FILM REVIEW OF ''LIMITLESS'' (2011)

Scientists have been assuring us for years that we use only about 10 to 20 per cent of our brain. What if you could mobilize more than 80 per cent of your mind to solve your problems? Would you be happier? More productive? "The Illusionist" director Neil Burger and "Mrs. Doubtfire" scenarist Leslie Dixon explore this 'what if' premise in witty but speculative saga "Limitless" (***1/2 out of ****), based on Irish novelist Alan Glynn's 2001 techno-thriller "The Dark Fields." Some of the details have changed during the transition from page to screen, but the imaginative plot remains reasonably intact. When an aspiring novelist afflicted with writer's block resorts to an experimental opiate—kind of like Adderall--that enables him to not only finish his novel ahead of time but also emerge as a savant of sorts, he discovers addiction may be the least of his woes. This out-of-the- ordinary futuristic murder mystery about a slacker who learns that the sky is no longer the limit generates considerable charisma throughout its nimble 104 minutes because leading man Bradley Cooper makes the hero sympathetic despite his sardonic personality. A couple of movies about men who acquired higher brain power through either pharmaceuticals or surgery have been made, including "The Lawnmower Man" (1992) with Pierce Brosnan and "Charly" (1968) with Cliff Robertson. In both of these movies, the protagonists were mentally challenged, but the "Limitless" leading man isn’t handicapped. Instead, he is a hopeless procrastinator who lacks the ability to focus his energy and efforts to complete tasks in a timely manner. The odyssey that our hero embarks on puts "Limitless" in the same offbeat category as the Brad Pitt & Edward Norton movie "Fight Club" with its innovation use of computer generated imagery. Burger uses the CGI here primarily to reflect the paranoid-inducing impact of the drug, but he doesn't flaunt it to the extremes of most contemporary melodramas.

“Limitless” opens with our protagonist dramatically poised on the ledge of his ultra-high-rise Manhattan apartment as he contemplates performing a header into the street hundreds of feet below. A group of Neanderthal thugs are trying to break down the door to his super-secure apartment because he has something that they want. They are prepared to kill him without a qualm and he can do nothing to stop them. Eddie Mora (Bradley Cooper of “The Hangover”) takes a jaundiced view of his predicament and then he explains how he wound up in this tight spot as “Limitless” shifts gears into flashback mode. In the beginning, Eddie was an author who landed a book contract. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to conjure up a single sentence. No matter how long he stares at his computer, he cannot get his creative juices to flow. Eddie’s girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish of “Sucker Punch”) decides that she would be better off without him and they split. Not only does she get a better job, but also she has grown tired of footing their bills. Our unhappy protagonist is wandering the streets when he runs into his former brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth of “Empire Records”), and they grab a drink at a bar. Vernon tells Eddie that he is no longer a small potatoes drug dealer. Indeed, he works for a pharmaceutical firm that has developed an $800-a-pop miracle pill called NZT-84. Vernon adds that the drug is on the verge of receiving FDA approval.

Initially, Eddie is leery of Vernon’s hype, but he decides to try it. Presto! Eddie polishes off his book, and his prose blows his editor’s mind. Eddie asks Vernon for some more, but somebody kills him before our hero can get the pills. Nevertheless, Eddie finds Vernon’s stash, borrows thousands from a Russian mobster, Gennady (Andrew Howard of “Revolver”) and parlays it into an overnight fortune. Eddie’s exploits bring him to the attention of a legendary Wall Street tycoon, Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro of “Goodfellas”), and our hero helps him acquire even more millions. Eddie even wins back Lindy, but he cannot get the Russian off his back. The Russian gets a taste of the drug and wants more. Moreover, another mysterious man is tailing Eddie everywhere, and this ruffian doesn’t mind wielding a knife to get what he wants. Suddenly, everything good that happened to Eddie turns really bad. At one point, he collapses in Lindy’s office and explains what has happened to him. Eddie has exhausted his stash of NZT and he needs Lindy to get him some more from a stash in her apartment in a sea shell. Lindy agrees and then realizes that the knife-wielding man is following her. When she tries to stall him with the help of two husky guys in Central Park, the knife man stabs them both. Frantically, Lindy calls Eddie on her cell phone from a hiding place as the knife man scours the terrain to find her. Eddie instructs her to take a pill. Despite deep misgivings, Lindy gobbles one and experiences the sharp high and outsmarts her dangerous assailant by leading him down to a ice-skating ring and using the blade on a skating shoe to slash him and then flee.

