Movies

News and Random Stuff

2012-06-09T00:16:00.000-07:00

Oprah Movie Club: Larry has picked Once Upon a Time in the West for us to watch in February for our wildly-successful movie club. Just how successful am I talking here? The last selection was watched by at least two blog readers! That's half of the readership, ladies and gentlemen. Why the hell do I do this? Anyway, watch the cowboy movie by the end of this short month.

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!

Moneyball

2012-02-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

2011 baseball movie

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: The somewhat-true story of Billy Beane, ex-ballplayer and GM of the small-market Oakland Athletics. Going against traditional baseball logic and the advice of his team scouts, Beane leans on the advice of math whiz-kid Paul and attempts to replace three key players lost to free agency with misfits no other team has much interest in. After a slow start, his team begins winning, giving credence to his oddball ideas.

This is a solid movie with some good performances (Full disclosure: I had no idea that was Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe) but the music gives it the atmosphere and depth of a television drama and more than a few Hollywood touches keep things a little flat. For a die hard baseball nerd, this is a real treat as you get in-depth look at the innards of a professional baseball team. I especially liked, even if they weren't all that realistic, the phone conversations that Beane had with other general managers as trades were (almost) discussed and dealings were done. There could have probably been more baseball action, but it might have distracted from the real story. The combination of actual footage and reenactment was really well done though. Pitt "just talks" his way through this (Jen's words, not mine) but has enough personality to make you want to follow the character around. Initially, I thought his story meandered a little too much, but it all came together nicely at the end. The "annoying" little girl (again, Jen's words) who played Pitt's daughter (Kerris Dorsey) was really good in limited screen time. Also given screen time: actual baseball player Royce Clayton as Miguel Tejada. Oh, and that White Sox first base coach (Tom Gamboa) who was attacked by drunken fans in Kansas City. No, that can't be right. He must have been a Royals first base coach attacked by fans in Chicago.

Chad Bradford, the guy with the goofy wind-up, trivia: Bradford would literally scrape his knuckles on the pitcher's mound dirt occasionally when he threw pitches.

Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

2012-02-05T13:23:00.000-08:00

2011 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: In 1987, a couple of friends fresh out of high school migrated to San Francisco from the Midwest and signed a lease to stay in a cheap pink apartment building. On the way out, their new landlord warned, "Oh, by the way: The neighbors can get loud." Those neighbors--two old men named Ray and Peter and their occasional guest Tony--would bicker loudly at all hours of the night. One of the kids confronted the men and was subsequently threatened. They decided to record the two's arguments, eventually making taped recordings of the spirited and drunken conversations to give to their friends. And long before the word "viral" ever became a thing, the tapes were exchanged enough times to make the arguments of Ray and Peter a cult phenomenon. This documentary takes a look at the phenomenon and the ensuing arguments when people tried to make a buck from it.

This is the sort of thing that I have an interest in. I've had the recordings for a long time, and I was excited about the documentary coming out. After watching, I think I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand, the audio documents themselves are fascinating and frequently hilarious. But it for sure crosses the line into exploitation, and watching the pair who recorded Ray and Peter attempt to strike it rich with their "art" rubbed me the wrong way. It's not just them either; there's a pretty big group of people who have illustrated Ray and Peter's fights for comic books, remixed the recordings, or attempted to have movies made. Most telling in this is when Eddie Sausage and Mitchell D. change the liner notes of their cassettes to include copyright information. There are also some things about this that kind of annoyed me. The reenactments were on the goofy side, and their attempts to get an on-screen interview with Tony, the only surviving voice from the recordings, made me a little uncomfortable. I might feel a little dirty the next time I pop in my Shut Up Little Man! recording, but it won't stop me from enjoying it anyway.

My favorite line from those recordings remains the same: "You always giggle falsely. You don't have a decent giggle in you."

Broken Flowers

2012-02-04T18:41:00.000-08:00

2005 mystery movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Don Johnston's a sad Don Juan, but his life just isn't complete. His latest in a series of likely hundreds of girlfriends walks out on him, and the same day he gets a letter from an anonymous former lover informing him that he has a 19-year-old son who might be looking for him. His nosey neighbor does some research and sends Don on a journey of self-discovery in which he visits four of his girlfriends to find out which one sent the letter. Journey of self-discovery? That sounds like crap they'd write on the back of a dvd box.

This movie can be summed up by describing the contrast between Don and his neighbor, humorously played by Jeffrey Wright. Winston's got the family, a cluttered but colorful home, a bubbling enthusiasm, a desire to explore and seek answers. Don's alone in a quiet and almost bare-by-comparison house and almost seems resigned to the fact that he is going to die alone. This is as enigmatic as most Jarmusch flicks are, and although I'm sure Don's journey is supposed to represent the stages of something-rather, I can't place my finger on what those stages are or even what they're the stages of. To me, this is a movie about reflecting on the past in order to attempt to grasp something that was missed. I love the mystery of the thing and the little visual pink clues dropped all over the place. Murray's fun to watch although he isn't terribly funny. As usual, he shows off this ability to say more without any words at all than most actors can say with an entire page of dialogue.

This reminds me: I need to see that other Jarmusch movie that I haven't seen yet.

Trees Lounge

2012-02-04T18:13:00.000-08:00

1996 downer

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Tommy the mechanic's not very good at life. He lost his last job because he stole some money from the garage and gambled it away. He can't find another job because nobody wants to hire a mechanic who will steal money from the garage and gamble it away. And he's lost his girlfriend. At least he's got the titular bar, a place where everybody knows your name but is too drunk to pronounce it. Can an ice cream truck and a new young friend turn Tommy's life around or is he doomed to be just another loser on a bar stool?

Buscemi tells this could-have-been biographic tale of loserdom without any style whatsoever, and I don't think there are too many characters out there who could wear a complete lack of style as well as Tommy. Buscemi's good in the role. He just plays "loser" so well, something I'm sure he's going to be really proud of. Bronson Dudley is a presence as Bill, a character who gets almost no lines and is basically in the movie just to drink himself to death. All he needed to play his part well is the right face, and he's definitely got that. I'm sure Mr. Dudley would be equally proud to know that. This moves as plotlessly as the life of an alcoholic probably moves. It never idealizes, never Hollywoods it up. It also has multiple scenes with an ice cream truck, and ice cream truck driver has become one of my dream jobs along with postman, taxi driver, and gigolo.

When the Wind Blows

2012-02-04T16:55:00.000-08:00

1986 cartoon

Rating: 17/20

Plot: An old couple prepare for nuclear holocaust by following the instructions in a government manual. It works fantastically!

I don't know this for sure and haven't researched, but I'm pretty sure the old dude is supposed to be Charlie Brown all grown up. I'm not sure why he develops an English accent though.

File this along with the devastating Grave of the Fireflies in the drawer marked "Cartoons That Might Make You Cry." Like Grave, this one shows how the violence of war affects everyday people, only this one's got a funny old retired couple instead of children. This one also isn't quite as devastating. I don't think. It's been so long since I saw Grave and I don't see myself popping it in again. The animation style is mostly very traditional and very simple; however, there are moments when it ventures into more experimental territory like during a dreamy dandelion sequence or some shots post-bomb. And I do really like how the "camera" moves through the old couple's house in this one. Watching the colorful--though muted--couple maneuver through the gray chaos after the war, like personified naivete wandering through a landscape of hate, makes for some unforgettable imagery. The writers and animators don't hold back--these characters cough up blood, lose their hair, develop festering boils, and soil themselves. It really clobbers you over the head with its point and toys with you emotionally, but I've got the kind of sensibilities that fall for this sort of thing. And even though the Cold War (in my opinion the most boring "war" we've ever had) is long gone, what this addresses is timeless and very very real. The sad truth at the heart of this movie--that old people are really pretty stupid--will unfortunately never go away.

World's Greatest Dad

2012-02-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

2009 dark comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Lance has always dreamed of being a professional novelist but has settled on being a mediocre and unpopular teacher of poetry at a high school. He tries his best to raise his little hellion of a son, a socially-awkward and potentially dangerous young man. Things aren't going great with the art teacher he has a secret relationship with either. Things start to look up for the poor guy following an unexpected tragedy.

I may have given this one a Robin-Williams'-penis bonus point. I've heard rumblings about Robin Williams being famously well-endowed. This movie reveals the truth. But that's a spoiler, and I probably shouldn't have started with it. It's too late now, and there's nothing I can do about it. So Robin Williams' penis is big, and Bobcat Goldthwait is one sick, dark writer. World's Greatest Dad grabs tattoos by the balls and shakes it around until more taboos spill out. More people will squirm at what happens in this more than they'll laugh, but I found the movie engaging for its duration. I loved Daryl Sabara as the son in a performance that spells out awkward with all capital letters. Thinking about a shirt with his picture almost makes me laugh. I thought I knew his face but couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then I found out that he's the kid from Spy Kids, and it's great to see that he's grown up and become the type of actor who is willing to be in awkward masturbation scenes. I know Antonio Banderas would appreciate it at least. Sabara is like the anti-Cera here. Now before you Cera fans jump down my throat, let me make it clear that I like Michael Cera just fine, even when he's sporting a mustache like in this picture. Anyway, Sabara gives us a great comic performance here. Williams is good as well although there are far too many close-ups of him. I could identify with his character as a language arts teacher, especially with the kid who plagiarized Queen/Bowie and recited "Under Pressure" as his own original poem. I had a student do that with Johnny Cash once. I also liked the haiku that a character named Andrew recited. You can almost tell that Goldthwait's got some ADHD issues or something by the way his movies flow. This is no exception, and it always seems like things are threatening to become unhinged at any moment. The movie's good, but there just seems to be missing a big of reality or something that keeps it from being great. I did appreciate the Santa Claus Conquers the Martians poster hanging in the background in one scene.

