June 5, 1996
Most of us probly didn’t see James Mangold’s HEAVY in theaters. It won the Special Jury Prize for directing at Sundance, it played Cannes, and then after Liv Tyler got some attention for starring in STEALING BEAUTY it got a limited release in the U.S., starting on one screen in New York and eventually expanding to only 22. I think I only knew about it because Roger Ebert raved about it. I watched it on video later and thought it was pretty good, but I barely remembered it. I thought Heavy was the name of the main guy.
It’s actually Victor Modino, and he’s played by Pruitt Taylor Vince (RED HEAT, K-9, CITY SLICKERS II: THE LEGEND OF CURLY’S GOLD, NATURAL BORN KILLERS) in his first lead role, one he justifiably received alot of praise for. Weirdly this movie didn’t get any Indie Spirit Award nominations, though. Also I’m betting it didn’t ever win any awards for excellence in DVD menu design.
June 10, 1994
All I knew about THE DEVIL’S CANDY (2015) was
K-9 is a weird type of action-comedy that only existed in the ’80s. James Belushi plays own-rules-playing San Diego narcotics detective Mike Dooley, who sneakily borrows a K-9 patrol dog off the books for an unauthorized raid, and then treats the dog as his partner, talking to him as if he’s a human in a regular non-dog-related cop movie. And the dog, Jerry Lee (introducing Jerry Lee as himself according to the credits, which is a lie because the dog was named Rando and got totally fucked over because dogs aren’t SAG), will sometimes make human gestures like covering his face with his paws in embarrassment or making a little arf sound that resembles a human sigh.
