From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Nov 2 16:20:25 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!uwm.edu!lll-winken.llnl.gov!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: ben.hoffman@bcsbbs.com (Ben Hoffman) Subject: REVIEW: POWDER Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04185 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=B.Hoffman Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: ben.hoffman@bcsbbs.com (Ben Hoffman) Organization: The BCS BBS - Los Angeles, CA - 213-962-2902 Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 18:50:24 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 46 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3497 rec.arts.sf.reviews:855 POWDER A film review by Ben Hoffman Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman While the film, POWDER, would have to fall into the genre of science fiction, the film is absolutely mesmerizing. It happens that the genre is perfect for the story. Equally as important is that it tells us something about ourselves that everyone should by now know. And that is that anyone who is "different" from us is suspect, is to be ridiculed, and feared. Powder (Sean Patrick Flanery) is such a person. His mother dies the day he is born. He is an Albino whose father is horrified when he sees him. The doctor says there may be other odd things about the baby. So when the father dies his grandmother puts him in a room that is the cellar of the cottage. Obviously, she does not want the neighbors to know about him. When Barnam (Lance Henricksen) finds out about him he calls on Jessie Caldwell (Mary Steenburgen) who runs a school for young men who have been in trouble with the law and need to be taught how to behave. Almost needless to add, the "students" begin to mock the newcomer. This leads to some very funny special effects. Powder, it is discovered, has an I.Q. that is so high it cannot be graded. He also has other powers and these are used to startle those who try to take advantage of him. He can manipulate electricity, magnetize and do other special things that ordinary people cannot do. Steenburgen is her usual kind, sweet self. Jeff Goldblum as the science teacher who befriends him is magnificently charming in the smallish role he has. Both the sheriff and his bullying deputy (Brandon Smith) are excellent. In short, then, this is a film not to be missed.. Written and directed by Victor Salva. 3.5 bytes 4 Bytes =Superb 3 Bytes = Too good to be missed. 2 Bytes = So so. 1 Byte = Save your money. -- Ben Hoffman From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:52 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Nov 2 16:20:25 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!uwm.edu!lll-winken.llnl.gov!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: leeper@mtgbcs.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) Subject: REVIEW: POWDER Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04186 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Leeper Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: leeper@mtgbcs.att.com Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 18:51:16 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 76 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3498 rec.arts.sf.reviews:856 POWDER A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper Capsule: POWDER is the kind of story that could have been pretty sappy, and in fact it is sappy, but only in the final minutes of the film. Until then it is actually a fairly riveting story for the right audience. A teenager with superhuman powers is faced with bigotry in his community. But he changes the lives of people who come in contact with him. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) Sometimes a film just clicks for reasons hard to determine. POWDER should not work well as a film, but it does. This is a story about a self-effacing superman with a pained expression on his face who finds himself in a world that largely does not appreciate him. It initially looks like a self-indulgent film searching for a cult following from a narrow band of sentimentalists. That may even be what it was, but it did just enough that worked for me that I fell into that narrow band. In another ten years I may look at this film and wonder what I saw in it, but for right now it had more than one scene that paid off for me. I would like to think I will always find the subplot with the deputy to be powerful. Jeremy Reid, inexplicably called "Powder" (played by Sean Patrick Flanery), has not had much of a life. His mother died of a lightning bolt before his birth. The albino fetus salvaged from the dead woman was rejected by the father. The child was raised by his grandparents and lived in a dark cellar for almost all of his life. Powder, it seems, was not entirely human, though what else he is is never clear. He may be a mutation or maybe an implanted alien. But he has an I.Q. that goes beyond measurement, a photographic memory, telepathic and empathic abilities, and voluntary and involuntary powers to affect electromagnetic waves. Due to his upbringing he is introverted and maladjusted. Wherever he goes he is hated and feared by most of his Texas community. Sent to a school for disturbed children, he finds friends in the head of the school (Mary Steenburgen) and an energetic science teacher (Jeff Goldblum). Actor Sean Patrick Flanery is hidden under an overly obvious makeup job which looks like it was intended to justify the title of the film. Flanery is not a bad actor--some