B-Movies and Couch Classics: Eye For An Eye • A FamilyThing • Arthur

B-Movies and Couch Classics
Eye For An Eye, A Family Thing & Arthur

by Dan Mohn, Movie Merchants

EYE FOR AN EYE
Keifer Sutherland portrays a sick killer better than most, and in the film "EYE FOR AN EYE" he shows once again how good an actor he is. Some actors are cast for these parts, and even though they have the look they need, they do not always have the demeanor of the killer. Keifer makes you despise him. He knows just how to get his character under your skin and make you wait with anticipation for something to happen to him. In this film he does it again; after you watch it, you will know what I mean. This also was a film that I put off watching because there were a lot of other thrillers being released that I had heard about. So, just like it so often happens, customers started saying some good things about the movie, and I had to move it up on my ‘must watch’ list. I have never really been a big Sally Fields fan because most of her films come off as TV movies, but this one’s got bite to it. Sally stars as a mother, who while talking to her daughter on the telephone, hears someone enter her house and brutally murder her daughter. The murderer (Sutherland) is arrested but gets off on a technicality. After watching our judicial system fail, Fields must decide to either go on with her life, or to make Sutherland pay for his crime. Ed Harris also stars as the alienated husband to complete the cast of this great thriller.

A FAMILY THING
Sometimes the choice of what movie to rent comes down to just plainly who stars in it. It not only happens to customers, but it also happens to me. Sometimes you just have to rely on an actor or actress’s past performances to determine what you are going to watch. The movie "A FAMILY THING", starring Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones fell into this category. I had not heard a thing about the movie and it did not make much in the theater, but how could you lose with these two stars. So I took the film home without reading the box and thought I was going to watch a good comedy. Well, I was wrong. The movie was very good, but what I thought was going to be a comedy ended up being a drama. You see, it does pay to read the box! The movie is about two brothers from different walks of life finding themselves and each other. In case you have not caught on yet, Duvall portrays a white man from Arkansas, and Jones, his Afro-American half brother from Chicago. Well, at least you can see why I thought it was going to be a comedy. The story is about Duvall trying to find his half brother whom he never knew he had. Jones, who plays a Chicago police officer, knows that Duvall is his half brother, but they grew up in two different families at a time when something like this was not openly talked about. So the surprise of one brother is met by the anger of another. Imma P. Hall stars as Aunt T, who even though blind, can see things that the brothers cannot. Blood is thicker than water.

ARTHUR
Can anyone play a drunk better than Dudley Moore? The first time I watched this film was my freshman year at college, and the theater was filled with laughter throughout the movie. I just finished watching it and found myself laughing out loud, just like I did fifteen years ago. A good comedy is always hard to recommend to someone because everyone’s funny bone is tickled differently, but for good adult humor, it’s hard to beat "ARTHUR."

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Dan Mohn is a manager at the Cedarl Cliff Mall location of Movie Merchants. On behalf of myself and the staff, we would like to apologize to Dan for omitting his name from the December issue’s article by-line. :-(