News and Random Stuff

Oprah Movie Club: Matt has picked Paprika, which appears to be a family-unfriendly cartoon, for us to watch in March. Have the Netflix people ship it your way or support your local video tape store by renting one of their copies. You have until the end of March, friends! March, by the way, has 31 days in it this year.

By the way, if you're new to the blog and would like to be involved in the Oprah Movie Club and get a turn picking the movie for us to watch, let me know. The only requirement is that you have to be good looking.

I have decided to postpone The Summer of Nicolas Cage because I am too cold to watch a Nicolas Cage movie. However, I am considering trying to break the record for most consecutive watched movies that feature at least one head exploding scene. That's something to look forward to!

Viva Knievel!

1977 movie

Rating: 4/20

Plot: After breaking into an orphanage, healing one of them, and flirting with a nun, Evel Knievel nearly dies in a motorcycle stunt while attempting to jump over cages full of circus animals. Well, he breaks his arm anyway. He impulsively retires. He's lured to Mexico and back into the jumpin'-over-things game because. . .well, I think it has to do with money. Leslie Nielson, however, wants him dead so that he can use his trucks to transport drugs into the United States. Meanwhile, Knievel tries to bag a newspaper reporter.

I had an Evel Knievel lunchbox as a kid. Actually, I don't know if I had one or not, but I'm going to go ahead and say that I did for the blog. The stuntman intrigued me, and this is without even getting a chance to see him in this movie or knowing that he had healing powers. That's right. It only takes about five minutes of movie before you get one of the most heartwarming and beautiful scenes in motorcycle stunt movie history when an orphan tosses away his crutches and says (I shit you not), "You're the reason I'm walkin', Evel. You're the reason I'm walkin'!" Brought a tear to my eye anyway. Evel Knievel isn't all heroic in this. In fact, a lot of the movie makes him look greedy and surly. He's mean to Gene Kelly. Poor Gene Kelly, by the way. What did he do to deserve this? He does deliver a powerful anti-drug speech while standing next to a nodding Frank Gifford in which he references Indianapolis and says, "Narcotics will make you blow all to hell!" I was convinced. Leslie Nielson plays the bad guy, cardboardily, and Lauren Hutton is the love interest/newspaper reporter. Also, Marjoe Gortner and his curly hair are in this. Marjoe plays a rival stuntman, and he's about the most interesting character in this thing, probably because not much of what he does makes sense. Of course, I was probably just distracted by that hair and his creepy eyes. Frank Gifford plays himself a lot more naturally than Evel Knievel who at times looked like he knew he was making a terrible mistake but that it would be worth it because a hell of a lot of lunchboxes were about to be sold. For those of you into motorcycle/car chases, the one that makes up the finale of this stunt-and-drama-filled extravaganza seems like it's at least forty-five minutes long. The most thrilling stunt, to me at least, was a spill from a wheelchair though. That might have been the only stunt that Evel Knievel, really not in his prime here, actually had anything to do with. I also laughed outloud when a child fell off a motorcycle. Note: I'm still trying to figure out if this is a real movie.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go not take narcotics.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

2011 franchise finale (until somebody figures out a way to squeeze more money out of this character)

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Heroic Harry and his helpers hunt for Horcruxes while warring wizards wrangle. A guy with nose envy prowls around in search of Potter. It's like an elaborate and magical (read: Satanic) game of hide and seek. Meanwhile, barely pubescent boys' magic wands wiggle as they discover Hermione's cleavage, and combined with all the spells and supernatural silliness, there's enough to piss off the Christian church for years and years. A choir director is heard saying, "What? They're kissing each now? I thought they just performed magic!"

