Book review - "The Book of Sheen" by Charlie Sheen (2025)

 Starts off interestingly - the son of Martin Sheen, growing up in Malibu, hanging out with the Penns (Chris more than Sean), being on set in Philippines for Apocalypse Now, discovering paid sex on the streets of Santa Monica (!), a rapid rise to acting work - a part in Grizzly 2 (which meant he had to turn down the lead in Karate Kid), a strong experience on Red Dawn and Ferris Bueller then the casting in Platoon. After that the book wobbles with Sheen whining incessantly about his work on Wall Street then it goes into free fall with tales of drugs, and women, and rants. Sheen comes across as a completely unpleasant person - a narcissist like so many junkies who brags about all the drugs they took and interventions they've had and wagons they've fallen of, who dribbles away about his suffering.  He clearly lives in a world with too many jesters and has little respect for his craft of acting. He's constantly disparaging the films he appears in - ego trips, badly written, etc - though he has some nice words for the writers and co stars of Spin City and Two and a Half Men. He owns some of his mistakes but only some and basically just dribbles.

Despite the people he's worked with some character sketches come through - Johnny Depp trying to seduce him into smoking on Platoon, Oliver Stone's tension trying to make the movies, Chris Penn, his parents. But so many people are vaguely drawn incuding his own brother. The book also assumes the reader knows about many of the incidents - maybe that's true for a typical reader but some context wouldn't go astray. Also the spelling of "dood" and "fukken" gets wearying. Like Sheen and this book.

Matthew Modine Top Ten

 Classy Top Ten (features)

1) Married to the Mob (1988)

2) Full Metal Jacket (1987)

3) Birdy (1986)

4) Streamers (1984)

5) Short Cuts (1993)

6) And the Band Played On (1993)

7) Any Given Sunday (1999)

8) Memphis Belle (1990)

9)  Mrs Soffel (1984)

10) Baby It's You (1983)

Craptacular top five

1)  Private School (1983)

2) Vision Quest (1985)

3) Wind (1992)

4) Cutthroat Island (1995)

5) Gross Anatomy (1989) 

John Candy Top Ten

 1) Stripes (1981) "well, we were on our way to bingo..."

2) Splash (1984) - "I could never be that happy..." 

3) Home Alone (1990) - a wonderful eleventh hour cameo

4) Only the Lonely (1991) - he would have had a long rich career as character actor

5) JFK (1991) - see above

6) Cool Runnings (1993) - an ex-athlete, no, as a wonderful performance, yes

7) Planes Trains and Automobiles (1987)

 8) Uncle Buck (1989)

9) National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

10) Summer Rental (1985) - yes I know but I have fond memories of it 

I acknowledge these are mostly cameos. 

Book review - " Cimino:The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and the Price of a Vision" (2022) by Charles Elton

 I'm surprised it took someone so long to do a book on Cimino, I thought he'd be a natural, but I guess he was uncommunicative and lived a long time (thus better able to sue). Elton tackled the job with admirable enthusiasm, with his best "get" being he contacted Joan Corelli but also a close friend when Cimino was transitioning and Steven Bach's exec partner at UA (who slags off Bach a lot, not unexpectedly - but it doesn't discount Bach's version).

Elton makes a lot of minor errors, mostly about the history of Hollywood - he's prone to saying things were "unprecedented" when they weren't, and stuff like Something's Got to Give was completely shut down when Fox filmed it as Move Over Darling. I think he's also a little too forgiving of going over budget - the "well David Lean did it" argument.  

It's not definitive but it's really good and Cimino is such a fascinating character.

Movie review - "Michael Cimino: God Bless America" (2022) ***1/2

 Doco about the director with taped interviews though not recent pictures. Great talking heads of others though like Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone. Visits scenes where various movies shot notably The Deer Hunter. I like that it book ends The Sunchaser with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

Movie review - "Year of the Dragon" (1985) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Mickey Rourke was born in 1952 so he could've served in Vietnam - I like his performance but his silly hair makes him seem old. And Ariane, I have affection for, but the fact is a really good actress in that part would've make it sing. John Lone is superb.

It looks gorgeous. Sweeping vistas. Extras.Burmese jungle. Hong Kong. Restaurants.  The action sequences are incredible - assassinations, shootouts in restaurants, people being shot on the road, beatings in nightclubs. So many great touches like the nuns translating bugged criminals and the mafia guy with a throat box.