viewers may remember him as TV's teenage Young Indiana Jones. But in POWDER the white make-up lacks contrast and seems to hide all of his facial expression but the most pained looks, which he then uses all too often. Also sprinkled in are some good character actors like Lance Hendriksen as the town sheriff. Hendriksen is one of those familiar actors who never seem to get the appreciation they deserve. Mary Steenburgen is not well-used, but Jeff Goldblum as the enthusiastic science teacher is a treat. Two more actors it is nice to see working are Ray Wise and camp film actress Susan Tyrrell. The script has some problems. Powder's powers seem to be revealed only as he needs them and we are never sure what powers he has. That is not necessarily bad, though one might question if the writer and director Victor Salva had a clear idea of what he wanted Powder to be. For example, the teenager seems to be involuntarily magnetic in some scenes and not others. Some places the effects are not convincing. Lightning plays a part in the story but never looks realistic. An animal head is also unreal-looking. There are continuity errors witha clock in one scene between Goldblum and Flanery. None of these are really bothersome. What did need more care were the last three or four minutes of the film, which just don't work. There is a great deal being said about writer/director Victor Salva's background. On this subject I will say just that I can respect and enjoy Wagner's operatic cycle "The Ring of the Nibelungs" without condoning everything that Wagner ever did in his personal life. Salva has had a bad chapter of his life which is now over. His film POWDER rises above some mediocre acting and make-up to have several touching moments in a 1950s-style superman story. For the people in the right mood it gets a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. Mark R. Leeper mark.leeper@att.com From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:54 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Nov 1 12:03:03 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news99.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!uwm.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: JBERARDINELL@delphi.com (James Berardinelli) Subject: REVIEW: POWDER Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04187 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Berardinelli Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: JBERARDINELL@delphi.com (James Berardinelli) Organization: - Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 18:55:32 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 80 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3487 rec.arts.sf.reviews:852 POWDER A film review by James Berardinelli Copyright 1995 James Berardinelli RATING (0 TO 10): 6.3 United States, 1995 U.S. Availability: 10/27/95 (wide) Running Length: 1:51 MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Mature themes, mild profanity) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Cast: Sean Patrick Flanery, Mary Steenburgen, Lance Henriksen, Jeff Goldblum, Brandon Smith, Missy Crider Director: Victor Salva Producers: Roger Birnbaum and Daniel Grodnik Screenplay: Victor Salva Cinematography: Jerzy Zielinski Music: Jerry Goldsmith U.S. Distributor: Hollywood Pictures Imagine EDWARD SCISSORHANDS under the control of a mainstream director rather than someone offbeat and eccentric like Tim Burton. The result would have been just another motion picture about a prototypical misfit trying to find his niche--a movie with a lot of manipulation and too many easy answers. POWDER is such a film. Unmistakably designed with teenagers in mind, this movie presses numerous emotional hotbuttons in a manner that is as obvious as it is skillful. On some levels, the film works. It tells a modern-day fable with enough pseudo-scientific gobbledygook to make the scenario sound almost plausible. POWDER is well-paced and effective at getting the audience to care about the principal personality. It's likely that anyone who has ever felt like an outsider will see an element of himself or herself in the title character, as essayed by Sean Patrick Flanery. It's easy to sympathize and identify with the loner. However, while doing all that competently, POWDER consistently avoids taking chances. The script, which backs away from real dramatic conflict, lacks courage, preferring Hollywood-type scenarios to something grittier. The title character always does the right thing. No matter how unjustly he's treated, he never lashes out. The film stays away from exploring the real ugliness of intolerance, instead relying upon stereotypes like the spiteful bully and his ignorant friends. We know from the beginning how these characters are going to react in any situation, and never feel anything for them because no attempt is made to give them humanity. In this entire film, Powder is the only multi-dimensional personality. Everyone else, good or bad, is merely filling a stock role. Powder's real name is Jeremy Reed. He was raised and educated by his grandmother and grandfather in their small house in Texas--no friends and no schools. Powder is an albino, with the characteristic white skin and pink eyes, but that's not all that's unusual about him-- his body has no hair and he possesses "the most advanced intellect in the history of humankind." He also has a strange affinity for electricity. Radios and televisions don't work around him and, during thunderstorms, he acts like a lightning rod. When Powder's grandparents die, he is taken to a local institution