Clerks

2012-02-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

1994 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A convenient store clerk and a neighboring video store clerk have various adventures. Dante's got girl problems, and all he wants to do is play hockey. After all, he wasn't even supposed to be at work today.

I appreciate this movie more than I like it or laugh at it. I like its laidback feel, what it is compared to other early-to-mid-90's comedy films, and what Kevin Smith and company do with almost no money at all. The movie and its characters feel personal, and I think it makes for an overall warm viewing experience. I like the oddball little slice of life and the shenanigans of these goofy characters. I've never really found this movie to be all that funny, however. This is the classic example of the type of movie that seen in a context is completely brilliant but that time hasn't been all that good to. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and blame this for all of the people who think that anybody can make a movie. James Nguyen, the famed director of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, probably saw this and thought, "Hey, if this is a movie, then I bet I could make one!" Not that that's an entirely bad thing, of course.

Playing hockey on the roof, by the way, would be dangerous. I just want to point that out for any kids who might be reading this. If you are going to play hockey on the roof or anywhere else, might I suggest you do it in a pair of Zubaz. Zubaz are a pant that allows you the comfort and flexibility needed to make some sweet music as you skate around your competition on the court. Or ice if you're into that. You can find all kinds of reasonably priced Zubaz in a variety of colors here. Embrace the awesome!

Attack the Block

2012-02-04T06:43:00.000-08:00

2011 hip-hoppin' sci-fi

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A group of thugs battle fuzzy aliens.

I didn't like any of the characters in this. And I know what you're thinking--oh, snap! Shane-movies is a racist movie blog! But check yo'self, fool. I didn't not (double negative is fine here because the movie characters wouldn't mind--a new shane-movies rule) like the characters because they're black inner-city kids. I just don't like people from England. And "English" isn't a race, so it's cool. These kids were really unlikable heroes, not just in an anti-hero way either. I guess I like my anti heroes to be working alone. This crew's rude and criminal, and I hated the way they talk. I can't say I have any experience in the bowels of South London, and I suppose people really might talk like this, but I can't imagine people actually talking like this. I don't have a problem with slang and in fact proved beyond a reasonable doubt how hip I am when I typed "Check yo'self, fool" up there, but this dialogue's about 85% slang (actual statistic) and really irritating. I was rooting for the alien monsters, partially because they're fuzzy since it's difficult to root against creatures that are fuzzy and partially because they were mute. They were loud though. A lot of this movie is just special effects and noise, and once the action of this gets started--pretty early in the proceedings--it doesn't let up much at all. When it does, things are clumsy. When you don't care for the unlikable characters, you don't really have any interest in seeing them develop or grow. Not that they do a whole lot or anything. That's not the type of movie Attack of Block is. It's not the type of movie that I'll really remember either. And for a movie that is mostly fuzzy aliens fighting inner-city kids, that's probably a really bad thing.

Note: I was going to give this an 11/20 but decided to start calling this "the Goonies of my generation" and immediately changed the rating to The Goonie.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

2012-02-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

2010 masterpiece

Rating: 1/20

Plot: A young couple fall in love. Eagles inexplicably begin attacking; sometimes they explode. The couple fights for survival and learns about the importance of taking care of the environment.

James Nguyen directed this. The story goes that it took him four years to make this beast of a film, and he was understandably disappointed when Sundance rejected it. To promote the film, he decorated his van (probably the same one in this movie) with fake blood and birds and drove around blaring screaming and screeching sounds out of speakers. He got the idea for Birdemic: Shock and Terror from watching The Birds and An Inconvenient Truth.

This'll be the worst movie I see this year. It's The Room quality but with more action. You know, because of all the exploding birds. They don't show up right away though. Like Hitchcock, Nguyen gradually builds up the suspense. The first forty-five minutes involves the main characters hooking up, but about half of that time is used for scenes of the guy character driving around. There's even a lengthy scene where he leaves his house, gets gas, and then goes back home. That's it. Nothing else happens. He just gets gas. Another great scene that seemed utterly pointless involves a business meeting-turned-celebration where the actors stand around clapping for a very long time. I'm talking about an unnaturally long time.

Unlike Hitchcock, this movie's got this wild is-this-thing-on camera work and the worst sound problems you will ever experience while watching a movie. I don't think I'm wrong about that either. And the birds look like cartoons and don't mesh with the real stuff at all. It's the worst CGI that I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure your average ornithologist, when given very tiny magic markers, could have done a better job just drawing directly on the film. And, as I mentioned before, they sometimes explode when they collide with things. The juxtaposition between the romantic plot of the first half of this movie and the bird apocalypse of the second half is so jarring. There are a couple of scenes that might foreshadow a bird apocalypse, but for the most part, it's just wham-bam-thank-you-m'am! Bird attack! Add the most irritating sound effects ever, and you've got something pretty special. Is there a film school for special ed. students because this looks like a project that might have come from a place like that. Just check it out for yourself:

Yeah, those are coat hangers that they're defending themselves with. But don't worry--the guy in the brown shirt's got a machine gun in his van, and believe me, he knows how to use it!

The lead actors are awful. Alan Bagh might as well have been made of plywood. His co-star, Whitney Moore, is cute as can be, and I nearly gave the movie an extra point just for her posterior. But the "supporting casts" (that's what it says in the credits) is what really makes this a magical experience. Moore's character's mother seems bad at first, but then there's an extended shot where she's giving a thumbs-up sign that made me change my mind. There are two child actors playing Susan and Tony, and they are truly awful, even compared to other bad child actors. But in this movie, they just fit right in. There's a hippie character whose lines are stolen from John Lennon songs (and An Inconvenient Truth) and he might get the line of the movie when he says, "Whoa! I hear a mountain lion!" Guy-in-Easy-E-Shirt and Lady-on-Bus-with-Colorful-Shirt are only on the screen for a few minutes, but they really shine. So good. And just when I think periphery character acting can't get even worse, our characters enter a gas station and meet the gas station employee. Oh, boy. There's also a great musical number called "Just Hanging Out" sung by somebody named Damien Carter.

There's another picture of a bird attack. I know I didn't set it up or anything, but neither did this movie. And I wanted to both shock and terrify you. I apologize if you wet yourself. Here's what happens to you after you get attacked by these birds, by the way:

The thing that makes this one even more special is that Nguyen's got an environmental message that he wants to hammer into our heads. It's clumsy hammering though, like he's using a giant inflatable hammer and trying to drive in a thumb tack. There are news snippets (fake ones) about polar bears dying, scenes where the main character is trying to have solar panels added to his house, conversations with an environmentalist/bird professor ("You certainly know a lot about birds." "I should. I'm an ornithologist."), and my personal favorite touch--a scene of serenity near the end of the movie where the characters eat seaweed on a beach, serenity that is interrupted by the little girl saying she wants a Happy Meal which apparently is the cue for the cartoon eagles to start attacking again. Nguyen must not like McDonalds.

I wonder how Nguyen feels about Zubaz, the best pants money can buy?

This movie is highly recommended to all lovers of bad movies. It really has to be seen to be believed.

Oprah Movie Club: Joe vs. the Volcano

2012-01-31T20:50:00.000-08:00

1990 romantic comedy

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: The titular loser's stuck in a dead-end and depressing job in the depths of a gray building where artificial testicles, amongst other things, are made. As a hypochondriac, he makes frequent trips to the doctor. He complains that he doesn't feel right, and a doctor informs him that he has brain cloud and only five to six months to live. Joe quits his job with style and takes a secretary out. The next day, an eccentric gazillionaire shows up and makes Joe a proposition. He wants to pay for Joe to travel to a Pacific Island and throw himself in a volcano so that he can get his hands on a mineral needed to make superconductors. Yeah, I'm not sure that made much sense either. Joe agrees, buys a lot of stuff with Ossie Davis, and then begins his journey.

So how cute is that Meg Ryan? I've always been apathetic when it comes to Meg Ryan, but I was really impressed with the trio of characters she played here--the secretary, the flibbertigibbet (Full disclosure: I had to give this movie a bonus point for using flibbertigibbet.), and the yacht lady. Cute as a freakin' button, no? Tom Hanks? Well, I was distracted by his hair in this one, maybe even more than I was when I watched The Da Vinci Code. He's kind of like the straight man in this giant cosmic joke played on his character, and the performers around him, even though they're barely more than cameos, are memorable and a lot of fun. I always enjoy Dan Hedaya, and he's funny as Joe's boss with all those repeated lines about how so-and-so can get the job but can he do the job. Robert Stack plays the coolest-sounding doctor ever, Lloyd Bridges is hilarious as Graynamore, and it's always good to see Ossie Davis. The luggage salesman (Barry McGovern), Abe Vigoda, Nathan Lane. They're all great periphery characters. You really have to be willing to let go of the real world and just accept the way things happen in this movie, but if you do, I think this one's a rewarding experience. It's like a fairy tale with a little more depth, a story about letting go, taking chances, and living the big life that you've been given. It's probably too surreal and free-floating for the rom-com crowd and too goofy and Meg Ryan-y for a lot of people, but I thought it had enough giant dogs to make it worth anybody's time. And hammerhead shark puppets! That made me laugh. This one's worth watching multiple times, by the way, to catch some recurring imagery (check out that lampshade) and repeated lines (lots of "soul" stuff here).