I don't remember what I gave the last boring entry in the Harry Potter series, but I'd like the series to be around a 14 or 15. It's solidly entertaining, and the actors do such a good job of bringing these characters to life. It's a shame Richard Harris couldn't stick around for the duration, but I really am glad they were able to get these things spat out while everybody else was young enough. This last movie is packed with action, and the special effects are really good. I love that opening shot with the black ghostly things hovering over and around Hogwarts, and the destruction of the school, so whimsically magical in those first few movies, is shocking. I don't like watching wizard duels nearly as much as I enjoy a good lightsaber battle, but at least there aren't any of those jerky-camera fight scenes like in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I. I still think, despite this last book being split up into two lengthy-movie chunks, that things move a little too quickly at times. A lot of important characters die in these things, but the next big plot development has to be hurried along which takes away some of the emotional jolt. Snape's exit should have been a big emotional moment, and it's the one thing I really looked forward to after reading that last book. In fact, I might have given up on the movies if it wasn't for the anticipation of that scene. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I thought it was just another example of the makers taking movie shortcuts and taking away some of the power of that scene. Rickman's so good as that character though, and I thought it was cool that Rowling filled him in on his character's whole story after making him promise that he wouldn't reveal the secrets. Voldemort--is it just me or does his character become more comic the more we see him? He goes from the mysterious Villain with a Name You Can't Say to a bit of a doofus, doesn't he?

One of these weekends, I think I'll throw a Harry Potter movie marathon party, invite all of my friends over, and watch all eight of these movies in a row. I'd like to look at my ratings again. At the same time, it's nice to be done with all these movies. Maybe I should just move on with my life instead.

The Big Bird Cage

1972 women's prison movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Horny Terry is arrested for a crime she did not commit and sent to a prison labor camp for women. Meanwhile, some people who want to raise money to start a revolution get the idea to bust out a bunch of the women at the camp for their cause. The result? Mud wrestling!

How about that tagline--"Women so hot with desire they melt the chains that enslave them!"

So what are you really looking for in a women's prison movie? Sexy women? This has a few of those--Pam Grier at her toughest and the stunning Anitra Ford, a future Price Is Right gal. Nudity? It's got that, too, and not just with the aforementioned blaxploitation superstar or a woman Bob Barker would probably later sleep with. You get a shower scene or two, a genre favorite. You also get a really tall woman covering herself in lard and attacking another woman in a river with floating coconuts. Gritty and brutal prison life depictions? The titular bird cage is a giant rickety mill that gives the producers of this (yes, Corman's involved) an excuse to show sweaty and scantily-clad women climbing stairs and engaging in hard work. Perverse torture scenes? Check, including a great scene where Ford is chained and hung from her hair. How about action? Hell, yes! One only needs to point to the handful of scenes featuring mud wrestling, but there's also a terrific scene where Pam Grier and her boyfriend Django have a chicken vs. knife fight. And does this have the great acting you would expect from a feature like this? Why, yes it does. Sid Haig shows comic versatility as a revolutionary although it's not one of the most politically correct performances you're likely to see. Grier's just a presence. My favorite performance of them all is Andres Centenara as the cruel Warden Zappa. Love how he screams all of his lines with a chunky accent and kicks small animals. The best thing about this movie, other than all the nudity, is its tone. This isn't a movie that the actors or director Jack Hill is taking too seriously. I think it's hilarious how the amateur revoluntaries talk:

Guy: Me and the boys have been talking about the revolution.
Other guy: Yeah, like how to get it started and stuff.

The comic tone, the cool setting, and the gals-in-chains thrills make this a near masterpiece of the genre.

Battletruck (aka Warlords of the Twenty-First Century)

1982 Mad Max rip-off

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Some dudes got the titular vehicle and wants to use it to push everybody else around. A guy with a motorcycle and John Ratzenberger are not about to let that happen!