They didn't have to make Rourke's character such an arsehole. When Ariane says she's been raped he grabs her and throws her in the chair and yells at her. When his wife is angry he took off at dinner he goes and sleeps with Ariane. He constantly makes racist slurs. This didn't have to be in the film. Neither did the rape scene - I wonder if that was Stone or Cimino both were partial to rape.

I like the bloke who played Rourke's old mate. The wife character is the standard Oliver Stone nag, but the actress does the best she can. Dennis Dun is moving as the undercover cop - at least he gets some time in the sun as does Ariane.

Really, Rourke's character should have died at the end - it feels wrong that Dun and his wife were killed and Ariane was raped and he got to live. 

Still, a really thought provoking movie. Not cookie cutter.

Charlie Sheen Top Ten

Looking back on the filmography of Charlie Sheen, never quite a movie star,  but it's a solid stop ten (and he proved himself a TV star):

1) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) - I'm not sure why people that felt Sheen as a comedy star was a surprise since he stole this movie in a one scene appearance.

2) Red Dawn (1984)  - some right wing teen fun from John Milius, who clearly had the time of his life making it, and Sheen fits in quite well - what sells the movie, though I think, is Patrick Swayze among teen stars looked like he could handle a gun.

3) Platoon (1986) - the role was, in essence, actor proof - I mean you can imagine any number of actors being effective, in a part that required reacting - but he's good. Imagine Johnny Depp in this part though instead of that support bit.

4) Wall Street (1987) - this was more of a challenge - Sheen is very good - it's interesting though that in his memoirs Oliver Stone lamented not being able to use Tom Cruise - ouch.

5) Eight Men Out (1988) - Sheen's casting helped this get made, one of Sayles' best films - Sheen's part isn't very big but it's one of the best things he did and he does give off the corrupt vibe.

6) Young Guns (1988) - splashy part, good fun, entertaining film, surprisingly historically accurate.

7) Major League (1989) - Sheen again reaps good rewards from a comedy. Great moment when Wild Thing comes out at the end.

8) Hot Shots! (1991) - more comedy, different style, very funny.

9) Being John Malkovich (1999) - stars playing themselves grew tired quickly but this gets points for Sheen wearing a bald wig

10) Three Musketeers (1997) - a version best remembered for the song on its soundtrack but quite fun and Sheen was an ideal musketeer

 That's not a bad top filmography - some comedies but a few heavy dramas, and a lot of them hit the zeitgeist. I do acknowledge a lot of the above he's a support character - indeed, he's really only the lead in the two Oliver Stones and Hot Shots, and even then he's overshadowed by support players.

Movie review - "Scarface" (1983) ***1/2

 Beloved by rappers, gangster and film bros. It's a bold movie to be sure full of set pieces: Al Pacino's opening interrogration, the murder of the ex Castro officer in the camp, the chainsaw murder sequence, the climax.

It has a record for swearing and acutally doesn't need the swearing, or at least that uch. It needed the violence to be what it is. It's also the bright bold colours, the fashion, the music score, the sets. Brian De Palma excels at operatic style pices of which this is one.

Oliver Stone and De Palma match wonderfully - their politics were in synch I feel with its satire on capitalism and so on. Both liked to go "big" so they do.

The acting is terrific. Pacino at his full hammy best, Steven Bauer as the sleek and sexy George Raft type (what a lost star), Michelle Pfeiffer as the zoned out trophy, Mary Stuart Mastrantonio as the frizzy haired sister lusted after by Pacino, Harry Yulin as a slimy cop, F Murray Abraham fabulous as a crime guy, Robert Loggia maybe a little accent-y as a drug lord, Paul Shenar is electric as the Bolivian drug lord.  The girl who flirts with Bauer outside the apartment prior to the chainsaw scene mysteriously vanished after filming. Richard Belzer plays a comic. Lana Clarkson has a small part.

The middle section is a little dull. The female characters are about as well defined as you'd expect from Oliver Stone (rich girl turned whore, poor girl turned whore, whore, whining mother).  The scenes with Pfeiffer lack any sort of detph. She's not into him at all there's no connection - so when she leaves it means nothing. (Pfeiffer is very effective).