Joe vs. the Volcano was Barry's pick for the Oprah Movie Club.

Young Frankenstein

2012-01-31T19:20:00.000-08:00

1974 comedy classic

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A descendant of Dr. Frankenstein tries his best to live a life of obscurity but can't escape his famous ancestor's reputation. He inherits his castle, gets himself a hunchbacked Igor and a sexy laboratory assistant, and finds the notorious doctor's secret library. He begins to experiment.

I'm just going to say it--Gene Wilder's work in this is the greatest acting performance of all time. Let me make sure I'm being clear here because I'm not just talking about a performance in a comedy or a performance by a person with hair like that. I'm talking about the greatest acting performance of all time. His highs and lows are pitch perfect, and so is his comic timing. And I just love it when Gene gets mad. It's exhilarating, and I would honestly not be surprised to open a National Geographic and find an article about a tribe of people in some country I've never heard of who do nothing with their time but chew on leaves and have religious experiences while watching scenes from Gene Wilder movies. Now I'll accept one argument to my claim that this is the greatest acting performance of all time. Only one though--that Gene Wilder tops himself as Wonka. I'll give you that. The psychedelic boat ride scene with that creepy poem is about as good as it gets. But his work in Young Frankenstein has got to be in the top two. The rest of this cast is great, too. Love Feldman's hammy Igor, Boyle's monster, Leachman's Frau Blucher, and Teri Garr's Inga, the latter with sex appeal that rivals Mamma Fratelli's. Kenneth Mars' inspector character isn't around much but nearly steals every scene he's in with a Peter Sellers-esque role. Not all the gags work here, expected with something that Mel Brooks put together, but when this connects, it hits hard. Fans of childish word play will have a head start. And I really like how Brooks keeps things classic with the black and white, the score, and the elongated exterior and interior shots of the castle. One could argue, by the way, that things go a little too far with a song and dance number when Frankenstein and his creation perform "Puttin' on the Ritz" as it almost clashes with that classic feel. But you know what? Just thinking about that scene cracks me up so much that it's difficult to both type and swallow. And I know that tribe in the National Geographic loves that scene. That's probably why they don't wear pants actually!

Me: Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein--greatest performance in movie history.
Jen: Gene Wilder? What happened to his career?
Me: He had cancer.
Jen: That's not funny.

The Goonies

2012-01-31T18:45:00.000-08:00

1985 slice o' childhood

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: Two brothers are about to lose their house and hangout of the titular gang of dorks because some land developers want to get their hands on the land. Luckily, they conveniently find pirate One-Eyed Willy's treasure map in their attic and decide to go treasure hunting. It's an adventure that leads them to the hide-out of escaped criminals.

"But Jen, you've got to see The Goonies! I can't believe you didn't see this as a kid!"

I'm not sure why I said that. I hadn't seen this movie since I was twelve, and it wasn't really one of my favorites anyway. As an adventure story, it sufficed between installments of Indiana Jones maybe, but this isn't really something that I remember enjoying all that much back then or that made me nostalgic now. I guess I was just surprised that my wife hadn't seen it. Chances are, some of the kids in her neighborhood watched it on their VCR's, and if that's the case, I'm sure my wife would have at least heard the movie as a child since it's probably the loudest movie of all time. If you want the experience of a daycare with much older children but don't want to leave the house, pop The Goonies in. It's an hour and forty minutes of prepubescent boys screaming as loudly as they can. Sometimes they urinate. Sometimes they curse. Now I'm no prude, but with the amount of shits in this movie, I had trouble figuring out who the audience was supposed to be. I don't imagine older children would like it, and I don't think 1980's parents would be too happy with the potty mouths. I don't know. Maybe I am a prude. More offensive than that is the acting of Jonathan Ke Quan, Short Round himself. I can tell you why that kid didn't have a more fruitful acting career--he's fucking annoying. Midway through this movie, I was hoping that scary guy from Temple of Doom would pop out and rip his heart out. And every single scene that features one of his dumb inventions manages to top (or bottom) the previous one. Corey Feldman's annoying in a different way, but the other kids aren't all that bad. Oh, wait. Jeff Cohen's Chunk is obnoxious, too. There's another guy who Hollywood thankfully decided didn't deserve to be in more movies. The guy who played Sloth even got more work than him. Actually, I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel called Goonies 2: Sloth and Chunk Gay It Up. And before you tell me--yes, I am aware that this has a sequel. I don't think my eardrums could tolerate it though. I did like most of the adult actors though. Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi make good bumbling crooks, and the always-fetching Anne Ramsey's as nasty as you'd expect her to be. There's another sequel that should have happened, by the way--Goonies 3: Mama Fratelli's Bedroom Adventures in 3-D. Robert Duvall could have been in that one. Or a Quaid brother. Or both Quaid brothers! That son of a bitch would almost write itself, wouldn't it? Opening credits. A bunch of gratuitous sex scenes. Sloth busting in on Mama Fratelli and Dennis Quaid doing "The Double Kangaroo" and yelping out, "Hey, you guuuuuuyyyyys!" Roll credits while some Cyndi Lauper song plays. Boom! It's a billion dollar idea. This movie is disappointing because in the hands it was in, it really should have ended up a classic adventure story for kids. Instead, it's annoyingly loud, inappropriate, and not nearly as much fun as it should be.

Swingers

2012-01-31T18:29:00.000-08:00

1996 bromantic comedy

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Mike is a comedian who recently moved to L.A. to from New York to make it big. He becomes despondent after his long-time girlfriend breaks up with him, and his friends drag him from party to party and bar to bar in an attempt to cheer him up.

Is it just me or is Vince Vaughn actually funnier the Psycho remake than he is in this movie? This movie's just not for me. There's too much Big Voodoo Daddy, and too many allusions to things in the 1990s, a decade I don't really like that much anyway. Seriously, these references are going to firmly lock this comedy in that decade, and it seems dated to me watching it fifteen or so years later. My biggest problem with Swingers is that I either can't connect to characters like this or I just don't buy that characters like this actually exist. First, you've got Jon Favreau's dopey protagonist, a comedian who doesn't say a single funny thing in this movie. Vaughn's character is annoying, and I think I broke a finger or two punching my television after I'd finally had enough of the deluge of "baby's" and "money's" that smother the dialogue. Baby? Money? Did I hibernate in the mid-90s and somehow miss a time when people used these terms? Was it a West Coast thing? Whatever the case, it was grating here. I laughed during a scene where the characters were playing a hockey video game and smiled during a rendition of "Stayin' Alive," but other than that, I can't say I'm happy that I watched this.

Swingers trivia: At the 1:16:29 mark, an extra looks into the camera.

Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy

2012-01-31T15:54:00.000-08:00

1976 x-rated musical fantasy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: The titular librarian's got "all the right equipment but [she] don't know how to put it to work." At least that's what the mechanic who's got his eye on her says. She begins to dream about living a more adventurous life, right there in the library, when a talking white rabbit visits. He leads her through a mirror into a sexual wonderland. Sex is had; songs are sung. And there are enough bad puns to make you gag.

For my money, the "Dingaling" song (not to be confused with anything Chuck Berry ever sang) during the Humpty Dumpty scene is the best song from a musical of all time. "His dingaling up, his dingaling up, he can't get his dingaling up!" And I'm not just saying that because of the lesbian nurses although they probably did put me in a better mood. This is my first dip into the porn genre here on the blog. I'm going to try to make a whole bunch of entries tonight to hide this one from my wife. Honestly, this mid-70's sexcapade seems pretty tame, but I don't (honestly) have anything to compare it to. Heck, you see neither pecker nor snatch until the twenty-three minute and twenty-one second mark although the nipple did make an earlier cameo. Mostly, this is just nutty, probably as you'd expect from something calling itself an "x-rated musical comedy." The comedy is terrible, cheap attempts at copping Lewis Carroll's word play that could have been penned by anybody who's worked a cash register at an adult video store. The music is 70's cheese, but it's not bad, all things considered. And there's that "Dingaling" song. I suspect this has a little more plot than your standard pornographic flick, probably enough to be frustrating for somebody looking to shoot his wad early and often. When people in goofy costumes aren't having sex, this almost looks like a cheaply-made experimental movie, almost like something a Kenneth Anger might throw together if he was feeling especially randy. You could almost argue that there's a point, a narrative outlining a journey of sexual awakening for a typical girl. Mostly, it's just nutty though. You get characters in spandex and furry hats and mittens, talking rocks teaching the art of auto-manipulation, the Mad Hatter's 9 3/4 "thingamajig" (that's not his hat size!), and Richard Brautigan (no, not really) as Jack. It's a little bit of fun for a little bit of time, probably more for people who enjoy watching other people doing it in a variety of ways.

Now don't tell my wife or her sister that I watched this. Thanks.

Street Thief

2012-01-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

2006 faux-documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Although reluctantly, the titular professional Kaspar Carr gives two documentary filmmakers permission to follow him around as he gets some work done. Then, something goes wrong. Then, some other things happen.

