Re-Watching Jennifer 8 starring Lance Henriksen and Andy Garcia
Mood:
happy
Topic: Worth the Re-Watch
Wow it is nothing like watching an older but goodie movie that you like even if you know what is going to happen. Sometimes I want to snuggle and watch something I know is going to be enjoyable in lieu of the unknown. At least that is the case with Jennifer 8. I enjoy this movie because Actor/Artist Lance Henriksen co-stars and has a significant part in the movie before he is killed. In addition, Actor Lance Henriksen has the opportunity to show his versatility as an actor. Lance Henriksen portrays anger, frustration, happiness, laughter, and jokes as police officer Freddy Ross. Actress Betty Baker plays Lance’s wife, Margie Ross.
Lance is great in this movie and looks good and healthy. There is quite a lot of swearing by Lance Henriksen’s character; however, given the time period of the movie that is the way men spoke around each other. Of course the foul language was not used in the presence of any female characters. I think Lance would object to that. I met Lance Henriksen at the 2006 Fangoria Horror Convention in Burbank, California on June 2006 and had the opportunity to chat just a little at the celebrity bash.
Lance is so polite and well mannered that I could not imagine him swearing like the character does in this movie in the presence of a women and/or kids. In addition, seeing Andy Garcia again reminded me of how much I enjoy his acting. I have always for the most part enjoyed watching Andy Garcia performances in most roles that he has played. However, I have not followed Andy's lifetime achievements like I am doing with Actor/Artist Lance Henriksen. The depth of emotion that Lance Henriksen can portray often not saying a word is phemonicial. It reminds me of a favorite quote (author unknown) "If you do not understand my silence, you will not understand my words". By Lafemmenikita07
Reviews/Film; A Serial Killer, a Blind Girl and a Footloose Detective
By JANET MASLIN
Published: November 6, 1992, Friday
Andy Garcia has a profile to recall Barrymore's, which is as good a reason as any to watch "Jennifer 8," in which he steps up to a starring role. As Detective John Berlin, Mr. Garcia smolders his way through this story of a serial killer, a beautiful blind witness (Uma Thurman) and a footloose detective trying to make his way in a new town. Professionalism is not necessarily John Berlin's strongest suit. "I'll tell you what," he says to Helena, the blind girl. "If I promise to stop being a cop, will you promise to stop being a witness?"
Most detective thrillers keep an eye toward the extracurricular, but in "Jennifer 8" this tendency goes unusually far. The writer and director Bruce Robinson, who also directed "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" and "Withnail and I," seems strongly drawn to his supporting characters and their colorful lives. Sometimes this can go too far: the fact that Berlin's boss (Kevin Conway) sports a scraggly beard and likes to paint by numbers probably reveals more about him than any audience wants to know. Still, Mr. Robinson has created a lively array of small-town figures in northern California, and given them stories that stretch beyond the limits of a suspense plot.
This is a lucky thing, since the film's mystery eventually proves to be its weakest element. Though Mr. Robinson begins on a note that seems brutal even for this genre -- a severed hand covered with old noodles, found at a garbage dump -- he quickly abandons any taste for such unpleasantness. Indeed, the film's subsequent gentleness can be downright bizarre, or at least precedent-setting. This may be the only thriller in which a blind woman is stalked by a killer in an abandoned house, cornered by him, and then given a warning and allowed to go free.
Just as the plot softens during "Jennifer 8," so, too, does John Berlin. Initially displaying great deductive skills, he can figure out what a pattern of tiny scars on the hand means. But he later becomes significantly slower on the uptake. Increasing attention is paid to Mr. Garcia's ability to hold the film together through sheer force of personality, which is not always an easy task. This actor has a quiet appeal that is put to the test by the film's own quiet stretches, which may be why he occasionally bursts into flashes of hoarse, unexpected rage. The star, while skilled and eminently watchable, sometimes winds up being overshadowed by those around him.
It doesn't help that Ms. Thurman, playing Helena on a wan, neurasthenic note, seldom summons the requisite passion once Helena and John have begun an affair. During the latter part of the film, when much of John's energy is devoted to protecting Helena, his actions are made to seem more purposeless than they should. This leads to a denouement that is nothing if not bewildering, especially since "Jennifer 8" begins on such a hardboiled note. (Incidentally, the title is a kind of John Doe reference to the serial killer's string of victims, most of whom are never even discussed during the story.)