If this was the movie advertised on the colorful sci-fi-rific poster up there, it would really be something. Unfortunately, this one is just boring, both as a legitimate post-apocalyptic road warrior movie or as a B-movie/unintentional comedy. With the latter, you know it's obviously produced very cheaply and quite possibly sans script, but it's not quite inept enough to be worth the time of a bad movie aficionado. As the former? The colorful moments are few and far between, and the characters are some of the least engaging you're likely to meet. This is definitely a case where the bland title Battletruck fits a lot better than the bitchin' mayhem that could have been Warlords or the Twenty-First Century. The hero's humdrum, so boring that it's impossible to believe he can ever do anything heroic. The leading lady is homely, and the bad guy is more dull than he is evil. The battletruck itself is a monstrosity that is nearly as intimidating as Spielberg's 18-wheel antagonist in Duel. I did like this little creation of John Ratzenberger's, something that looks like it could have come straight from The Cars That Ate Paris:

That little slug bug turned out to be nearly invincible! Roger Corman, of course, produced this movie. It's not one I would recommend. My favorite thing about it is that everytime a character dies, they sound like they're trying to create the new Wilhelm Scream or something.

Hellevator: The Bottled Fools

2004 elevator movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: In a futuristic society where people get around via elevators, a Japanese school girl (I have to occasionally throw words like "Japanese school girl" together so that more people will find my blog when searching) gets in trouble not only for smoking but for accidentally blowing up a bunch of people. She enters an elevator which turns out to be the titular hellevator when a criminally-insane rapist and a criminally-insane terrorist who, for whatever reason, talks backward enter.

I was very intrigued during the first twenty minutes before stuff started happening. That first chunk of movie was a series of surreal vignettes, stylishly dopey with some cool sound effects and cheap effects that reminded me a little of Brazil or Tetsuo. There were zip-zipping businessmen and a robot dog brain, and instead of the weird horror movie I figured I was going to see when I popped this in, I was starting to wonder if this was a weird half-assed parody instead. The one-setting thing works while things remained odd and random. Once the criminals enter the story, things are still interesting, probably because one is just great at playing a violent twitching, screaming, and licking lunatic and the other talks backwards. Once a real story develops, it loses steam, and although it was still consistently entertaining, the never-changing setting began to feel a little claustrophobic. Several twists and grainy flashbacks later, I was more confused than interested in what was going on. I'm going to give director Hiroki Yamaguchi bonus points for doing an awful lot with not very much at all and for displaying some filthy creative spirit, but I wish the story and its characters were a little more interesting.

If I have a worst title pun of the year award, I don't see anything beating this. Hellevator? I'm not even sure why anybody would want to admit they saw a movie called Hellevator.

Frogs

1972 enviro-horror

Rating: 4/20

Plot: All this wheelchair-bound rich old guy wants to do is throw a party. The wildlife on his island is sick of people, however, and decides to get rid of them. Several people croak.

This is far from the movie about mutant frogs killing people that I thought it would be. No, this is more like just-regular frogs standing around watching other animals kill people. Would I lose all credibility as a movie blogger if I told you that I kind of expected this to be a hidden gem? I mean, it's got Sam Elliott in it, and surely he wouldn't be in a crappy movie called Frogs that isn't really even about frogs, right? The cast in this is terrible, almost bad enough to make it seem like they're all competing for some kind of Worst Actor of the Year award. Adam Roarke, as "Clint" (that's a name I almost always put in quotes unless I'm talking about Eastwood), doesn't even try, especially any time his character is on a boat. When he asked Sam Elliott near the beginning of the movie, "How are you at badminton?" I could have sworn he was high. But his performance might be topped by Ray Milland, a guy who's acting like he wants everybody to know that he's a master Thespian (note the capital T) even though he's in a movie about killer frogs. Want thrills? You're not finding them here. This one's about as suspenseful and/or horrifying as a trip through your average zoo's reptile room. Les Baxter's knob twiddling synth score doesn't help at all. The makers of Frogs didn't really need a famous name like Les Baxter to do the music for this. A baby or a drunk chimp could have handled the score for this one. Or a frog! The death scenes are really silly. In a preview of this movie, it shows a lady in quicksand, but the scene wasn't in the movie. I investigated and found out that they cut the quicksand scene because they deemed it too silly. That was too silly? The scene were the guy Plaxico-Burresses himself in the leg isn't too silly? The woman with the butterfly net turning blue seconds after a snake attack isn't too silly? The superimposed birds that are only slightly better than the special effects from Birdemic: Shock and Terror aren't too silly? The death by turtle and crab isn't too silly? I still don't know how a slow-moving turtle manages to kill a woman actually. I will say this: the last five minutes featuring a character and (finally!) a bunch of frogs is actually really good. Shots of stuffed animal heads, a frog-filled library, some amphibian record scratching. It's good, and so are the credits, silent except for a bunch of ominous croaking. Of course, croaking was omnipresent throughout the story.