This is a fresh look at the crime genre thanks to the director and star's borrowing of the currently faddish mockumentary sub-genre. In a way, it's a lot like one of my faves, the great Man Bites Dog, only not nearly as violent or dark. Director Malik Bader plays the thief, and apparently he does a good enough job that there are some people who think this whole thing is real. I enjoyed the complex character, components of real street thieves Bader encountered while living in Chicago. There are things about this that will frustrate a lot of viewers. Not a lot happens for large chunks of time, but for me, the attention to minutia was appreciated as it really helped characterize and add to the enigmatic, open-ended denouement. The film's style gave it this ultra-gritty feel that also contributed to the real-ness of the story. I enjoyed the twists and turns of this guy's story and thought this was a really interesting character study. It's fun to read message board posts about how this is real, too.

Reservoir Dogs

2012-01-28T08:28:00.000-08:00

1992

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A gaggle of criminals attempt to steal some jewels, but it doesn't turn out very well.

Still fresh--20 years later. It's a canned food movie. I could complain about Tarantino as an actor. You know, I think I will complain about Tarantino as an actor. No, the movie's wouldn't be the same without him in there, but that doesn't mean he should have been in there. When he "acts," it just looks like he's about to bust into a series of uncontrollable giggles. Still, it somehow manages to fit, just like these criminals discussing Madonna and arguing over tipping manages to work. I could watch Harvey Kietel kicking somebody for hours, and I even like Tim Roth here, even when he seems to be channeling Bobcat Goldthwait. Verbose and wormy Buscemi, unhinged and shuffling Madsen, Chris Penn rocking that track suit. I'm sure if Tarantino had a do-over, he'd put Chris Penn in a pair of Zubaz. And then there's Laurence Tierney who kicks everybody's ass, both on screen and probably literally. It's amazing to me that Tarantino had such a command of things with this first effort. The plot is effortlessly complex, fragmented in a way that manages to enhance the feelings involved with these characters. His characterization, dialogue, use of music, utilization of the Wilhelm Scream, and numerous left-turns look like the work of a guy who has made at least two movies! It's the work of an auteur and something that, after you're finished, makes you say, "Wow! That was as cool as it gets!"

Has anybody seen the Asian movie that Tarantino ripped off with this?

And hey, readers, do you know what I just discovered? Zubaz pants are only $29.99 on the Zubaz website. You should check it out!

Midnight in Paris

2012-01-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

2011 romantic comedy

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: A screenwriter-turned-struggling-novelist and his fiance travel to the titular capital with her parents. Gil falls in love with and is inspired by the city, but isn't as thrilled with all the time they're spending with Inez's pretentious friends. He stays at the hotel one night while she goes out partying, and during a late-night stroll, he magically stumbles into the 1920s and meets up with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein, and other literary heroes and artistic luminaries who, along with a mysterious little hottie, inspire him creatively.

It's Woody Allen making a romantic comedy with elements of fantasy, so what's not to like? This one's got the time travel which is cool, and it's fun watching out for all these people I'm going to pretend I've actually heard of. The comedy's more cute than it is funny, and although I almost like Owen Wilson has a goofy Everyman, I was really questioning whether or not he was working here. Ultimately, I decided that I liked the dopiness and naivete that Wilson brought to the character. It helps the viewer experience his story with the same big eyes he's got throughout the movie, and the performance takes any cynical edge this could have had. Like he did with New York City previously, Woody captures Paris on the screen beautifully and in a way that makes it just the type of place where a modern fairy tale like this can happen. I think he's having a lot of fun with all the literature, art, and music allusions, too. I'm not sure Dali had Adrien Brody's nose, however, and I'd like my dad to see this to tell me how good Corey Stoll's Hemingway is or isn't. In other news, I might have a thing for Marion Cotillard. Don't tell my wife!

The Beaver

2012-01-28T07:10:00.000-08:00

2011 Muppet prequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Some antisemitic guy gets depressed and starts talking to and through a the titular puppet that he found in a dumpster. His family has a problem with it.

If Hesher is an after-school special with a bad-boy edge and a ton of curse words, The Beaver could be described as an after-school special with a puppet. There was a lot of potential here actually with a story that could have had some real depth and could have packed a real emotional punch. Unfortunately, it's very poorly written and doesn't feel fully realized. And I'll have to admit that I feel a little cheated since I went into this thing thinking we'd have scene after scene of Mel Gibson making love to his own hand. But that's likely my fault. Mel Gibson is dynamic in this, a chance to show some versatility. His character's got all sorts of angles, and good old Mel handles them all in a way that doesn't make the character as dopey as a character with a beaver puppet should be. And that's important. When the story focuses on his character and his family, this is actuallypretty good. But there are tangents, and when we move to the subplots involving his oldest son's love interest etcetera, this fumbles.

It's a shame this wasn't a box office smash because I could spend hours playing with them. Probably inappropriately.

Escape from New York

2012-01-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

1981 action movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: It's the future, and New York City is a walled maximum security prison. Actually, it's the past if you're watching this in the future and not in the past that was 1981. And I just took some of those words straight from the poster which is just the sort of thing that keeps people from following this blog. What? He plagiarizes from movie posters? That guy's got no credibility. Back to the movie--the president has crash-landed in Manhattan, a problem since he's carrying Samuel L. Jackson's briefcase and all. An ex-Marine (or something) and current criminal named Snake Plissken is coerced into flying in to save him. And the world!

Dang, this movie looks so good. The Big Apple's all oily and moody in the early flyover scenes, and it's impossible not to think about September 11th when the plane's heading for the city. And maybe--just maybe--that's where Osama bin Laden and his gang got the idea for this movie. And if that's true, we should blame John Carpenter for 9/11. Or Snake Plissken. Snake Plissken. What a name. You almost have to give bonus points just because the hero's name is Snake Plissken. And you're just not a true American if you don't give bonus points to the movie for having a hero who sports an eyepatch and a pair of Zubaz. It's like they looked at Kurt Russell and said, "I don't know about this guy. He can flex his cheek muscles and all, but does he really look tough enough?" before somebody suggested, "I got it! Let's get him an eyepatch!" and somebody else suggested, "And a pair of Zubaz!" Pretty cool supporting cast here--Harry Dean Stanton, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes. None of them rock the Zubaz though which actually might make them slightly less ridiculous than the hero. And yes, I'm fully aware that my mentioning of Zubaz and especially the providing of a link to the Zubaz website is as bad or worse than product placement and that that could be another reason why I don't have more people wanting to read this blog. But hey, if the people who make those idiotic pants decide to throw a little money my way? It'll all be worth it.

Zubaz--best pants ever! Dare to be different! Buy some today! Better yet--buy some tomorrow! If you don't, I will more than likely blame you for the 9/11 attacks.

Trollhunter

2012-01-28T06:03:00.000-08:00

2010 troll movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Some documentarians--a couple guys and a gal--investigate murmurings of some kind of monster in the woods. Hey, wait a minute!

Actually, the kids are trying to figure out what's killing bears, but they stumble upon a guy who claims to be the titular hunter of trolls hired by the government to keep these giant trolls in their place and the secret of their existence a secret. He reluctantly agrees to let them tag along, probably because the girl is kind of cute.

Hell yeah! Rampaging trolls? I'm all over that. This puts a new spin on both monster movies and the found footage genre. The special effects are very good in that the giant trolls manage to mesh with the settings, but I do with they would have done a little more. They're really kind of there to be seen and then later turned to stone or evaporated. One would think that this found footage stuff would get old, but this Blair Witch-but-with-special-effects works because it's got a sense of humor. It toys with Norwegian folklore and never quite takes itself seriously enough to be a straight horror movie. The acting works well enough to keep the "This is real!" claim at the beginning afloat even though there isn't a single person on earth who is going to watch this and think it's real.

Well, I take that back. I did have a student this week who genuinely thought the Paranormal Activity movies were real. Maybe I should show him this and see what he thinks.

I liked the title character played by Otto Jespersen, ruggedly and aloofly, and I may have given this movie a bonus point for how pretty Norway looked. This is a very cool movie with a nicely indeterminate ending, and I'd say it's a must-see if you're into trolls.

The Devil's Sword

2012-01-23T15:37:00.000-08:00

1984 Indonesian kung-fu craziness

Rating: 7/20

Plot: There's the titular sword, a crocodile nymphomaniacal goddess who enslaves the men of nearby villages, a guy who wears bedazzled diapers and a shiny headband who sometimes floats around on a rock, and a bunch of crocodile men. Mayhem!