Among the attention-getting supporting characters are Kathy Baker and Lance Henriksen as the long-lost friends who have helped John land this new job after the breakup of his marriage; Ms. Baker gushes convincingly over the new arrival while Mr. Henriksen, as her husband, becomes John's sidekick and mentor on the job. John Malkovich has an utterly scene-stealing turn as the interrogator who grills Berlin once he himself has become a crime suspect. Mr. Malkovich's sly, languid confidence is so absolute that it upstages the less solid characters who surround him.
One of the most surprising things about "Jennifer 8," a strikingly atmospheric film even when not an entirely convincing one, is a running time that is in excess of two hours. Losing 20 minutes would almost certainly have heightened the film's sense of purpose, which is sometimes in danger of drifting away. Conrad Hall's evocative cinematography, which accentuates the damp, forbidding climate in which the story takes place, is especially helpful in keeping this otherwise rambling thriller on track.
"Jennifer 8" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes nudity, profanity and a few brief ghoulish touches. Jennifer 8 Written and directed by Bruce Robinson; director of photography, Conrad L. Hall; edited by Conrad Buff; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Richard MacDonald; produced by Gary Lucchesi and David Wimbury; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 127 minutes. This film is rated R. John Berlin . . . Andy Garcia Helena Robertson . . . Uma Thurman Freddy Ross . . . Lance Henriksen Margie Ross . . . Kathy Baker John Taylor . . . Graham Beckel Citrine . . . Kevin Conway St. Anne . . . John Malkovich
Another Review
Plot: Detective John Berlin arrives in the small town of Eureka to take up a position on the local police department. When a severed hand is found in the town dump, Berlin becomes obsessed with solving the case. He pieces together a pattern of other similar murders which seems to make the case for a serial killer who targets blind women. However the department accuses him of chasing phantoms. Undeterred, Berlin presses on on his own, and duly becomes involved with blind music teacher Helena Robertson, the roommate of the girl with the severed hand. But Berlin's involvement unwittingly exposes Helena as a witness who can identify the killer and marks her as a target.
By Richard Scheib
This is quite an effective psycho-thriller. Although it received a theatrical release it didn't set the world on fire, despite some good reviews. It is easy to see why - its effectiveness comes from its quietness and slowly absorbing mood and its stars are not at their most expressive. It starts very well - the first half-hour holds one's attention through Andy Garcia's obsessive quest to uncover details of the killings and make a case for the existence of a serial killer, which is placed up against a classic struggle with a department who do not believe him. But then the film sort of slows down - the detective story dissipates about a third of the way in and the romance with Uma Thurman comes to the forefront. And then about two-thirds of the way through the film completely jumps tracks and turns into a wronged man thriller where Garcia has to prove to an Internal Affairs investigation that he is not a killer. This latter third is certainly the film's most absorbing part with the script managing to cleverly turn everything that happened when Lance Henriksen was killed at the institute around to seem either an accident or to point to Garcia being the killer. John Malkovich's performance as the Internal Affairs officer, indifferently aloof, quietly mannered, yet persistent and implacable, is absolutely superb. But the whole sequence comes as such a jarring jump of tracks away from the rest of detective story, it takes some time for one to adjust to it, although the film does at least recover in time to build to an effective ending.
One fine aspect of the film is the photography - the film is all wintry exteriors (the only autumn exteriors symbolically come at the end when the troubles have passed) and shadowy duskily lit rooms. The performances vary - the two leads are weak. Garcia has never given a performance that quite equalled his memorable one as the drug dealer in 8 Million Ways to Die (1986) - he is too smooth and handsome to make any distinction. Thurman seems a little distantly composed in a role that with a more emotive playing could have become a great performance. The best performance comes from the aforementioned Malkovich. Also good is the always reliable Lance Henriksen who gives a credible performance of rough-edged sympathy. Despite its considerable inconsistencies in tone, the film nevertheless does work.
