May 31, 1996
DRAGONHEART is directed by Rob Cohen. I have enjoyed several of Cohen’s movies, especially the one before this (DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY), and I’ve had fun joking about his specific brand of weirdo hackiness over the years, but since he has been accused of sexual assault by at least three people including his daughter I won’t joke about him or talk about him anymore. But I will talk about DRAGONHEART.
Sir Bowen (Dennis Quaid, JAWS 3-D, WYATT EARP) is a knight who mentors the Saxon Prince Einon (Lee Oakes), the little shit son of King Freyne (stuntman Peter Hric), who also has another right hand man called Brok (Brian Thompson, ALIEN NATION, MIRACLE MILE, LIFE STINKS). Brok calls Bowen “nursemaid” when he commands him to bring the prince to witness his father’s “noble victory” over rebelling peasants. Bowen tries to teach the kid “the Old Code” so he won’t be a massacring bastard like his no good father, but it really doesn’t take.
During the massacre the dumbass king wanders away from his army to personally set fire to a village he assumes is empty, then the peasants mob him and start to beat the shit out of him but for no reason their leader (Terry O’Neill, CONAN THE DESTROYER) says, “Stop! The battle is out there!” and then everybody leaves? What the fuck. So the prince may have a window to heroically save his father, but instead he pries the giant crown off of his head and slinks away just in time to be clumsily bumped by the peasant leader’s daughter Kara (Sandra Kovacicova), causing a wound that will slowly kill him.
Queen Aislinn (Julie Christie, NASHVILLE) comes up with a plan: carry the little twit to a dragon. They go to a cave to find a dragon who will later be called Draco (voice of Sean Connery between FIRST KNIGHT and THE ROCK). Einon has to swear to “live and rule with mercy” and come to the dragon to “learn the Once-ways.” Then Draco does some kind of magic to give half of his heart to the prince, healing him. (read the rest of this shit…)
“DON’T LOOK NOW but Nicolas Roeg has made an eerie meditation on fate, death, mourning and love!” That would’ve been my quote for the newspaper ad if I was doing this back then. I do quotes, you know. Too bad I’m late on this one, I think I would’ve had alot to offer their marketing team.
As part of my striving for excellence I’m trying to strengthen my background in the filmatic arts. I’m always trying to catch up on the Badass Cinema that I’ve missed, but it’s also important to watch some of the regular folk movies that are considered classics. MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER is no THE GODFATHER or nothin but if you talk to film buffs alot of times they have a boner for Robert Altman, and this is one of the movies they all mention. Before POPEYE. 
FINDING NEVERLAND is one of those movies that feels kind of like a remedial imagination class they force you to take on Saturdays because you fucked up. You may not know this, it tells you, but it turns out imagination is important and magical and all that kind of crap. Johnny Depp plays J.M. Barrie, the writer of Peter Pan. The movie starts the same as ED WOOD, he’s the writer of some flop play that the audience already hates literally about 2 seconds after it starts. It’s the first line of dialogue and a dude is already asleep.