to live with other boys his age. There, the strangeness of his appearance creates an almost-universal sense of ill-will and unease. Only a few people attempt to get to know Powder: Donald Ripley (Jeff Goldblum), a science teacher at the local high school; Jesse Caldwell (Mary Steenburgen), the woman who runs the institution; Sheriff Barnum (Lance Henriksen), the chief law officer of Wheaton City; and Lindsey (Missy Crider), the sole person of Powder's age who isn't afraid of him. Director Victor Salva extracts a few noteworthy moments from his own run-of-the-mill script. Powder's interaction with Lindsey is one such high point. His reaction to the shooting of a deer is another. In general, however, by staying within carefully predetermined bounds and refusing to attempt anything controversial or genuinely shocking, POWDER remains restricted to mediocrity. There's no denying the emotional appeal of the movie, but the opportunity for more was passed over. POWDER wants to make its audience cry without causing them too much discomfort. - James Berardinelli (jberardinell@delphi.com) From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:56 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Nov 1 12:03:03 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news99.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!uwm.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: jneil@genie.geis.com (J. Neil Schulman) Subject: REVIEW: POWDER Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04188 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Schulman Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: jneil@genie.geis.com (J. Neil Schulman) Organization: via GEnie Services (1-800-638-9636 or info@genie.com) Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 19:01:54 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 230 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3488 rec.arts.sf.reviews:853 POWDER A film review by J. Neil Schulman Copyright 1995 J. Neil Schulman KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY by J. Neil Schulman Boy, am I gonna get it this time. It's not bad enough that I tick off the liberals by believing in God, the U.S. Constitution, and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It's not bad enough that I tick off everyone who's short on melanin in their skin by proclaiming my belief in O.J. Simpson's innocence and defend the jury that acquitted him. It's not bad enough that I tick off everyone in Hollywood who I haven't already ticked off with my pro-gun stuff by proclaiming that I think SHOWGIRLS is an unsung masterpiece. Uh-uh. That's not good enough for me. I haven't done enough damage yet. I'm not far enough out on a limb. I haven't yet managed to convince everyone that I should be in a padded room somewhere. Now I have to go and declare that a convicted homosexual child molester has written and directed a truly great movie about love and transcendence ... and if that's not bad enough, the damn film even does its best to be anti-gun. Okay, Neil. Take a deep breath and calm down. This is a fair and just country, and they *always* allow the condemned man to have a few last words before they string him up. Hell, if you can't convince them that you're not out of your friggin' mind, then you'd probably be a good sport and chip in for the rope. So you've got a few minutes to save your life, Neil. See if you can tell as good a tale as Sheherazade did. Today, I handed an inscribed copy of my new book SELF CONTROL NOT GUN CONTROL to Nathan Winters, now twenty years old, who at age eleven was enticed into oral sex by POWDER's writer- director Victor Salva. Winters was in front of the Galaxy Theater on Hollywood Boulevard doing a protest of the movie opening, as well as doing some live radio with syndicated talk-show host Tom Leykis. My inscription read, "No more victims!" which is certainly a sentiment it's hard to disagree with, unless you happen to need them for your work. I'd been listening to Tom Leykis for a couple of days, interviewing Winters, his mother, and experts on child molestation, milking this story for all its worth. And, why not? It has all the elements we've come to love so much now that the O.J. Simpson trial is over and we're all looking for a way to fill up those empty daytime hours. Ricki Lake gives us every variation on "someone backstage is secretly in love with you." Sally Jessy Raphael, Charles Perez, Gordon Elliot, Rolonda, Jenny Jones, and Maury Povich each try to outcompete the others with every variation on young women who are cheating on their own husbands with their sisters' spouse. So why shouldn't a radio talk show get some of the action? Nathan Winters, despite his protests that he's forgiven Victor Salva, has an understandable beef against him. The young director Salva drew the much younger Winters, a child actor, into a homosexual relationship. Like Nixon, Salva made the mistake of allowing his sins to get onto tape, and it was his undoing: the videotapes Salva made proving his sexual relationship with the eleven-year-old Winters got Salva charged with eleven counts of sexual crimes, plea-bargained down to five offenses and fifteen months served in a California prison before a couple more years of parole. Time having tolled, Salva is a free man, and aside from having to tell the police where he's living, Salva can pretty much work where he pleases so long as he can convince someone to pay him for it. Francis Ford Coppola, a Salva mentor, a producer on the Salva movie which Winters was starring in at the time of