"Limitless" describes the exciting arc that Eddie traverses in his journey from ‘nobody’ status to ‘somebody’ status. Typically, this kind of materialistic movie degenerates into a heavy-handed Faustian morality play. In other words, the hero experiences a meteoric rise, only to suffer the consequences of a tragic downfall. The downfall occurs because he relinquishes his power to control his destiny. Meaning, at some point, he sells out for the short term and pays for it with his life in the long term. John Travolta made a similar movie, "Phenomenon" (1996), where he manifested mental powers beyond anything he had experienced. The toll that these powers exacted ended up killing him. He was no more irresponsible than the "Limitless" hero. Nevertheless, Hollywood rules dictated that the Travolta character had to perish. The people who made "Limitless" don't subscribe to this mentality. Bradley Cooper's heroic character fares much better that the John Travolta character. Although our hero boasts mental powers beyond anything that anybody else has, Eddie refuses to abuse his gift and "Limitless" allows him to reap the rewards. Indeed, he winds up enjoying the last laugh on villainous Robert De Niro. Mind you, this represents De Niro’s best work since “The Score” in 2001. Happily, Burger and Dixon use Eddie’s rambling voice-over commentary to deliver lots of humor, a technique that only Martin Scorsese usually gets away with in his mafia movies. Burger stages a bravura subway fight scene and intercuts it with footage of martial arts superstar Bruce Lee. Altogether, "Limitless" qualifies as an incredibly original film about our prescriptive, self-medicating society that goes where most Hollywood movies don’t dare!

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE BLOB'' (1958)

“The Blob” (*** out of ****) qualifies as a cult sci-fi film not only because it launched 27-year old Steve McQueen on a trajectory to superstardom, but also because it exploited the popular themes both of alien invasion and teenage delinquency that were inseparable in the 1950s. Interestingly, nobody in the Kay Linaker & Theodore Simonson screenplay ever refers to the amorphous, scarlet-red protoplasm that plummeted to Earth in a meteor and menaced everybody in the small town of Downingtown Pennsylvania on a Friday night as “The Blob.” Steve McQueen won the role of Josh Randall, the old West bounty hunter in “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” after producer Dick Powell saw this Paramount Pictures’ release. Meanwhile McQueen’s attractive girlfriend Aneta Corsaut went on to star opposite Andy Griffith in “The Andy Griffith Show” as Sheriff Taylor’s school teacher girlfriend Helen Crump. Of course, neither McQueen nor Corsaut were teenagers, but then rarely did actual teenagers play actual teenagers.

Director Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr., made his directorial debut with “The Blob.” Linaker & Simonson’s screenplay synthesized four genres: first, the alien invasion; second, teenage delinquency; third, a murder mystery, and fourth; a horror chiller. Moreover, while the gelatinous substance assumes various shapes, it remains largely anonymous. In other words, the eponymous Jell-O neither talks nor communicates by telepathy. Instead, it kills without a qualm and discriminates against nobody. The tone of “The Blob” is fairly serious in spite of its somewhat campy nature.

As the filmmakers point out on the Criterion DVD release of “The Blob,” the movie opens uncharacteristically for a sci-fi horror thriller with our hero and heroine in a remote rural locale making out and kissing. Jane (Anita Corsaut) and Steve (Steve McQueen) see a large meteor fall to the earth and drive off to find it. Meanwhile, an old man finds the meteor and prods it with a stick. The crust of the meteor cracks open and a slimy bunch of goop clings to the stick. When the old timer (Olin Howland of “The Paleface”) gets a closer look at it, the goop attaches itself to his hand. The old guy runs screaming from the crater and Steve nearly hits him with his jalopy. Steve and Jane pick the guy up and take him to see Dr. Hallen in town.

Hallen is poised to leave town for a medical conference when Steve and Jane bring the old guy to his office. Hallen phones his nurse to return since he may need to perform an amputation. Of course, Hallen has never seen anything like the substance on the man’s forearm. Hallen sends Steve and Jane to find out what happened. Our heroes run into another group of teenagers that ridicule Steve’s fast driving. Steve fools him into a reverse drive race, but the local police chief Dave (Earl Rowe) lets him off the hook. Steve and the teenagers visit the site of the meteor crater and find the warm remains of the meteor.