I might have to check out more Indonesian kung-fu movies or at the very least some Barry Prima. I'm sure the guy's like the Indonesian Bruce Lee. Only better because he hasn't died yet. Hell, he probably never will. The story for this thing, by "MAN" according to the credits, isn't all that important. It's Indonesian poetry, with action hero Barry Prima who almost knows movie martial arts fighting guys dressed up as crocodiles. This has some of the most inept fight choreography you're ever likely to see, guys moving slowly like they're waiting for their next scripted lunge. If head-loppin'-off's your thing, this has several decapitation scenes. You also get guys sailing off at ridiculous heights after being sliced, sliced with a sword that isn't even the demon sword. And those silly crocodile men who sometimes, but not always, hop into action. Seriously, check this out:

There's one scene (if you're in to this sort of thing) where Barry Prima has sexual relations with a crocodile. Not a crocodile man, you pervert, but an actual crocodile. See:

You'll just have to take my word for it that it's even hotter when they're moving. Actually, that might be a crocodile man after all. I couldn't focus because I was freaking out! I think it was the synth-laden score, or maybe the funny feeling that the crocodile queen gave me during those hypnosis scenes. She was a hot little number, living in her underwater den where special effects look a whole lot like cheap magic tricks. The scene where she's on a spinning bed surrounded by a ring of fire is exactly how I imagined sex to be when I was nine. And there's a huge orgy scene near the end of this (it actually interrupts the big climactic action scene and brings everything to a grinding halt) that I'm sure was an inspiration for that goofy rave sex scene in that third Matrix movie. This has some other cool characters, too. A skeletal boat man was pretty rad. I was really digging the kung-fu stylings of this guy with a skinny neck (I think his name was Skinny Neck Guy) who waits around for a while before flipping into action and showing off this uniquely awkward style. But his demise is unfortunately very quick. The crew of evil warriors are cool, too, with their interesting weapons and their ability to burrow underground or fly around, but the preface to their big battle scene was so lengthy. At least they threw out some good Indonesian kung-fu trash talk: "You polluted bitch hound!" and "Dirty daughter of a whore!" were my favorites. The witch hag, an evil warrior whose weapon appeared to be a bundle of weeds, was neat. I don't want to give too much away, but you don't ever want to count her out, even when she's cut in half. Oh, I just gave too much away. I guess it won't hurt to show you this then, a hideous monster in a cave filled with all kinds of half-assed booby traps:

This is recommended for anybody who's ever wanted to see Barry Prima have sex with a crocodile. I realize that's a very specific fetish, but I'm sure you people are out there.

The Station Agent

2012-01-22T14:25:00.000-08:00

2003 movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The oddly-named Finbar McBride becomes the titular station agent after his only friend passes away and leaves him a tiny bit of land and an abandoned train depot. He clearly wants to be left alone but reluctantly befriends a hot dog vendor who sets up his stand in the weirdest place imaginable and a female artist who almost runs him over twice. Oh, and the guy's a dwarf. I forgot to mention that part.

All three of these characters and the performers who play them are extremely likable. Peter Dinklage is so good as the main character. He displays every single emotion that the script calls for, mostly without having to say a single word. It's really good seeing him in a starring role, and watching his character grow (Oh no he didn't!) is a rewarding experience. Bobby Cannavale brings an enthusiasm as the gregarious purveyor of hot dogs, and Patricia Clarkson is really good as a secretly complex character. Great cast. If there's a problem, it's that the characters don't have enough to go on here. They've got their back stories and their share of unspoken issues, but what we see on the screen isn't a whole lot of story. Still, as a quirky character study, this works really well. I like these movies where you have these characters who need each other, especially if they don't really understand how or why they need each other. I would have liked to have seen more of Paul Benjamin actually, but this movie wouldn't have made much sense if he lived more than ten minutes into things. A sweet little movie that is almost exactly what it needs to be.

Hesher

2012-01-22T13:54:00.000-08:00

2010 after-school special

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Dwight from The Office loses his wife, and he and his son are having difficulty coping. Dwight grows a beard while son T.J. obsesses over purchasing the car his mother was killed in from the junkyard. Dad mopes on the couch; T.J. deals with a bully who makes him lick urinals. Enter the titular uninvited guest, a long-haired tattooed rocker with a scary van and a dirty mouth. He makes a mess of everything.

I'm not sure if the poster is supposed to look like somebody left it in his pants pocket and accidentally sent it the washing machine or not, but I guess it fits. It's heavy metal and all, right? This movie and Gordon-Levitt go for attitude over substance, but this movie really felt flat to me, like an after-school special with a whole bunch of cussing. I kind of liked the titular character, more as a symbol than as an actual flesh 'n' blood slacker, but Gordon-Levitt is just a little too sure of himself here, leaning too heavily on the character's written antics and fuck-filled lines and not giving Hesher any real depth. Comically, it works though. The Star Wars trash compactor scene re-enactment is a hilarious bit of frantic genius. I also really liked the "on one condition" flatulence bit, something I might borrow for my personal life. Which might make the point since, as I said, he's really more of a symbol for this father and child anyway. Rainn Wilson's not bad in a more dramatic role, but he's got the same problem with a lot of sitcom stars with very recognizable faces--it's just hard to take him seriously. The youngster, Devin Brochu, really does a good job with an emotionally tough role. His character is put through quite a bit. Hell, he falls off his bicycle at least three times in this movie. I realize that's probably a little stuntman though unless Devin Brochu is the Tom Cruise of child actors or something. Natalie Portman's performance is dull, but it might have more to do with her character being pointless. Well, no. She's actually just not very good here. I didn't buy that character at all. Things are just implausible in this, and although the sentiments are nice, I just had too much trouble connecting with these characters and their story in a way that was meaningful.

Creature with the Atom Brain

2012-01-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

1955 walking dead movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A Nazi and a gangster with an ill-fitting suit reanimate dead bodies and then use radio control to attack people they don't like. Chet Walker, a guy who is either a scientist or a doctor or possibly both, tries to figure out what's going on before it's too late.

Nifty opening shot introducing the opening credits, one similar to Double Indemnity actually, with one of the zombified figures lumbering toward the camera. This is another 50's sci-fi flick with some daffy science. I never did figure out Chet. Scientist? Detective? Both? His name's Chet, so you'd think he'd be a scientist/detective. He does own a centrifuge, and he keeps a Geiger counter in his trunk. I liked the character. He cracks a few jokes to give this a lighter tone, and there's a funny running gag about him wanting to engage in sexual relations with his wife. I really liked a scene where he comes home and sees his wife bending over on the porch. He eyes her for a bit before getting this giant grin and walking to his house. I believe this was the inspiration for Sir Mix a Lot's song. This movie apparently inspired Roky Erikson, too, since he's got a song with the same title. The movie isn't really all that frightening, but I do like a few shots where shadows are used nicely. My favorite scene, despite the presence of really-bad-child-actor Linda Bennett, involves a child's doll. It made me laugh. So did seeing the news eporter's name--Dick Cutting. This is a movie that isn't nearly as bad as its title.

The Giant Claw

2012-01-21T10:30:00.001-08:00

1957 giant bird movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: A troublesome alien bird that is "as big as a battleship" is on the rampage, wrecking airplanes and destroying buildings. Electronics specialist Mitch MacAfee tries to figure out a way to stop it before the hand of the person operating the beak gets tired.

You might think that a movie that Fred F. Sears (that second F. probably stands for Fred, too) made only a year after Earth vs. the Flying Saucers wouldn't be so bad, but you'd be wrong. No, this is impressively inept filmmaking, a science fiction movie that would probably offend most scientist. Or maybe just confuse them. The bird is described as being made from antimatter, and I guess that makes sense. It all sounds really scientific, and we kind of have to believe the character because he's got a giant model of an atom. You've also got to appreciate when these 1950's B-movies explain what a UFO is to the audience. Maybe the acronym wasn't widely used back then? The story is dull, and the acting is bad. So dull and bad, that they must have felt like they needed to go a little crazy with the amount of bird scenes. In some movies, they save the monster and the big special effects for a little later in the film. With The Giant Claw, it does start out as a fuzzy blob during some initial scenes, but you still get to see the monster early on. Early and far too often, especially since the monster looks like this:

Now I know what you're thinking--that looks realistically terrifying! I'm actually thinking my mother must have seen this still from the film and that it's the reason she refuses to fly. The obvious-toy plane crash is as realistic as "obvious-toy plane crash" might make it sound. None of that's as terrifying as the police officer played by Robert Williams, a gravedigger in Hang 'Em High. He's a cop who can't keep his hands off his own belt buckle, and gets superb lines like this one: "If you see this big bird, it's a sign that you're gonna die [dramatic pause] real soon." Louis Merrill acts squares around the rest of the crash as "Pierre," a French character played by a man who is definitely not French and who's probably never heard the language spoken. Pierre's cool because he's got Eraserhead hair. That hair might be the best special effect in this entire film actually. It's definitely not the child's Play-doh globe at the beginning of this thing, an image followed by a film strip I think I might have seen in my 8th grade science class. But none of that's important, readers, because the giant antimatter bird is coming right at you in 2-D!

You really need to imagine that with the incredible sound effects, my favorite being the chomp-chomp sound that you can apparently hear whenever a bird "as big as a battleship" makes when eating a paratrooper. The Giant Claw is nearly entertaining for the duration. And hey, if you get bored, you can play a drinking game where you drink a shot every time you see a wire to help the bird move or the toy airplanes fly around. It all builds to a stunning climax during which the monster destroys New York City, including a scene where he's perched on the building doing his best King Kong impression. Or maybe he's impersonating that Korean ape from A*P*E. I wouldn't put it past him. Anyway, it's the most damage a puppet has caused since. . .well, I thought I had a joke there.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

2012-01-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

1990 romantic movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A mental patient kidnaps an actress, suggests that they get married, and refuses to take no for an answer.

I've got to start with this since I'm a pervert: I have a new favorite sex scene, the bathtub scene in this movie featuring the lovely Victoria Abril and a wind-up diver toy. That's worth the price of admission alone. I guess my problem with this one is that the movie had to be about Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril and their characters' relationship and not more about Maximo Espejo, the director played by Francisco Rabal. He gets a great line though: "When you put your heart and genitals into something, it always ends up personal." I might have that put on my tombstone. Banderas is fine, but the lead characters lacked depth, and their love story was actually pretty boring, despite all the bondage. Morricone's score is dull, 80's fizz. There is a nifty and colorful musical number with a trumpeter who has a mini-pompadour, cheese-covered keyboards, an old lady, a young girl, and a polka-dotted lead. And there's some He-Man figure decor which, for whatever reason made me laugh a little bit. But if I ever watch this again, it'll be for the toy diver scene which makes me cry just thinking about it.