If you're in the mood for a lame horror movie with an environmental message from the 70s, I'd recommend Day of the Animals before this one. That one's got Leslie Nielson's nipples in it.

Drive

2011 driving movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A Driver with No Name is a stuntman by day and a getaway driver by night. Mystery surrounds him. He works at a garage, purchases groceries, and doesn't talk a lot. That is until he befriends his cute neighbor and her young son. Well, actually he still doesn't talk a lot even then. When the patriarch of that little family gets out of jail, our protagonist is sucked into some criminal activity that forces him into a sticky situation. Oh, snap! Shit's about to get real!

With a slightly different feel, this movie would have been a major disappointment for me. Other than some of that terrible modern electronic music we're hearing in every other movie these days and a few quick shots of exploding heads or stomped-on heads that seemed to appear on the screen for nothing but cheap shock value, I really dug the style of this one. Gosling hits the quiet,-too-quiet existential anti-hero perfectly, and like most movies featuring this type of characters, what isn't explained about his character manages to be just as interesting as what is happening on the screen. Ron Perlman and the always-hilarious Albert Brooks are both sufficiently nasty here. The latter, only minimally funny here actually, was especially good, his nastiness rivaling his work in Finding Nemo. While watching this, I couldn't figure out if I was actually liking it very much, but now I kind of want to watch it again to see if it's much closer to being a neo-noir masterpiece than I'm thinking it is. I really like what this director, the Danish Nicholas Winding Refn (What kind of dopey name is that?), does with violence. It's visceral, tough on both of the senses you use to enjoy movies, appallingly beautiful, exciting, disgusting, and usually so quick that it's almost shocking. It's movie violence but somehow manages to transcend normal tough guy fist-pumping movie violence and retain an artsiness that I like. It's hard to explain, but he did the same thing in the equally-engaging Bronson.

I think fans of The Help would probably really like this one.

Heathers

1988 teen drama

Rating: 12/20

1. Plot: Veronica oozes her way into a clique of the titular Heathers, the in-crowd at her high school. A new boy with a trench coat catchers her eye and is more interested in killing everybody.
3. This might be the most realistic portrayal of high school ever. This also gets bonus points for the line "I don't patronize bunny rabbits" and for having the first on-screen fist bump. And for having Winona Ryder. I have mixed feelings about this one because I liked it when it came out but now think it's about the stupidest thing I've ever seen. When a line about "coughing up a phlegm globber" sounds Shakespearean compared to the rest of the script, you know things are bad. I'm really not sure how anybody could have read this script and wanted to be in the movie. Still, this has a redeeming quirkiness and enough darkly comic bits to make it worth the time. And I could be completely wrong about the dialogue. It's entirely possible that it's a work of genius. Regardless, Christian Slater's Jack Nicholson impression gets on my nerves. Or who knows? Maybe that's a work of genius, too. The satire in this is pessimistic and biting, not always in the best of ways, and the narrative, though not believable in the slightest, at least doesn't make you feel cheated. Things do really fall completely apart by the end though.
   
   This might sound dark, but Christian Slater would have been better off overdosing after completing this movie. He would have been a legend.