After they visit the old man’s house and rescue a dog, the teenagers split for a spooky late night movie while Steve and Jane return to Dr. Hallen’s office. During the interim, the blob has entirely absorbed the old geezer, killed Hallen’s nurse and attacked the doctor. Neither acid thrown on the protoplasm nor Hallen’s shotgun have any effect on the blob. Steve catches a glimpse of the blob absorbing Hallen.

When Steve and Jane go to the police department to report the incident, Dave is frankly incredulous, while Sergeant Bert (John Benson) believes that it is a prank. Bert has an axe to grind with teenagers because his wife died when one struck her car.

Steve and Jane take them to Hallen’s office, but they can find neither hide nor hair of anybody, but Dave admits that the office has been vandalized. Against Sgt. Bert’s advice, Dave turns the teens over to their respective parents. No sooner have Steve and Jane fooled their folks into believing that they are snugly asleep in bed than they venture out again. They drive into town and spot the old man’s dog that got away from them in front of a supermarket. When they go to retrieve the mutt, Steve steps in front of the electric eye door of the grocery store and it opens. They find nobody inside, but they encounter the blob. Steve and Jane take refuge in a freezer and the blob doesn’t attack them.

Later, after they escape from the blob, Steve persuades his teenager buddies that challenged him in a street race to alert the authorities because he is supposed to be home in bed. Police Chief Dave and the fire department arrive at the supermarket. Steve tries to convince Dave that the blob is in the store. Sgt. Bert proves that nothing is wrong. About that time, the blob kills the theater projectionist and attacks the moviegoers. Suddenly, a horde of people exit the theater and Dave believes Steve. Steve and Jane wind up at a lunch counter that the blob attacks. The proprietor and our heroes hole up in the cellar and Steve discovers that a fire extinguisher with its freezing contents forces the blob to back off.

The authorities collect every fire extinguisher in town and manage to freeze the blob. The Pentagon sends down a team to transport the blob to the North Pole. As the remains of the blob drift down to the polar ice pack, the end credit appears with a ghostly giant question mark. Producer James B. Harris obtained stock military footage of a Globe master military transport plane depositing the parachute and its cargo.

“The Blob” proved to be a drive-in sensation and Steve McQueen’s surge to stardom gave the film added momentum. Unless you are a juvenile, this little horror movie isn’t scary at all, but Yeaworth and his scenarists create a sufficient amount of paranoia and sympathy for our heroes. They never show the blob actually assimilating its victims and leave this to your imagination, so “The Blob” isn’t without a modicum of subtlety. In his first starring role, McQueen is simply terrific and conjures up a surfeit of charisma despite the lengths that he must resort to so that the authorities will take him seriously. Corsaut is fine as his girlfriend. Although it isn’t a stellar sci-fi/horror film, “The Blob” is a lot of fun and takes itself seriously enough so that it isn’t as stupid as the Larry Hagman helmed sequel “Beware! The Blob!” (1972). The 1988 remake had a better production budget and took itself seriously, too, but neither film benefited from having a major star in the making.

FILM REVIEW OF ''HOUSE BY THE RIVER" (1950)

Although director Fritz Lang’s “House by the River” doesn’t rank as one of his major films, such as “M,” “Metropolis,” “Fury,” or “The Big Heat,” this morbid Victorian melodrama about murder most foul contains enough of his characteristic themes to make it rewarding for people who fancy his films. Several reasons account for its lackluster stature. First, Republic Studios produced and released “House by the River” (*** OUT OF ****) and Republic was a poverty row studio, unlike prominent studios such as MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, or Twentieth Century Fox, though the great John Ford made pictures at Republic. Second, the talent is strictly second tier. Louis Hayward never achieved the stardom of earlier Lang stars, such as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Ray Milland, and Walter Pidgeon. Nevertheless, Hayward acquits himself splendidly in the role of a treacherous murderer who has no qualms about doing whatever it takes to save his neck, even if it means shifting the blame to his brother. The remainder of the cast is serviceable, except for Jody Gilbert who plays a fatuous housekeeper to the protagonist’s brother. Still, nobody can top the wicked Hayward whose character goes from one extreme, sniveling fear at the thought of being arrested to obnoxious egotism.