Fish Story

2012-01-19T19:34:00.000-08:00

2009 movie without a single fish

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Oh, snap! A comet heading straight for earth threatens the existence of all life on our feeble little planet. Thankfully, a Japanese punk band recorded the titular rock song back in the 1970s. Wait. What?

A second viewing might make large chunks of this seem superfluous, but it was so much fun watching everything come together that I don't mind. I was sold from the beginning with an old guy in a motorized wheelchair pushing over some bikes with his cane before a shot showing the ominous fireball. There's an obligatory Bruce Willis allusion, paranormal record collectors, end time prophets uttering things like "Even if today is the last day of the world, I will still plant my apple trees," fruit tort faux pas, apple pie kung-fu, and a funny nod to The Karate Kid. The real one--not the one with Will Smith's daughter. This is a sharp little movie puzzle, and I'd like to check it out again to see what pieces I may have missed. That song ain't half bad either!

Office Space

2012-01-19T19:22:00.001-08:00

1999 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A guy gets fed up with his office job and decides that he's not going to do it anymore. Results are unexpected. He tries to bag a waitress who doesn't have enough buttons.

Speaking of that waitress, here's an earlier contender for 2012 Most Arousing Movie Moment of the Year: Jennifer Aniston's character saying, "I love kung-fu." Yeah, I got wood. This movie probably isn't as funny as you think it is. I don't think it's worth watching more than once although I know more than a few people who seem to watch it all the time. It's amusing, and I like the laid-back tone that is mostly created by Ron Livingston as our protagonist, Peter. He's like Charlie Sheen without the whores and blow, Sheen-lite. I do really like his line about how "every time you see [him], it's the worst day of [his] life." The exaggerated character types somehow manage to seem realistic which works in this comedy's favor. Stephen Root's fun as Milton, and John C. McGinley's funny in a more natural way in a pre-Scrubs role. The look on his face when he finds out that the boss's feelings about Peter don't match his is really funny. This meanders and loses its way a bit during the final third, and I got a little bored. It's not a bad little comedy though.

Project A: Part 2

2012-01-16T17:54:00.000-08:00

1987 sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Dragon Ma is assigned to get rid of some gangsters in town. Meanwhile, some pirates from the last movie are looking for him to get their revenge. Apparently, they understood what was going on in the last movie better than I did and are pissed off about it.

This sequel delivers similar excitement from Part 1 in chunks, but it's not the wall-to-wall action of its predecessor and makes even less sense. There's some cuteness with a pair of handcuffs, an excellent fight scene early in the movie with bruising and flopping that look like outtakes from the first movie, and another 1920s comedy allusion. This time, it's a nod to Keaton and his most famous stunt. Mixed in with all this is a lot of silliness. I did like one line quite a bit: "I'm just wondering what to do with your corpses." That's something I might start saying to my students. The comedy that isn't physical comedy, just like in the first movie, falls completely flat, banging its head even harder than some of these stunt men. I did like this early exchange:

"You can't go around mugging ladies on the street!"
"But we're muggers!"

The motley collective of baddies is fun. There's Fatty, Shades, Stumpy Top Hat, Japanese Alan Thicke, and my personal favorite, Grand Meat Guy who gets all kinds of great one-liners during a Batman-esque "crusher" scene. "How 'bout a little oil?" "You're well lubricated." "I'm going to crush your knob off."

Stick around for the credits or you'll miss Jackie Chan singing a wonderful pop song. Actually, go ahead and miss that. Turn this off right before the credits unless you want to find out the name of the Japanese Alan Thicke.

Project A

2012-01-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

1983 kung-fu action comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Gaily-dressed Navy guys fight crooked cops and mischievous pirates. Lots of folks wind up concussed.

I love the nods to my man Buster and Harold Lloyd here, and this will be a ton of fun for fans of kung-fu movies and silent comedies. Since I'm a fan of both, it seems like Jackie Chan made this just for me! I will say this--the comedy in this is awfully silly, and almost caused me to drop this another point or two. The plot isn't anything worth talking about either. It's typical Hong Kong martial arts movie nuttiness with more characters than necessary and a lot of extraneous scenes. The latter exist to stuff in more fight scene while the former are on-screen to get kicked in the head or thrown around. Chan takes his lumps as well because he's never an invincible kung-fu action hero. His stunts are as impressive as they usually are, and the fight choreography is completely ludicrous but endlessly entertaining. Chan et al. showcase fast flailing moves and insane bone-crushing stunts. I've never seen so many heads bouncing off floors, dressers, banisters, or whatever other parts of the scenery that are constructed just so heads can bounce off them. As always, Chan's fight choreography uses the setting and its props in excitingly creative and humorous ways. Vibrant and painful stuff. I liked how the camera would linger on stunt men as they writhe and groan after a particularly painful head bounce. A highlight involves a clock tower.

Oh, and for you Sammo Hung completists, he's in this one as a sort of Jackie Chan sidekick.

APE

2012-01-15T16:02:00.000-08:00

1976 Korean King Kong kookiness

Rating: 2/20

Plot: There's a guy in a poorly-constructed ape costume on the loose. He's beating up sharks, destroying models that are as poorly made as the ape costume, and most terrifying of all, fluctuating in size. The army's called in to help. Meanwhile, the monster goes ape for Kurt Cameron's mother. And God ain't gonna stand for that!

Look at that poster! I want that son of a bitch hanging in my living room.

It's 1976. Korea finds out that America is going to release a Kong Kong remake and decides to beat them to the punch with this thing, a half-serious-attempt/half-spoof that ends up a fantastically entertaining affair for mostly wrong reasons. The action's fierce from the get-go in this one as we start in medias res because as most Kong aficionados would tell you, all that stuff on Skull Island is pretty dull. No, here we start on the boat with some characters talking about how they hope the gas will keep the monster out. Cue a big giant monkey hand (great effects, as you could probably guess) and an "Oh shit!" leading into some badly-edited chaos ending in the boat blowing up in a sparkly explosion. And you'd probably guess that an explosion would end the big opening action sequence, but you'd be wrong. The magic is only beginning as we have a fight scene between the guy in the ape costume and a rubber shark (a Jaws reference maybe?) in which the monkey dunks and spanks his foe repeatedly. You could almost say that the movie jumps the shark right here, but you'd have to quickly correct yourself and say that it actually spanks the shark instead. Great fight scene though, almost masturbatory.

The monkey on land is even goofier than the monkey fighting a rubbery shark in the water. Now I'll admit that I've not actually studied gorillas, but I'm fairly positive the guy in this suit hasn't either. I'm not sure apes act like this, and if a bunch of monkeys ever got their hands on this movie and watched it together, they'd get ahold of a bunch of typewriters and a room so that they could eventually type out a letter of complaint to the makers of this movie. The monster in this has terrible posture and kind of humps around awkwardly. Later, during a scene which has to be included just as filler, we get to see the ape throw a snake for no reason (it's not nearly as exciting as the poster makes it look up there) and actually hit the camera. Lesser filmmakers would probably have shot that scene over again, but not the makers of A*P*E.

Speaking of that title, what's with the asterisks? A M*A*S*H thing?

But back to that monkey because believe it or not, there's a scene in this that actually manages to top that ape-on-shark action at the beginning. You didn't think a movie as classy as A*P*E would shoot its proverbial wad too early, did you? This scene involves some parasailors. One points and screams. Then, there's a shot of a cow. Then, there's a shot of the ape lumbering over a fake cow. It's pure bliss, but where I shot my wad (non-proverbially) was when the ape started clapping and dancing. But the ultimate monkey shot (that's a pun though it has nothing to do with anybody's wad) might be one of a peeping Kong with mouth agape that made me laugh for a solid thirty-five minutes because I have time in my life for thirty-five minute fits of laughter.

Other special-ed effects: The makers of this really seem fond of their fake-rocks-on-strings trick, and there's a scene where the monkey vomits blood. It's beautifully realistic.

Just as the makers of this have seemingly never seen an ape, they also have likely never seen humans or heard them communicate. The Korean characters are great as they speak English without dubbing. An American character named Colonel Davis (played stoically by Alex Nicol) seems to be impersonating The Duke with all his lines. Imagine John Wayne saying "Now what kind of bullshit you trying to hand me?" and you've got Colonel Davis. My favorite Colonel Davis tough guy moment is when he yells, "Screw the logistics!" in a way that would make Chuck Norris cower in fear. Oh, no wait. I forgot that he says, "Let's see him dance for his organ grinder now!" That's badass! The curly-headed hero gets plenty of chances to be manly, too. He's the type of guy who jumps on the sides of Jeeps and says, "I'll just hang on here," after all.

But the most awkward or unnatural human moment in this? There's a scene with fleeing Koreans, and you just have to see this one guy running down the stairs. It just has to be the guy who plays the ape without his suit.

Oh, there's also a scene of endless battle preparation, a montage that actually features one soldier who waves at the camera.