his molestation, and a consummate Hollywood insider, seems to have taken the side of Salva the director over Winters the child star. According to Winters' account on Leykis, Coppola's company not only offered Winters no aid and comfort when Salva was exposed, but circled the wagons and sued Winters and his mother for breach of contract when Winters' mom found out about the molestation and pulled little Nathan off the shooting set. This treatment shouldn't be surprising to anyone familiar with how things work in Hollywood. Read INDECENT EXPOSURE by David McClintock (Dell, 1982), which tells how, when actor Cliff Robertson blew the whistle on Columbia Pictures chief David Begelman for forging Robertson's signature on checks, Begelman was embezzling, it was Cliff Robertson who was shut out of show business; Begelman was just given another deal elsewhere. If Hollywood has held anything sacred since the McCarthy era, it's that you don't tattle on someone "in the industry"--no matter what. The Mafia or the LAPD has no more sacred code of silence. So when Nathan Winters learned that Caravan/Hollywood Pictures/Buena Vista Distributing--that is, Disney--had financed and was now releasing POWDER, a fantasy film written and directed by none other than Victor Salva, Winters decided that he had a job to do. Winters didn't like the idea that director Salva would be in charge of movie sets where children might secretly be under his control again. He didn't like the idea that Disney, a company which is supposed to be a safe haven for children, had taken the man who had molested him to its corporate breast, and was going to make money with him and for him, as well as giving Salva a canvas on which to paint his homo-erotic impulses. And, when you get right down to it, Winters probably wasn't thrilled that the man who had molested him and ended his budding acting career was now making more movies instead of more license plates. So Nathan Winters called a press conference, called Tom Leykis, and flew to Hollywood to try to stop the release of POWDER--to get the movie pulled from distribution. Supporters are urging a boycott both of POWDER and of all Disney products. The calls coming in to the Leykis show, if Leykis's call screeners are being at all even-handed, are coming in strongly supportive of Winters and against Disney. The film industry has battened down the hatches and is being as quiet as they can be. They see witch hunts from the witch's point of view. With Bob Dole, Janet Reno, and William Bennett breathing down their necks, no wonder. They remember the Hayes Board, and rules which prevented divorce from being portrayed in movies, or married couples sharing the same bed, for that matter. Of course, perhaps things have just gone too far ever to go back and they have nothing to worry about. On October 22, 1995, CBS's 60 MINUTES--in the holy Sunday seven o'clock family prime-time hour--showed America Julie Andrews' bare tits in a clip from the movie S.O.B. What other barrier is there to cross unless Barbara Walters is planning on interviewing Linda Lovelace after an uncensored clip from DEEP THROAT? So we find ourselves in an arena which we in America are becoming quite used to. We have decadent, liberal, Godless, and gay Hollywood in one corner, and decent, conservative, God-fearing, and puritan middle-America in the other corner. And, tossed into the ring for us to fight over, like Eris's golden apple thrown "to the most beautiful of you," is a new movie, titled POWDER, which I saw tonight. Sorry, my friends. I had to see it. I'm a fantasy writer. I'm a screenwriter. I'm a journalist and opinion writer. And even if I wasn't, there's something ornery and contrary about me that says that the minute someone doesn't want me to see something.... Powder is better than you or me. He feels your pain--literally. He can read your memory so he knows what bad things were done to you. He can also make *you* feel another's pain. He makes a hunter feel, from the inside, the death throes of the deer he just shot, and understandably, the hunter not only doesn't want to hunt anymore, he can't even touch a gun after that. (Cynically, this might be Salva's sour grapes; as a felon he can't own a gun, either. But I'll give Salva the benefit of the doubt, that he really does dislike guns.) Like all those angels, enlightened masters, E.T.'s, or other Saviors who have come to teach us how depraved we are, Powder is only with us a short while. He is here to be better than us, different from us, and to be despised for being both. We are to revile him for telling us truths about ourselves that we'd rather not hear. And, you know, in telling us about Powder, Victor Salva is telling us about himself. What Powder does physically by connecting the hunter to the dying deer, Salva does with his ability as a storyteller to connect us to his own pain. He wants us to understand the beauty he sees in young men --and presumably young boys, although that's not shown in the film. He wants us to understand the tragedy of not being touched lovingly, and what a caress from an older man to a younger man can mean. I get that. We heterosexual men, both in the movie and in the audience, must believe that Powder is a faggot because he sees the beauty in the male as well as female forms. But God is the creator of both male and female and if you ask me, you'd have to be blind not to admire the Lord's handiwork. Mr. Salva, I can admire a beautiful male body without wanting to have sex with it. None of this is religiously unorthodox, even to Christians. Ironically, the