Broadway Danny Rose

1984 comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The titular struggling agent attempts to resurrect the career of a lounge singer. A big break might be on the horizon, but it involves Danny sneaking the singer's mistress into the big show, a seemingly easy chore that doesn't end up that way.

Easy-going breezy comedy with a shot of nostalgia, and that's just not because it's in black and white. Woody Allen, by the way, might be as good an actor as Quentin Tarantino. I really like Mia Farrow here, acting most of time behind giant sunglasses. This is very funny for a movie from the 1930s. It's also got a sweet, 1930's ending that doesn't make much sense.

Superheroes

2011 documentary

Rating: 14/20 (Mark: 10/20)

Plot: A look at real life superheroes who wander the streets of numerous cities at night to protect ordinary regularly-dressed citizens who also don't have superpowers. Some of them also help homeless people.

There's some nonsense at play here with at least one staged shot with the biggest nut of the bunch. Still, I was entertained by this and appreciated the intentions of most of these real-life superheroes. It's an objective expose about these characters, some who wish to remain as anonymous as Clark Kent, and the documentarians are only heard once when they ask one of the superheroes about whether or not he actually has a girlfriend that he's talking about.

But enough about the movie. I'd like to put a superhero league together to fight crime on the streets of Indianapolis. Let me know if you're interested and let me know what you'd like your superhero name to be, what special qualities or skills you have that will come in handy, and what crime-fighting experience you might have. Experience, however, isn't necessary.

Deathsport

1978 futuristic action masterpiece

Rating: 4/20 (Mark: 4/20)

Plot: Some evil people kidnap a couple "guides" and prep them for. . .wait for it. . .the titular Deatsport! That's an arena-style competition involving glass swords, motorcycles, and inexplicable explosions.

Corman needed another "death" movie and this is what happened. David Carradine is the Carradine in this one, and I'm willing to bet it's the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to him. Not that he would remember a thing since he was apparently stoned throughout the filming. This movie isn't good for the right reasons, but it does have just the right ineptitude to provide a few laughs. The action scenes are repetitive, and my brother and I speculated that this might have the record for most things exploding in one movie. Most of those are random explosions, by the way, as these motorcycle death machines (destructocycles, natch) seem to blow up at the slightest touch. A climactic sword fight scene is also repetitive and dull with choreography that doesn't even show the swords, presumably because they are made out of glass and would shatter if they actually connected. Richard Lynch is a lame bad guy with an even lamer script, and he's got something wrong with his neck that perhaps distracted me from discovering the smaller bits of genius hidden within Deathsport. You also get some bug-eyed cannibals that look like they waltzed straight out of Killers from Space. My favorite scene, by far, was one with a naked Claudia Jennings in a disco torture chamber. I could just imagine this conversation taking place between the directors:

Director 1: Hey, I was watching what we shot yesterday.
Director 2: Yeah? What did you think?
Director 1: I hate to tell you this, but Deathsport is really going to suck.
Director 2: Oh, man. That's a shame because we've already shot fourteen hours of motorcycles with silver cardboard boxes taped to them driving around the desert. And this is really going to hurt David Carradine because he's really putting his soul into this performance.
Director 1: What are we going to do now?
Director 2: Well, I do have some Christmas lights.
Director 1: You do? Fantastic! Let's go see if Claudia Jennings will take off her clothes!
Director 2: Bingo! You took the words right from my mouth, Director 1!

To continue the thread of decapitation, this movie does have a rather exciting one. And the lovely Claudia Jennings, it seems, was also decapitated in an automobile accident. Apparently, it ended her acting career.

Also recommended for fans of The Help.

From Dusk till Dawn

1996 George Clooney movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A pair of brothers kidnap a faithless preacher and his two children, drive to Mexico, and meet up with some vampires and Fred Williamson.

