinking to the size of a gnat, he finds himself one with the universe. Cue dramatic music.

Ah, OK.

But overall, for its time and all, it is a well written, well produced piece of cinema history. Don't shrink from seeing it.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN

• Directed by Jack Arnold

• From a novel and screenplay by Richard Matheson

• Runtime: 81 minutes

• Not rated but too intense from young children

• 3 stars out of 4

Appaloosa

Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris in “Appaloosa.”

Get on your high horse to see ‘Appaloosa’

Published Jan. 15, 2010

Get on your high horse to see ‘Appaloosa’
Well partners.
It isn’t often we mosey on over to hitch ourselves to the couch to watch a horse opera.
But that’s what I did the other day.
The film is “Appaloosa,” starring Ed Harris (who also directs) as Appaloosa’s shoot-first sheriff, Viggio Mortensen as his deputy and Renee Zellweger as the new girl in town, Allison French. She’s the one female in town who isn’t a prostitute. (She doesn’t charge.)
Harris and Mortensen are hired to clean up the town and when the bad guys resist, they are quickly gunned down.
The film opens with Jeremy Irons, another bad guy, gunning down the previous sheriff and his deputy.
New-sheriff Harris is serious and doesn’t mess around. Obey or die.
But his heart softens when the widow Zellweger arrives and needs a clean but respected and inexpensive place to stay. She only has $1.
She melts the sheriff’s heart and they are soon an item. The house being built on the edge of town will become their love nest.
The Zellweger character doesn’t even mind when Harris beats a man nearly to death for using bad language in front of her in the saloon.
But then, Zellweger makes a play for the deputy, too.
Meanwhile, a young man tells the sheriff he witnessed Irons killing the previous sheriff and deputy. At the trial, Irons denies the charge as does a packed courtroom of his followers, who happened to be there to witness the killing.
The elderly judge tells the young whistleblower to jump on his horse and ride, then sentences the Irons character to death.
Irons’ followers kidnap Zellweger so they can exchange her for the Irons’ character as the good guys head off via a train for his hanging.
Zellweger is a victim in name only, since she doesn’t mind cavorting with her captors in a nearby pond.
Mortensen is the most interesting character in the film. He is steadfastly loyal to the Harris character while confessing his own insecurities to a series of sympathetic prostitutes.
The scenery in the Blu-ray version is beautiful and Harris does a nice job of directing and taking the prime role.
The film balances between being entertaining and realistic and going a little too far, as in, say, HBO’s “Deadwood.”
If you miss your regular fix of westerns, once a staple of TV and movies, give “Appaloosa” a look.

APPALOOSA • Directed by Ed Harris • Written by Ed Harris and Robert Knott • Runtime: 115 minutes • Rated R for language and violence. • 2 1/2 stars out of 4

Taken

‘Taken’ with Liam Neeson well worth the ride

LIAM NEESON and Famke Janssen in “Taken.”

Ever multitask while watching a movie at home?
You know, maybe you have the computer on your lap and you glance at the TV and then read e-mail, or play solitaire or read the letter from Aunt Ethel.
I was checking out Facebook when I started to watch the action roller-coaster film “Taken.”
The great Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired superagent for the government. Today, he works security for rock stars and wonders what he will buy his daughter, Kim, played by Maggie Grace, for her birthday.
Bryan has all the right moves when it comes to knocking the knife out of the hand of a would-be killer but is clumsy when it comes to a relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, whom he loves dearly but really doesn’t know.
She lives with her mother (Famke Janssen) and rich stepdad.
Bryan frets over a birthday gift, deciding to buy a karaoke machine because she’s interested in singing. Daughter is pleased until she sees what Stepdad bought her: a horse.
We see Dad that evening, pasting the latest birthday photo into a scrapbook.
He clearly loves his daughter and when she wants to spend the summer in Paris with her cousin, played by Katie Cassidy, his immediate response is no. He’s seen the dangers of the world and doesn’t want his daughter exposed to it all just yet.
But pressured, he signs papers, and the cousins are off to France, where they quickly meet a boy who invites them to a party.
Except there’s no party. He’s part of a group that kidnaps young girls, dopes them up and sells them into sexual slavery.
In an exceptionally chilling scene, Kim is on the phone, talking to Dad when she sees through a window, kidnappers grab her cousin.
Dad tries to calm her down and tells her what to do. He directs her to hide under the bed. What is really chilling is he says she will be found and kidnapped. He tells her to leave her cell phone on and yell out any descriptions of the kidnappers as they take her.
At this point, I was in for the ride, and my Facebook was left unattended.
Forget subplots; forget strong characterizations. The dye has been cast. The explosive story unfolds at breakneck speed as the Neeson character tracks down clues in search of his daughter. If he doesn’t catch her quickly, she will be gone from him forever.
Being this is a particularly heinous crime, we can forgive the Neeson character for the way he dispatches bad guy after bad guy to their doom.
Some scenes will have you gasping as he does what needs to be done to get to the next point in the puzzle to find his daughter. When he barges into dinner at an old friend’s home but the friend won’t cooperate, the Neeson character simply shoots the wife in the shoulder to force his hand.
Despite the heavy action scenes and the body toll, there is little blood or sex, and the film is not particularly bad when it comes to language.
At 93 minutes, it’s just the right length for a good, solid popcorn movie.
French director Pierre Morel does an outstanding job pacing the film.
After it was over, I was hoping for a director’s commentary as an extra, something I rarely look for. Unfortunately, the Blu-ray copy I rented didn’t include one.
But “Taken” is well worth the ride. Just put it in your DVD player and take off.

TAKEN
• Directed by Pierre Morel
• Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Karmen
• Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language.
• Runtime: 93 minutes
• 4 stars out of 4