sex offender Victor Salva has put no message in this movie that should be at all discomfiting to the family values of Middle America. True, Victor Salva has managed to infuse Powder with those angelic traits which are most acceptable to those Hollywood New Age acolytes who never could get along with fire-and-brimstone Christianity--but then, the Presbyterian and United Methodist Churches--which favor gun control and teach us that even child molesters are our brothers in Christ--probably wouldn't care much for the sorts of militarized angels that Jesus told Peter He could call down at a moment's notice. Victor Salva's eschatology leads us to an afterworld of love with understanding of all and with conflict between none. It is hardly the heaven of Saint John the Divine's Revelation, a battlefield in our race's future where both humans and angels fight a battle between gom the ashes of Auschwitz or the cinders of Sarajevo? POWDER may, in fact, be Victor Salva's attempt at paying for his crime against Nathan Winters. It may be his apology. It may be his explanation of why he did what he did. It may well be Victor Salva's penance. Nathan Winters has already done his job. I doubt any movie insurance company will be willing to take the risk of allowing Victor Salva anywhere near children on his shooting set. And if Nathan Winters convinces enough people to stay away from POWDER, then no matter how good the film is, if it loses money, Victor Salva won't be given many more chances to direct. But I doubt that Victor Salva will have permanent problems finding work in the film industry again. I mean, he's just a convicted child molester. It's not like he's done anything *really* scandalous ... like joining the NRA. -- J. Neil Schulman P.O. Box 94, Long Beach, CA 90801-0094 Voice Mail & Fax: (500) 44-JNEIL http://www.pinsight.com/~zeus/jneil/ This article is under submission. Reproduction in computer file and data bases is permitted for informational purposes only. Copyright (c) 1995 by J. Neil Schulman. All other rights reserved. From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:57 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Nov 1 12:03:04 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news99.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!uwm.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: gmartin@well.com (Gerard Martin) Subject: REVIEW: POWDER Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04189 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Martin Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: gmartin@well.com (Gerard Martin) Organization: Net Connect, Ltd Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 19:07:50 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 95 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3489 rec.arts.sf.reviews:854 POWDER A film review by Gerald Martin Copyright 1995 Gerald Martin Directed by : Victor Salva Written by : Victor Salva Starring : Sean Patrick Flanery, Lance Henriksen, Mary Steenburgen, Jeff Goldblum Wreathed in tragedy, POWDER begins with a first vestige of human existence; a new life is abruptly born into our world while another, his mother, departs. The new-born child is alone for the first time in his short life. Just how alone, it seems, he will also remember for the rest of his life. Nicknamed Powder for his powder-white albino skin, this newborn is aware of everything and everyone around him. The wired devices measuring his brain activity completely blacken the extreme limits of the measurement scale. Years later, the young man Powder, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, remembers every detail of his life--the loss of his mother; abandonment as a baby by his father; and the many works of literature that he absorbed while down in the comfortably dark cellar of his grandparent's farmhouse. He was surrounded by shelves of books that he will remember word for word for the rest of his life. Interspersed against walls are diverse toylike devices of his own construction. The story really begins the day that both of his grandparents are dead; his grandfather being the last of the two to pass away. Still a minor, he becomes ward of the state and, for the first time in his life, he is joined with the ranks of humanity; his grandparents having served as living buffers during the entirety of his early life. For reasons of fear or ignorance, they had even stopped touching him. It seems that Powder holds a frighteningly unique relationship with the adverse forces of the heavens. A series of far-reaching metaphors express profound notions about life. At the orphanage that doubles as a boy's reform school, Powder arrests the attention of the more unfriendly of their number by dramatically magnetizing the mealroom's entire collection of spoons save one. Held together into one giant clump of silverware and food, the one spoon remaining flits across the table to join the clump only to realize it crash apart into individual pieces again. Not too much longer into the story, the presence of a science lab arc lamp reveals Powder's unearthly relationship with the electrical forces. Other special abilities are revealed. Powder is close enough to humanity to feel another's feelings--to actually listen to people from the inside. In an episode involving a hunter, he is even able to transfer the fear and sickness of an animal's near death to life-numbing effect. A sports-hunter's life, needless to say, is changed forever. Time and time again, the bits and pieces of life are challenged. The firmest pillars of