Also Pacino's character is such a psycho that after a while nothing he does has impact. He shoots everyone - drug dealers, his boss, another boss, his boss' helper. So when he shoots Bauer it feels nothing. I guess he doesn't kill the poitical guy when that guy is with his wife and kid. But it's such a fabulous performance.

Still the ending is fun with Pacino in front of a massive pile of cocaine as the drug lord's gunman storm the mansion and MSM tormenting him in underwear over his incestuous love while firing a gun.

Book review - "Chasing the Light" by Oliver Stone (2020)

 Entertaining but a little disappointing. Not as good as the 1995 bio on Stone - which Stone quotes several times oddly enough.

Stone's life was so action packed my expectations were high - exotic squabbling parents, Yale, Vietnam, drugs, sex, taxi driving, film school being taught by Martin Scorsese, screenwriting, etc. Maybe it' s better suited to being a biography.

Stone is an interesting person. Intelligent, self centered, sensual, aware, ambitious, not great with money.

He plugged away for a number of years - driving a cab, living off his first wife and writing two scripts a year. Robert Bolt was an early champion. He made his first feature quite early but little came of it. What got him going was the spec Platoon. That led to Midnight Express, his first assignment - a good one to have. He became a top screenwriter (Conan, Scarface).

Interesting trivia: Keanu Reeves was offered the lead in Platoon, he wanted Warren Beatty and Tom Cruise for Wall Street. There's fascinating insights into the making of Seizure and The Hand. The book only goes up to him about to start on Wall Street. His analysis of other directors like De Palma, Parker, Milius and Cimino is interesting.

The accounts of the making of Salvador and Platoon are exhausting.

Strong book but I can't deny I felt a little let down.

Movie review - "The Doors" (1991) **1/2

Much to admire - the stunning production design, the care that went into a lot of it, Val Kilmer's perfect performance, the strength of the cast (down to minor roles), the fact it is stuffed wall to wall with Doors music and Morrison poetry. This cost a bomb but the production values are on screen - Venice Beach, UCLA film classes, concert footage, planes.

But it's a hard slog. Stone had a vision - to show Morrison's journey on the doors - but it's not a very interesting journey. He starts off strange, talented, and charismatic, then just drinks and takes drugs and drinks and takes drugs and becomes dull to hang around.

Sure, the judge's ruling in the obscenity trial was harsh but Morrison as shown here should have spent time inside for a bunch of reasons - being abusive to his women, brawling, being a f*ckwit basically.

Maybe Morrison simply doesn't work as a lead character - he's better as a support. The film would probably have been better off being told through the eyes of John Densmore or Pam Coulson.

Meg Ryan is miscast as Coulson - it doesn't matter as much straight up but later on when she gets on heroin and the relationship becomes a Days of Wine and Roses thing... I didn't buy it. Her acting was fine, it's just a matter of persona - maybe Meg Ryan is wild in real life but she doesn't seem like it, and I struggled.

In her defence the film is thrown out of whack by giving such a big role to Kathleen Quinlan as Morrison's wiccan lover. Quinlan is very good in the part - more comfortably cast than Ryan - but the prominence to her role sort of throws the movie.  Her character is much better defined - she has a career, an inner life (witch), more agency... she overtakes Ryans' character. (Aside: Quinlan was in Apollo 13 and I had fun imagining her astronaut's wife character in that movie having this secret other life where she ran around topless snorting coke, drinking blood and having sex with rock stars).

A lot of this was repetitive. Two scenes where Morrison couldn't get it up. Three out of control concerts. Endless drug taking and parties.

What was the point? Was there a theme? That Morrison was... crazy? Lost his way? I was confused.

The film is full of pleasures and is great to see on the big screen. It just goes too long and feels hopelessly unfocused.

Script review - "Red White and Blue" by Andrew Kevin Walker and Walter Hill

This was going to be made in the late 90s, with Oliver Stone attached to produce. I can't weep that it wasn't - it's a tiresome film. It has the novelty of being set in 1976 during America's Bicentennial but there seems to be no real reason. Maybe it was hoping to be like Shampoo and get this resonance (I thought Shampoo's resonance was overrated) - but at least that had some point: Nixon being elected, the war in Vietnam. This one just as a 4th of July parade which really could take place any year.