“House by the River” is confined largely to studio sets. First, the murder occurs in the protagonist’s dimly lighted mansion. Second, some scenes unfold in his crippled brother’s house—one room. Third, the courtroom is the setting for an inquest. Fourth, the protagonist and his brother ply the river in a boat in long shots of an actual river and a studio tank for the closer shots. Fifth, some scenes transpire on the grounds of the mansion and on a nearby dock. All in all, “House by the River” is appropriately claustrophobic. The river takes on an eerie character of its own, especially the jumping fish that preys on the protagonist’s paranoia. Despite its modest surrounding, Lang and his cinematographer do an excellent job of conveying information about the various characters. The imagery has a haunting quality that indicates that Lang was a master of crime movies, even though he labored under less than stellar conditions. Although the melodrama is conventional in every sense of the word, Lang’s camerawork and the mise-en-scene that he evokes is far from ordinary. He does a terrific job of depicting suspicion, murder, paranoia, and the toll that gossip takes on an individual.

The problem with “House by the River” is that you know what is going to happen for the most part because Hollywood movies of the 1950s always punished the murderer. In other words, crime never paid and the villains got their comeuppance. Scenarist Mel Dinelli derived his screenplay from A. P. Herbert’s novel. Lang and he cultivate a modicum of suspense, but not enough to have you wringing your hands. Actually, it is fun—in a perverse way—to watch the
unscrupulous Hayward tries to get away with his crime, but like previous Lang murderers, he is so warped that he can never escape the consequences of his acts.

A middling crime novelist, Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward of “Anthony Adverse”) murders his wife’s maid, Emily (Dorothy Patrick of “Follow Me Quietly”), by accident. Stephen accosts her as she descends the stair after bathing in his wife’s bathroom and wearing her perfume and tries to kiss her. It seems that Stephen had a drink and looked up to see a pair of curvaceous thighs coming down the stairs and couldn’t control himself. Emily deflects his lustful advances, screams when he refuses to let her pass, and keeps on screaming irrationally until he strangles her to death. Stephen is distracted by the appearance of a nosy next door neighbor, Mrs. Ambrose (Anne Shoemaker of “They Won’t Forget”), and assures Emily that he will release her if she only shuts up. Tragically, Emily doesn’t stop screaming and Stephen kills her with his bare hands. No sooner has Stephen murdered her than sometime comes knocking at his door. Stephen cowers near the corpse hoping that the individual at the door will go away. Just when he thinks this person has left, the individual surprises Stephen and enters by the back door. Stephen is relieved when he realizes that it is only his crippled brother John (Lee Bowman of “Bataan”) who walks with a limp and earns his living as an accountant. Stephen convinces John not to go the police because he fears that the authorities won’t believe his story. Initially, Stephen lies to John and tells him that Emily fell down the stairs. John spots the marks on Emily’s throat and knows that she has been strangled. Against his best instincts, John decides to aid and abet Stephen. It seems that John has helped Stephen out of other jams. Just when John decides to change his mind, Stephen lies that his wife Marjorie (Jane Wyatt) is going to have a baby. Reluctantly, John helps Stephen dispose of the body in the river. Earlier, in the first scenes, Mrs. Ambrose complained that the currents of the river conveyed hideous sites. Lang foreshadows the role that the river will play in Stephen’s future. Just when he thinks that he is free and clear, here comes Mrs. Ambrose complaining again about the flotsam in the river. John is especially terrified because he learns to his chagrin that the sack that they stashed Emily in has his name stenciled on it.

Anyway, Stephen and John dispose of Emily’s body in the river, but the body comes back on them like everything else. John’s guilty conscience gets the best of him and his nosy housekeeper, Miss Bantam (Jody Gilbert of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”), suggests that his erratic behavior after Emily’s mysterious disappearance is proof that he had something to do with her death. Meanwhile, Stephen unravels and tries to kill his own brother and implicate him for Emily’s death. The authorities never catch up with Stephen. His paranoia proves his undoing in a surrealistic comeuppance that has him strangling himself in a curtain that he believes his Emily. As he did in “Fury,” Lang uses public opinion generated by gossip to condemn an essentially innocent but misguided character. Good performances, good atmosphere, and Lang’s sure hand at the helm make this melodrama better than a lesser director would have made it. While it isn’t a comedy, “House by the River” seems to foreshadow “The Trouble with Harry,” the Hitchcock movie about a corpse that keeps showing up and driving people crazy.