society are undermined one by one. A sheriff and his deputy must yield everything they believes to a higher plane of existence. Otherwise Powder might really be a threat to all that is unifying about life--all things normally unanswered or unasked. Where does our soul go after death? To what extent might we not even exist except as small parts of everything else? Are we substantial enough to allow life to be cordially reduced to electrical impulses only to be reconstructed into re-animated vitalizing forces of existence? There is always much happening just under the surface of POWDER. What is the pure essence of life? High school science teacher Donald Ripley, played smartly by Jeff Goldblum, would have life reduced to the smallest possible elements--molecules governed by carefully controlled and ordered impulses of electricity. As some of these basic assumptions are challenged, levels upon levels of meaning are revealed in Ripley's gleaning insights, relentless further questioning and his relooking closely at the elements that comprise the basis of life and living. POWDER is a beautiful film to watch as the narrative unfolds with every change of scenery. There are incredible compositions that involving pure light, meaningful colour and revealing shadow. There is the whiteness of powder against the drab contours of broken inner lives. The surface layer of order and understanding is shattered against what lies just below, under the surface and perhaps, ultimately, holding all of the pieces together in a discerning order of arrangement. In a discourse that is very much alive in this closing of the millennium, humanity is pitted against technology as the one is divided from the other. -- gmartin@well.com From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:59 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 7 11:02:18 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: gmartin@well.com (Gerard Martin) Subject: REVIEW: POWDER Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04189 Originator: ecl@mtgpfs2 Keywords: author=Martin Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Supersedes: Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgpfs2-bgate.mt.att.com Reply-To: gmartin@well.com (Gerard Martin) Organization: Net Connect, Ltd Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 01:46:42 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 95 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3527 rec.arts.sf.reviews:859 POWDER A film review by Gerard Martin Copyright 1995 Gerard Martin Directed by : Victor Salva Written by : Victor Salva Starring : Sean Patrick Flanery, Lance Henriksen, Mary Steenburgen, Jeff Goldblum Wreathed in tragedy, POWDER begins with a first vestige of human existence; a new life is abruptly born into our world while another, his mother, departs. The new-born child is alone for the first time in his short life. Just how alone, it seems, he will also remember for the rest of his life. Nicknamed Powder for his powder-white albino skin, this newborn is aware of everything and everyone around him. The wired devices measuring his brain activity completely blacken the extreme limits of the measurement scale. Years later, the young man Powder, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, remembers every detail of his life--the loss of his mother; abandonment as a baby by his father; and the many works of literature that he absorbed while down in the comfortably dark cellar of his grandparent's farmhouse. He was surrounded by shelves of books that he will remember word for word for the rest of his life. Interspersed against walls are diverse toylike devices of his own construction. The story really begins the day that both of his grandparents are dead; his grandfather being the last of the two to pass away. Still a minor, he becomes ward of the state and, for the first time in his life, he is joined with the ranks of humanity; his grandparents having served as living buffers during the entirety of his early life. For reasons of fear or ignorance, they had even stopped touching him. It seems that Powder holds a frighteningly unique relationship with the adverse forces of the heavens. A series of far-reaching metaphors express profound notions about life. At the orphanage that doubles as a boy's reform school, Powder arrests the attention of the more unfriendly of their number by dramatically magnetizing the mealroom's entire collection of spoons save one. Held together into one giant clump of silverware and food, the one spoon remaining flits across the table to join the clump only to realize it crash apart into individual pieces again. Not too much longer into the story, the presence of a science lab arc lamp reveals Powder's unearthly relationship with the electrical forces. Other special abilities are revealed. Powder is close enough to humanity to feel another's feelings--to actually listen to people from the inside. In an episode involving a hunter, he is even able to transfer the fear and sickness of an animal's near death to life-numbing effect. A sports-hunter's life, needless to say, is changed forever. Time and time again, the bits and pieces of life are challenged. The firmest pillars of society are undermined one by one. A sheriff and his deputy must yield everything they believes to a higher plane of existence. Otherwise Powder might really be a threat to all that is unifying about life--all things normally unanswered or unasked. Where does our soul go after death? To what extent might we not even exist except as small parts of everything else? Are