The plot has two competing teams after a baddy for the death of a girl - three cops, a mustached tough guy who seems based on Nick Nolte, a Hispanic, and a black female cop vs a super tough ex con. The black female cop remains a novelty so this is a bit interesting. The other two cops could be cut out of the whole film and it wouldn't have made much difference, which is a worry. Also jarring is the fact the super tough ex con plot doesn't really add that much to the party - he loved the dead girl, who was the black girl's sister; he easily defeats every person he comes across. There's no twist, like him falling for the black cop, or turning traitor - or her turning traitor, or her wanting to arrest the baddy instead of killing him.

Actually the more I think about this movie the more irritating it was. Dual protagonists didn't work in Hill's Extreme Prejudice and doesn't here. Hill used to specialise in tight dialogue but here the talk goes on forever - endless monologues. There's characters being unpleasantly racist. There are bits ripped off earlier Hill films like cop-attacking-a-leg-and-it's-revealed-the-leg-is-fake-and-full-of-drugs bit in Red Heat - here the drugs are in an artificial eye. Action sequences are fine.

RIP Michael Cimino - some random thoughts

Genius? Maniac? Woman? Over-praised? Under-appreciated? Unfulfilled? One hit wonder?

That's the great thing about Cimino - he offers something for everyone. Lovers of auteurs, haters of auteurs, a fabulous cautionary tale, a depressing example of Icarus...

He was odd. There can be no doubt about it. His appearance did weirdly change - though this has happened with other directors (the Wachowskis, Orson Welles, George Cukor). In his interviews he sounds very... unique.

He was bold. He was individual. He was a fantastist.

No one seems to like his movies after Year of the Dragon. The cults for The Sicilian, The Desperate Hours and The Sunchaser seem small. Cimino can talk all he wants about director's cuts but the chances are those films are simply bad.

Unfulfilled potential? Maybe. Hollywood the villain? I can't agree with that - not with all the chances he got and money he spent.

It is a shame he never got to make Man's Fate or The Fountainhead, stories which seem made for him. But he had a decent bunch of credits at the end of the day: Silent Running,Magnum Force, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Deer Hunter, Year of the Dragon and yes Heaven's Gate. Not a bad run.

He will be missed.

Movie review - "Year of the Dragon" (1985) *** (warning: spoilers)

I still remember the trailer for this movie in the cinema and how much it gripped me - the intercut between a line crossing the screen and various set pieces: "Is Chinatown so bad now?", shoot outs, Arianne interviewing John Lon,e Mickey Rourke looking pensive. I really wanted to see the movie and always felt a little dissatisfied by it - so dark, such an unlikeable hero, yet with so many amazing sequences.

Watching it years on and the virtues remain intact - it looks fantastic, with sumptuous production design; amazingly, a film focusing on Chinese gangsters still has novelty (you think it would be a natural for Godfather type sagas but filmmakers tend to steer clear).

The action sequences are brilliant - a shoot out in a Chinese restaurant, the climax where Rourke and John Lone run at each other across a train bridge blasting away, the scene where some gang members are forced to kill assassins, Rourke taking on two female assassins, the hit on Rourke and his wife.

The movie is full of imaginative touches, like the Italian gangster who speaks through an electronic device, the nuns used as translaters. It's genuinely visually impressive (there's even a sequence in the Golden Triangle) - for all Cimino's indulgences as a director he knew how to fill a frame.

There is some very good acting too - John Lone is a superb villain (even though the character's background could have been flashed out a little more), Dennis Dun a touching nerdy undercover agent.

Rourke does everything he can he's simply ten years too young - the part needed to be played by someone who looked like they served in Vietnam, who had pain and years. Rourke would come to look like that but there he's just Mickey Rourke with powdered hair. His character is hard to spend too much time with, with his constant racist cracks, misogyny and ignoring of procedure - he's not eve a particularly good cop either (Dennis Dun's work is more effective).

I can predict the argument that Cimino and Oliver Stone (the screenwriter) would make - "we're not endorsing the point of view of the hero, it's what real life cops talk like, it's based on historical fact" - but the film is racist. The hero is white, most of the villains are Asians, the one decent Asian cop is knocked off in time honoured tradition of the faithful servant, the one sympathetic Asian woman is basically a prostitute (badly acted by Arianne) who lives in a fancy apartment, falls in love with Rourke's character for no real reason whatsoever.