A tale of two movies, the first a very written tale of criminal activity and possible neurosis and the second a balls-to-the-grindstone (is that a phrase?) vibrant and chaotic and squelchy erupted bloodbath with decapitations and stake piercings. And Salma Hayek, a woman who makes Juliette Lewis look like a little boy. The brothers are interesting even if they're a bit cardboardish, and even though you've already seen this movie, it's still got a way to keep you guessing. There's a solid ten minutes in this, right after Salma's little dance, that is about as exhiliratingly bitchin' as cheapo gross-out mayhem can get. But my favorite part is how John Hawkes' Pete pronounces "microwave" or maybe his magazine selection. That and the words "Hey, Monkeyman."

Recommended for people who really liked The Help.

Bad Teacher

2011 comedy

Rating: 6/20

Plot: The titular teacher wants new tits, and after her rich fiance dumps her, she's having trouble figuring out a way to afford them on her salary. See, they just don't pay teachers what they deserve. She crushes (that's how the kids use this verb) on a new substitute teacher (although he shouldn't be rich--plot hole) while ignoring the advances of the gym teacher who is crushing on her. When it's announced that the teacher whose students do best on the standardized test will win a financial prize, she begins taking her job more seriously.

I really wondered if this would be a biopic about me, but it's not. I'm not a slut. And look at that--this wholesome family-friendly conservative blog is now likely to feel the wrath of liberals who don't like it when people call women sluts. My blog will be boycotted, and I'll be the second most hated blowhard after Rush Limbaugh. For that reason, I'm taking another point away from this movie. It's a movies-that-ruin-my-reputation-point-deduction rule. This movie wasn't funny at all even though everybody involved (with the possible exception of Jason Segal) is trying really really hard to make it work. Timberlake is intentionally miscast, and Phyllis from The Office makes a fool of herself. Things are more awkward and silly than humorous. Other than a car wash scene that was almost as magical as the one in Cool Hand Luke but that really made me wonder if I was watching a Carl's Jr. commercial, there's not much to see here. No, it's not as offensive to my profession (until somebody hires me to do something else, that is--if you're reading, just ask for my resume!) as Waiting for Superman, but it is offensive enough. And you just keep waiting for the character to change or learn a lesson because that's what happens in all stupid movies like this, but that doesn't happen either. And that might be just as bothersome.

Shane trivia: Even though this isn't a biopic based on my life and career, I did catch a few lines that I have uttered before.

"Adios, bitches!"
"Hey, zip your shit!"
"OK, we all know these tests are gay."

I've used all of those at one point. Again, if you're interested in hiring me, let me know in the comments below. I'm willing to do anything as long as it doesn't involve a lot of hard work.

The Brother from Another Planet

1984 urban sci-fi production

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The titular brother, a mute alien, crash lands in Harlem. He tries to adapt despite his inability to speak. Two mysterious men who I think might come from those Matrix movies in black pursue him.

This is far from the 1980s blaxploitation picture that I was expecting. Netflix kept telling me that I would like this one, so I finally said, "Fine, Netflix! I'm starting the damned thing! Are you happy now?" It's a science fiction B-movie with a dopey title, but it's not nearly as goofy as you would expect it to be. There's nothing over the top with the possible exception of the protagonist's toes, and all of the humor is very low key. My favorite scene is a short one where those aforementioned men in black walk into a bar while searching for the brother. I don't know what effect is used, but the film just seems off, like it's filmed backward or something. The men in black move with this lurching motion that is really cool. There are other cool small moments in this, but it really fits more into the "interesting failure" category than anything else. There's some social commentary (character names: The Brother, West Indian Woman, Hispanic Man, Haitian Man, Islamic Man, Korean Shopkeeper) and a lot of no-budget effects. The story's not always interesting, but I did like watching Joe Morton as the title character. He does a great job considering he's not given a single line. In all, I'm glad that Netflix recommended this even though the parts don't quite add up to enough of a whole. If nothing else, it was cool seeing all those early video game machines.