we substantial enough to allow life to be cordially reduced to electrical impulses only to be reconstructed into re-animated vitalizing forces of existence? There is always much happening just under the surface of POWDER. What is the pure essence of life? High school science teacher Donald Ripley, played smartly by Jeff Goldblum, would have life reduced to the smallest possible elements--molecules governed by carefully controlled and ordered impulses of electricity. As some of these basic assumptions are challenged, levels upon levels of meaning are revealed in Ripley's gleaning insights, relentless further questioning and his relooking closely at the elements that comprise the basis of life and living. POWDER is a beautiful film to watch as the narrative unfolds with every change of scenery. There are incredible compositions that involving pure light, meaningful colour and revealing shadow. There is the whiteness of powder against the drab contours of broken inner lives. The surface layer of order and understanding is shattered against what lies just below, under the surface and perhaps, ultimately, holding all of the pieces together in a discerning order of arrangement. In a discourse that is very much alive in this closing of the millennium, humanity is pitted against technology as the one is divided from the other. -- gmartin@well.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Nov 30 17:02:23 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: gmartin@well.com (Gerard Martin) Subject: REVIEW: POWDER Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04189 Originator: ecl@mtgpfs2 Keywords: author=Martin Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Supersedes: Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgpfs2-bgate.mt.att.com Reply-To: gmartin@well.com (Gerard Martin) Organization: Net Connect, Ltd Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 01:46:42 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 95 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3527 rec.arts.sf.reviews:859 POWDER A film review by Gerard Martin Copyright 1995 Gerard Martin Directed by : Victor Salva Written by : Victor Salva Starring : Sean Patrick Flanery, Lance Henriksen, Mary Steenburgen, Jeff Goldblum Wreathed in tragedy, POWDER begins with a first vestige of human existence; a new life is abruptly born into our world while another, his mother, departs. The new-born child is alone for the first time in his short life. Just how alone, it seems, he will also remember for the rest of his life. Nicknamed Powder for his powder-white albino skin, this newborn is aware of everything and everyone around him. The wired devices measuring his brain activity completely blacken the extreme limits of the measurement scale. Years later, the young man Powder, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, remembers every detail of his life--the loss of his mother; abandonment as a baby by his father; and the many works of literature that he absorbed while down in the comfortably dark cellar of his grandparent's farmhouse. He was surrounded by shelves of books that he will remember word for word for the rest of his life. Interspersed against walls are diverse toylike devices of his own construction. The story really begins the day that both of his grandparents are dead; his grandfather being the last of the two to pass away. Still a minor, he becomes ward of the state and, for the first time in his life, he is joined with the ranks of humanity; his grandparents having served as living buffers during the entirety of his early life. For reasons of fear or ignorance, they had even stopped touching him. It seems that Powder holds a frighteningly unique relationship with the adverse forces of the heavens. A series of far-reaching metaphors express profound notions about life. At the orphanage that doubles as a boy's reform school, Powder arrests the attention of the more unfriendly of their number by dramatically magnetizing the mealroom's entire collection of spoons save one. Held together into one giant clump of silverware and food, the one spoon remaining flits across the table to join the clump only to realize it crash apart into individual pieces again. Not too much longer into the story, the presence of a science lab arc lamp reveals Powder's unearthly relationship with the electrical forces. Other special abilities are revealed. Powder is close enough to humanity to feel another's feelings--to actually listen to people from the inside. In an episode involving a hunter, he is even able to transfer the fear and sickness of an animal's near death to life-numbing effect. A sports-hunter's life, needless to say, is changed forever. Time and time again, the bits and pieces of life are challenged. The firmest pillars of society are undermined one by one. A sheriff and his deputy must yield everything they believes to a higher plane of existence. Otherwise Powder might really be a threat to all that is unifying about life--all things normally unanswered or unasked. Where does our soul go after death? To what extent might we not even exist except as small parts of everything else? Are we substantial enough to allow life to be cordially reduced to electrical impulses only to be reconstructed into re-animated vitalizing forces of existence? There is always much happening just under the surface of POWDER. What is the pure essence of life? High school science teacher Donald Ripley, played smartly by Jeff Goldblum, would have life reduced to the smallest possible elements--molecules governed by carefully