The version of the movie I saw felt cut down - parts like the corrupt cop and Rourke's wife felt as though there were more scenes in them.

I've got to say though, it is a film of power - it's intense and something lively always comes around the corner at you.

Script review - "Platoon" by Oliver Stone

George MacDonald Fraser pointed out that this film shows why American lost Vietnam - they didn't have an army. Squabbling amongst themselves, whacked out on drugs, ill disciplined, cowardly, stupid, poor strategy... it's depressing to think a war was fought that way. Barnes spends most of his time tormenting fellow soldiers, Chris has battle success going nuts with a gun, even Elias the "good soldier" (homoerotically described by Stone - in the script he's an India) is stoned most of the time and leading a drug taking ring. There is not one good soldier in the whole script except for maybe the captain. Powerful and moving and terrifying. No love letter to the Vietnamese either, who wail, shoot and torture.

Movie review – “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (2010) **

I wanted to like this movie more than I did. A sequel to Wall Street was a great idea – Gordon Gekko out of prison after years, making a comeback; the world of finance was as hot a topic as ever; the basic set up is full of intrigue: Gekko has a daughter whose stockbroker fiancée falls under the web of Gekko. But the film makes too many wrong decisions and is too much like a movie – no one acts like real people. And it doesn’t even succeed on a wish-fulfilment level, because no one seems to have a really awesome time.

 

For starters, there’s Shai le Bouf’s character. He’s meant to be a “good” stock broker – environmentally conscious, pretty much clean-living (he gets drunk once but no coke or hookers), loves his girl, smart, promotes fusion technology (the film goes on and on about this), he only dabbles with Gekko to get revenge for his mentor. Yeah, right. Thing is, his mentor was a billionaire stockbroker – he should have been able to take care of himself. And the way he was “brought down” by Josh Brolin wasn’t that tricky, just standard ruthless business tactics. And no one made him kill himself. Gekko’s character at least has the old ruthlessness, but he’s soft too – I didn’t buy the ending (it is poignant to hear him talk about a son who had a drug overdose).

 

The cameo with Bud Fox just felt wrong, wrong, wrong – having him turn up with two beautiful blondes, having made millions from turning Blue Star airlines into a jet brokerage business then retired… that doesn’t sound like the Bud Fox from the first film. Or a particularly interesting character. It just sounds like Charlie Sheen’s idea of heaven.

 

And the Carey Mulligan role is nothing – I mean, nothing. I think Oliver Stone has listened to criticism of his female characters so there are no whores or sluts, and there are women doing jobs, but instead he’s given Mulligan this cipher to play – she’s a nice girl who loves her guy and is resentful to her father and runs a website. That’s nothing, certainly not a third lead. Why not have her as a ruthless business type, or a psycho or at least complex? Was Oliver Stone trying to make amends with his own daughter here? The finale, where an article on a website brings down a finance tycoon, smacks of Hollywood – that never happens.

 

There are some good bits, like Gekko being ignored when he comes back, and Susan Sarandon’s greedy real estate agent who’s a drain on le Bouf. This feels real. But there’s too little of it, and the film goes for two hours.

Script review – “Conan the Barbarian” by John Milius (and Oliver Stone) (draft from 1980)

Milius bounced back from the poor box office performance of Big Wednesday with this entertaining epic. His ability to write in different styles (provided those styles were masculine adventure tales) is well demonstrated here with hims easily and skilfully switching into “sword and sandal” mode. This is a lot of fun, with plenty of action, flowery prose and enjoyably over-the-top-yet-just-right dialogue; it's a pity he never made any more films along this line.

It deals with some recognisable Milius themes: a hero who becomes a legend, his lover is from a different race and she dies, there are colourful characters along the quest, weapons are awesome, bravery and honour is cool. There is also a king who complains about this new cult, and how the younger generation are all on drugs and in his day people wanted to be heroes.

Full of striking visual images: Conan biting the neck of the vulture while tied to the tree, the snake that turns into an arrow, the transition of time on the wheel of pain, the witch who changes shapes. The story is simple and effective - but it is a bit repetitive: four times Conan charges the enemy fortress (to steal some jewels, then to kill Doom, then to rescue the princess, then to kill Doom again), and there’s a lot of decapitations.