Cast:
Andy Garcia (Sergeant John Berlin), Uma Thurman (Helena Robertson), Lance Henriksen (Sergeant Freddy Ross), John Malkovich (St Anne), Graham Beckel (Sergeant John Taylor), Kathy Baker (Margie Ross), Kevin Conway (Chief Citrine)
Director/Screenplay - Bruce Robinson, Producers - Gary Lucchesi & David Wimbury, Photography - Conrad L. Hall, Music - Christopher Young, Special Effects - Dale Martin & Mike Vezina, Production Design - Richard MacDonald. Production Company - Paramount.
Posted by lafemmenikita07
at 8:45 PM PDT
Updated: Saturday, September 30, 2006 10:44 PM PDT
Take a look at Lance Henriksen's Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Fangoria Magazine and Creation Entertainment (by the fans from the fans.)
surprised
special
Many Fans and celebrities were at the convention to see Lance Henriksen receive his award and listen to him speak so "down to earth" about his past and current projects, answer questions from the audience, and of course it wouldn't be Lance if he had not shared a bit of humor. Despite his serious roles when Lance is "out and about" among the fans he is very funny, at ease with his fans, and just a geniune person.
d'oh
blue
energetic
and signed an executive order lifting the blockade of the South. That evening, he took his wife to see a new play, Our American Cousin, at Ford's Theatre in downtown Washington. While watching the comedy, he was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Southern patriot. Lincoln died the next day -- the first U.S. President to be assassinated. One hundred and thirty-three years later, the events of April 14 remain a defining moment in American history." "Lincoln's assassination has been chronicled in numerous books and movies. 
Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. "The scenes between Lincoln and Mary are love scenes. Mary was a very troubled woman who expressed that love in strange and sometimes disturbing ways, but they were both very devoted to one another," says Gray. "The toughest thing about playing someone who actually lived is you are dependent on the reports of others. It's not like creating a fictional character where you are at total liberty, so I feel a sense of responsibility to the woman and to her family," says Donna Murphy, who portrays Mrs. Lincoln. "I read many biographies and collections of her letters, and I came away with mixed messages of who she really was. What I did gather and what I thought was appropriate to use for telling her story, is that she was a well-educated, very intelligent, very sensitive woman whose husband was everything to her."
the White House, war-torn Richmond, Virginia, and the infamous Ford's Theatre. "Our thought from the beginning was that what we didn't want was a sepia-toned image of this time, which is often a filmmaker's first choice when creating a historical drama," says Gray. "The reality of the time was that the streets were muddy, there was raw sewage everywhere and soot in the air. So we tried to give this picture a very cold, blue, dirty look." Gray looked to production designer Roy Smith to design the settings. A grandiose facade of the White House was created at the Millenium Studios lot in Virginia, and Ford's Theatre was created in a theatre in Richmond. "The facade of the boxes in the theater are as close as we could possibly get to the ones in Ford's Theatre," says Smith. "Millions of people visit Ford's Theatre and are familiar with what it looks like, and we were very conscience of that when re-creating the theatre scene." "My aim with this film was to make the definitive movie about the Lincoln assassination," says Gray. "I hope it will give people insight into what really happened and the events surrounding that day. And I hope that people who see the movie will come away understanding how someone like Booth could act out of patriotism or whatever misguided obsession, and the enormous cost of those selfish acts."
Source: TNT
Lance was there several days hanging out with celebrities and fans. Females call Lance a "sweetheart" and men call him "cool" and/or "The Man". 
"Welcome to the Blog "About Actor/Artist Lance Henriksen". This blog primarily covers the lifetime achievements of Lance Henriksen. Men call Lance "The Man" and women refer to him as a "Sweetheart". After meeting Lance Henriksen, I agree with the men and women. Lafemme Nikita07 and Associates "The word "blog" is the "slang" term for "Weblog", generally meaning an online diary of sorts. "Dictionary.com defines blog as: "a personal Web site that provides updated headlines and news articles of other sites that are of interest to the user, also may include journal entries, commentaries and recommendations compiled by the user". 
irritated
Lance is still "The Man", right baby!!!!! See ya when I see ya from "Rather Tenacious" 