You also have to wonder what kinds of movies the makers of this have seen. At one point, the ape disrupts the production of a kung-fu movie that apparently features circus performers. And what kind of movie is Joanna Kerns' character making in this? They show the filming of two scenes of this movie-within-a-movie, both featuring attempted rapes. The rapist, by the way, might get the line of the movie: "Gentle? This is a God-damned rape scene and you want me to be gentle?"

This makes four Korean monster movies I've seen in the last month, and although this is definitely the worst of them, it's also the only one I would wholeheartedly recommend to anybody.

Parents

2012-01-14T08:27:00.001-08:00

1989 horror movie or possibly black comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: In antiseptic 1950s suburbia, young Michael begins to suspect that there's something not quite right with his parents. He's got enough trouble trying to adapt to a new school in a new hometown without having to worry about whether or not the dietary habits of his parents are socially acceptable.

Bob Balaban is a guy with a name I like to say and a guy I always like seeing in movies or television shows. He's directed barely a handful of movies and a bunch of television shows, but Parents is the only thing I've seen that he's directed unless I watched something accidentally. I really liked how he visually told the story. He frames this typical suburban middle-class home in a way that somehow transforms the setting into a perfect location for a horror film, and some playful and surprising camera angles keep this whole thing interesting even when the story he's working with isn't. I'm not totally convinced this is a straight horror film. There's a consistent creepy vibe, even when what is happening on the screen isn't anything threatening, but there's also a healthy dose of dark comedy that give this a different kind of fun than the type of fun your average horror movie is going to give you. Some dream sequences and possible hallucinations give this a surreal flavor and also make the last third of the story a little indeterminate. That, or I'm just slower than the average Randy Quaid fan. Speaking of him (I think it's Randy; I still get them confused), this might be my favorite Randy Quaid role. He manages to maneuver realistically between 1950's sitcom wholesome and unnerving, often in the same scene. I also want to mention Bryan Madorsky, the kid who played the kid. He's really got a kid-from-the-Shining in him, and although they don't really succeed in making him seem like a real kid, he still does a really nice job. This was Madorsky's only movie though. Parents isn't exactly a classic of whatever genre it belongs in, but it's got a feel that makes it seem fresh 20+ years after it came out.

Withnail and I

2012-01-14T06:52:00.000-08:00

1987 comedy

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Two unemployed actors go on a vacation to the countryside, apparently because doing absolutely nothing can get exhausting. They have hilarious misadventures.

"We've gone on holiday by mistake!"

So it turns out that the great Daniel Day-Lewis was offered the Withnail role but didn't take it. As good as he is, it's just hard for me to imagine that anybody could top what Richard E. Grant does with this character. That's high praise. Really though, none of the performances in this one really stand out from the others because they're all good. Even that guy's afro gives an award-worthy performance. This movie is so quotable, but typing the lines I like the most just wouldn't do them justice. You need to hear them in the almost no-context context in which they're presented from the lips of these character actors. "No, it was like this long white hat" would probably be hilarious if you read it in the script, but it's magically hilarious when Ralph Brown's Danny says it. Withnail and I makes me laugh, but there's also this melancholy bubbling beneath the surface, and the end really gets me. I think my favorite moment might be a look on Withnail's face following a sharp "Ponce!" Love this movie. It's got voodoo qualities!

The Beaches of Agnes

2012-01-11T17:05:00.000-08:00

2008 biographical documentary

Rating: 17/20 (Mark: 18/20--I think.)

Plot: Director Agnes Varda strategically places mirrors on a beach, finds some naked people, converses with an animated cat, and reminisces about her life and work and marriage to Jacques Demy.

Varda directed one of my favorite movies from a few years ago--Cleo from 5 to 7, a movie that nobody saw based on my recommendation because nobody cares a bit about what I write here or takes me very seriously. I'm not sure why I haven't seen any more of her movies, especially since one of her documentaries has been sitting on my shelf for months. Varda is funky old avant-gardist with two-toned hair, a ten-year-old artist in an eighty-something-year-old's body. She's how I like my avant-gardists actually--frothy and whimsical. I loved how this traced her development as an artist, from her photography to her movie making, and I was touched at the stuff about her director husband Demy, the guy who did The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, another flick I really dug. The way she chooses to tell her own story is very playful and borderline pretentious. But that aforementioned froth and whimsy makes this not only a palatable but an absolutely delicious experience. See? Maybe it's sentences like that that cause people to not take me seriously. I was a little apprehensive about seeing this because my brother had promised me Captain America and I thought this might be boring compared to that, but it was definitely not boring. This was a fun little documentary to absorb. I would probably recommend you get your hands on a few of Varda's movies though. You know--like I didn't. Also, for you randy avant-gardists out there: This does have both trapeze artists and a beach sex scene, neither which involve Annette Funicello. Oh, and the animated cat was Chris Marker, director of this and this. They're both good films, but you're not even going to click to see what they are because you don't respect me.

Oprah Movie Club Pick: Gamera vs. Guiron

2012-01-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

1969 turtle superhero movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: As rumors of unidentified sort-of hovering objects swirl, a Japanese kid and Beaver Cleaver stumble upon an abandoned space craft constructed from cheap cardboard and what appears to be pieces of discarded stoplights. The ship takes off with the lads inside, leaving a whiny homely girl behind. While she tries to convince Mom that the boys did indeed fly off in a spaceship, the boys have landed on the tenth planet in our solar system (sorry, I didn't catch the name) where they watch some goofy monsters fight and are forced to endure the annoying voices of the planet's only inhabitants--two gals wearing capes. But these girls have a plan for the boys, and Gamera (a friend to children apparently) is needed to save the day.

Kent picked a classic for our first Oprah Movie Club pick of the year. There's one other Gamera movie on the blog, the superior but not nearly as much goofy or fun Gamera the Invincible. This one begins with some gross effects that look like they could serve as the backdrop for a really cheap Pink Floyd cover band, probably one called The Vegetable Men, and then makes us wait a while before we see any monster-on-monster action. The worst dubbing I think I've ever heard is enough to keep things entertaining though. It's not just the poorly-chosen voices for the characters either. No, there's something terribly wrong with the pacing in the delivery of the lines, almost like that guy from the "Hooked on Phonics" commercial who could barely get through a story about a train is reading everything. The child actors are irritating, but there's an adult actor who actually makes them look like master thespians in some early scenes where they're together. His name is Kon Ohmura, and I'm not sure how he Konned his way onto a movie set, but he's in another Gamera movie and a few other things. His character here (Goonjob? Coonja?) is there for comic relief, just like the rest of the movie, and Ohmura's wonderfully Torgorific as he's threatening to shave the children's heads [Spoiler Alert: That's foreshadowing!] or even just standing around. That's right. Ohmura's the type of actor who can't just stand there during a scene without being a complete distraction. That's talent, folks.

Finally, we get a Gamera sighting when the kids leave the earth's atmosphere. A nearly endless Gamera/spaceship race brings the action hard. You also get a close-up of the inside of Gamera's mouth (Do you ever get to see a close-up of the inside of Godzilla's mouth?) as he, I'm pretty sure, attempts to make out with the ship. But the best action sequence is the superbly realistic scene on that tenth planet between a metallic birdy thing and what I thought was a monster with three-fourths of a dolphin for a head but what actually turned out to be a monster with a knife for a head. Didn't find out until later that the latter was the menacing titular bad monster in this movie. It's not much of a fight. Guiron repels a cheap-looking yellow beam and dismembers the metallic birdy before doing a Jabba the Hutt impression. It's pretty badass and kind-of gruesome for a monster movie intended for children. But honestly, Guiron is so dumb looking that it's hard to take any of it seriously. He could have been raping my grandmother, and it wouldn't have seemed all that bad.

When our hero gets to the planet (because he's a friend of children, and there are children who need savin'), he gets beat up pretty good by the villain. He even bleeds some green stuff. He recovers later on, of course, probably because the producers of Gamera vs. Guiron weren't finished demonstrating their complete disregard for all things logical. First, the heroic turtle is on his back at the bottom of a lake and can't get up no matter how much the boys yell his name or how much he struggles. But then a giant rock hits him in the chin, a development that inexplicably gives him strength. The two battle again (hence the "vs." in the title), Gamera repeatedly racking himself and nearly teabagging Guiron before doing some gymnastics and, as one of the boys explains, "dancing go-go." I love it when Japanese monsters dance. The good guy wins, there's an improbable spaceship repair and some of the worst blue screen work you're likely to see this week, and we eventually get to a happy ending. It's really only happy because we get to see Goobjohn again.

I enjoyed the cheapo set design of the alien planet. It looked like a muted sci-fi train set. The interiors were probably borrowed from another cheap Japanese science fiction movie, and I'm sure the only requirement the casting director was looking for with the child actors was that they were well behaved enough to not run around and accidentally knock down a cardboard wall or two, an act that would have likely cost the studio tens of dollars. As Guiron tries to get to the children and destroys the building their in, large rocks fall all around and even on the children. They don't seem to harm the boys though thankfully, and that makes just as much sense as rocks falling from the ceiling of a building that looks to be made entirely of metal.

It all ends with a nice message about how the world could be a nice place without traffic accidents, the same thing Al Gore's been preaching for years. He probably saw this one actually. I don't know about you, but I was slightly aroused because of the squeaky-voiced alien chicks, even when they were threatening to "eat their brains raw." And you've got to dig the cutesy music. What is it with Japanese children's movies and irritating and inane sing-a-longs?