controlled and ordered impulses of electricity. As some of these basic assumptions are challenged, levels upon levels of meaning are revealed in Ripley's gleaning insights, relentless further questioning and his relooking closely at the elements that comprise the basis of life and living. POWDER is a beautiful film to watch as the narrative unfolds with every change of scenery. There are incredible compositions that involving pure light, meaningful colour and revealing shadow. There is the whiteness of powder against the drab contours of broken inner lives. The surface layer of order and understanding is shattered against what lies just below, under the surface and perhaps, ultimately, holding all of the pieces together in a discerning order of arrangement. In a discourse that is very much alive in this closing of the millennium, humanity is pitted against technology as the one is divided from the other. -- gmartin@well.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jun 11 10:35:00 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-200.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-11.sprintlink.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!lade.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.be.innet.net!INbe.net!news.nl.innet.net!INnl.net!hunter.premier.net!netnews.worldnet.att.net!cbgw2.att.com!nntphub.cb.att.com!not-for-mail From: noraruth@aol.com (Andrew Hicks) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: POWDER (1995) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 10 Jun 1996 18:16:03 GMT Organization: University of Missouri - Columbia Lines: 70 Sender: ecl@mtcts1.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: ecl@mtcts1.att.com Message-ID: <4phop3$163@nntpb.cb.att.com> Reply-To: noraruth@aol.com (Andrew Hicks) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtcts2.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #05425 Keywords: author=Hicks Originator: ecl@mtcts2 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:4733 rec.arts.sf.reviews:979 POWDER A film review by Andrew Hicks Copyright 1996 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions (1995) *1/2 (out of four) I've never written a review for a movie I haven't watched all the way through, but I had to make an exception with POWDER. I was about forty-five minutes into this one at a friend's house when he and his brother got into a huge shouting match that would have ended in violence had we not left the house. So I never got to finish the movie and I'm sure as hell not going to pay three more bucks to watch half of a bad movie. But I can at least get a partial review out of it, because I saw enough to know this one wasn't worth finishing in the first place. The movie centers around a freaky teenager who's spent his entire life living in the cellar of his grandparents' house. When Grandpa dies (taking his department store down with him), social worker Mary Steenburgen has to take Powder (first and middle names? Gold Bond) to a state home, where we find out he's a different from the other kids. Actually, we find out he's different when we first see him, because he's the most pale individual we've ever seen and moreover he has no body hair whatsoever. When Powder is born in the opening minutes of the movie, the father takes one look at him and says "He's not my son." Obviously. All I want to know is where the Pillsbury Dough Boy was nine months ago. So the white-faced freak leaves his Neverland Ranch for the state home and faces the ridicule of other kids. That is, until they try to haze him during his first cafeteria lunch by making him "wear" his spoon ("You can either wear it on your nose or up your ass." Decisions, decisions...) and he uses telepathic powers to draw all the silverware in the room into a giant pile in the middle of the table. So if his father is the Pillsbury Dough Boy, his mother must be Sissy Spacek's Carrie character. And you have to factor in two more things from the subsequent scenes, as we find out Powder has some sort of super-intelligence ("Your I.Q. test went straight off the chart!") and attracts electrical power. This first shows up as Powder visits the world of high school (If he's such a genius already, why would he need a high school education?) and sits through a demonstration in Jeff Goldblum's science class. Goldblum plugs in a "Jacob's ladder" device that shows current running up two wires and immediately the current flows across the room and into Powder's chest. But Goldblum just stands there for about thirty seconds watching, instead of just unplugging the damn thing. I guess he was too busy contemplating why he was appearing in his third bad movie in a row (following HIDEAWAY and NINE MONTHS). That's about all I saw before the big fight began and, let me tell you, that was twice as interesting as the movie itself. But like I said, I saw enough to know this would be one of those terrible melodramas about the isolation of people who have superior abilities and how hard it is for those people to assimilate themselves into mainstream civilization. None of these movies ever handle the subject properly, instead introducing the feeble BEAUTY AND THE BEAST copout of having a beautiful woman fall in love with the guy's personality, overlooking his personal appearance. I already had the female character picked out (the girl who was sitting next to him in the back of the room during the electrocution scene), but I guess I'll never know for sure what happened. -- Visit the Movie Critic at LARGE homepage at http://www.missouri.edu/~c667778/movies.html