Ip Man 2

2012-01-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

2010 sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Ip Man moves to Hong Kong after the events of the first movie. He sets up a kung-fu school and eventually draws in a few students, but he meets resistance from the other martial arts schools in town. Meanwhile, a British thuggish boxer smashes his way into Hong Kong, insults everybody, and

Well, it's not as good as Ip Man. The first half makes a good run at it, setting up an old-school kung-fu conflict with rival martial arts schools dissing each other. It's easy to love just how good the movie looks and Donnie Yen's smooth ferocity and ridiculous speed. And then look--it's the legendary fatso Sammo Hung. When the fight choreographers just allow these guys to kick and punch at each other, things are really really good. A scene where Ip Man meets some students from one of the rival schools in an attempt to fetch one of his students from their clutches contains a lot of thrills and excitement, and Yen uses props in a way that would make Jackie Chan proud. Then, during a scene where Ip Man battles a few kung-fu masters, including the aforementioned Hung, on a wobbling table, they suddenly decide to lean back on some special effects that make the fighters look a little cartoonish. Don't get me wrong. I was entertained by the whole thing, but it was a little goofy and killed the realistic feel that a biopic like this should have. After all that is almost settled, the movie shifts gears again and turns into Rocky IV. Or whatever Rocky movie has the big mean Russian guy in it. Then, you get a guy named Darren Shahlavi chawing down on the scenery as British boxing stud Twister. He's a weirdly arrogant villain, but the ensuing fights between him and the kung-fu guys never make any sense to me. Let's see--Twister's powerful but boxing-gloved punches vs. a guy who is using his bare hands and feet? I don't care how ripped the guy is, isn't who should win the fight kind of a no-brainer? Yeah, yeah. I get it. It's all sort of symbolic anyway. There wasn't really a moment during this movie where I didn't want to be watching it, but it's definitely kind of a let-down following the great first movie.

There's an appearance by a famous guy at the tail end of this movie. I wonder if he'll be a character in the third Ip Man movie.

Leon: The Professional

2012-01-08T18:18:00.001-08:00

1994 hitman movie

Rating: 17/20 (Dylan: 18/20)

Plot: The titular hitman, an immigrant living in New York City, tries to keep a flower alive in a harsh world. After his 12-year-old neighbor's entire family is murdered by crooked D.E.A. dudes, he reluctantly takes the girl under his hairy wing and teaches her the tricks of his violent trade.

With a rating as high as this, I sort of prove that I really don't know what the hell I'm doing here. I love this movie, but it's stuffed with problems--things that I'd more than likely trash another movie for. Natalie Portman gives a fantastic performance as a young person, proving that it actually can be done. She shows a range of emotions, all realistic, and has the right face to pull off being simultaneously innocent and bad. However, is her character all that realistic? I realize that girls mature faster than guys and that the experiences in her home might cause her to be a little more sexually curious or open to violence than other 12-year-olds, but I don't completely buy the scenes where she's coming on to Leon. Gary Oldman is also brilliant, just one of those bad guy performances that is so good that you really end up wanting to root for him, but he's brilliantly hammy and very nearly crosses a line here. In a bad movie, I'd likely make fun of the performance. But the entire scene where he's directing the trashing of Mathilda's place? Everything that follows "I like these calm little moments before the storm"? Mesmerizing, one of those examples of acting where you just can't wait to see what he's going to do next. You learn a bit from his character, too. 1) Don't ruin Gary Oldman's suit because apparently he doesn't like that. 2) If Gary Oldman tells you to go inside a place, you'd better go inside a place. Oh, and 3) Gary Oldman isn't going to be killed while he's taking a dump. Jean Reno plays the title professional like he's possibly mentally challenged or, at the very least, emotionally underdeveloped, and it's the only thing that makes the parts of this story nearly a love story acceptable. The goofiness with the Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe references in a game of Charades or what has to be the worst ventriloquist act ever clashes so beautifully with the scenes of Leon working. I think, by the way, that a prequel could work where Leon hits the stage with his pig oven mitt to try to start a career in entertainment. One of the most beautiful scenes in this movie is where Portman is standing at Leon's door and begging for him to open it. "Please open the door." You know he will, probably because you've either seen the movie or you've seen a preview of the movie where the characters are walking through the streets with a plant or sharing a carton of milk. But that doesn't make the opening of that door, an act which bathes Mathilda in light for a moment, any less beautiful. Great stuff. I also really respect such a violent movie pulling it all off with a score that includes so many sleigh bells. One more little oddity: the gray guy that sits in the background of Aiello's place and doesn't do anything at all.

The Help

2012-01-07T17:51:00.001-08:00

2011 movie

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 15/20)

Plot: A woman who wants to be a writer but apparently has nothing at all to write about gets a housekeeping advice column gig at a small-town newspaper. She has a maid write the column for her. That gives her a brilliant idea--collect a bunch of maids, have them share their scatological stories, and then make that into a book. She waffles, thinking maybe it's a better idea to go with her original plan and just copy The Old Man and the Sea word-for-word and put her name on it, but eventually decides to have the maids do her work for her. Oh, I get it. They help her! The Help!

I don't imagine that I'm the audience for this movie. No, this movie is made for white women who have a whopping two hours and twenty minutes to spare, probably a white woman with a maid because white women without maids aren't going to have the time to watch the thing. This is the sort of bloated Hollywood thing made to win some awards and jerk some tears, and everything is just right about the thing. The actresses (The Help trivia: The total amount of time male characters appear on screen for this is a record low one minute and thirty-seven seconds.) act just like their supposed to, the 1960's segregated South looks just like it's supposed to, and the music sounds just like it's supposed to. And the movie takes no chances, fails to challenge, and has almost no depth, just like it's probably supposed to. You don't need substance when you're just there to provide light amusement for housewives, right? Just throw a few "raggedy asses" into the script and a poop joke that would also appeal to most fourth grade boys even though they wouldn't watch this movie on account of all the cooties. They also force-feed the audience a cutesy little catch phrase, something you can put on all the posters maybe (The Help trivia: If you cut out all times a character says "You is kind. You is smart. You is important.", the movie would actually only be forty-three minutes long.), but it just made me want to correct grammar. This is just the type of movie that people will say moved them because it was artificially constructed to do just that. I was just bored out of my mind for way too long and will likely remember nothing about this movie in a few months other than it had a lot of black people in it.

Jen let me know repeatedly that a lot of these scenes "ain't never was in no raggedy-ass book," and I think the dulcet tones of her voice kept me awake.

2011 Year in Review and Awards Post!

2011-12-31T13:39:00.000-08:00

First, the boring statistics. For the second year in a row, I watched the most movies in December (a whopping 50) as I was trying to reach the yearly goal. I watched the least movies in August (only 16) as school was starting up. Most of the latter were watched on a urine-stained couch. The year started strong with a January average rating of 14.6. The lowest-rated month was November at 10.9. The overall average this year rounds up to 13. That's .7 less than last year, but it's higher than the year before. For the 4th straight year, the rating I gave out the most was a 16/20. Last year, I didn't have a single 1/20. In 2011, I watched two. There were also only two 19/20's.

Readership: I think it's the same--4 1/2 readers. Anybody got any ideas? Maybe I'll start promoting more because the more I read myself the past couple of days in preparation for this post, the more I realized how delightfully entertaining I am.

But enough about me. You 4 1/2 readers come here for the awards.

The Billy Curtis Award (Best performance by a little person): Not a particularly strong field this year. I like Danny Devito's work in Cuckoos Nest, and Jesus Juarez is great as Aladin in Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre. I liked that little caramel-covered Indian in The Manitou, but that little bugger was actually played by a pair of little fellows--Joe Gieb and Felix Silla, both who will probably find in this blog after Googling themselves and be thrilled to come so close to winning the Billy Curtis Award. This one was really no contest though as Weng Weng jump-kicked and scooted into my heart as Agent Double-O in For Your Height Only. Whether as a fighter or a lover, a kung-fu or weapons master or a guy floating from a top floor of an apartment building with an umbrella, Weng Weng delivered the goods. Way to go, little buddy!

Most Embarrassing Thing That Happened While Shane Was Blogging in 2011 That He Probably Shouldn't Even Admit to His Readers: How much I giggled after imagining little people Googling themselves.

Best Blog Comments: Because it's really you 4 1/2 readers that make this blog the success that it is! Here are my favorite comments from the year:

"Starting off the movie club with accusations of brutality? Couldn't ask for more." (L@rstonovich)
"Ohhh snap. That plan of posting like a billion reviews almost worked. Bitch!" (my brother, after my plan to post a billion reviews to hide a movie that I was supposed to watch with him didn't work)
"I will never see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It beat Jaws for Best Picture. (Barry, bewilderingly)
"[Gump's] voice is like a cheese grater to the balls." (my brother again)
"Haven't seen it." (Barry, numerous times)
"I thought, 'Ringo doesn't cry!'" (Cory, possibly still crying himself after his failed efforts to get Ringo's autograph)
"If I didn't know any better, I would suspect you of subtly pointing out that I misspelled caricature...and you did it twice!" (a paranoid Cory...or is he?)
"If you had seen [Inception] in a theater, you would have given it a 36." (Cory)

Readers don't get to see all the comments. Anonymous comments, spam. Here are the three best ones:

"Dreadfully fine document. I just stumbled upon your weblog moreover required to reveal that I've truly enjoyed browsing your web publication posts. After all I'll be subscribing to your rss feed as a consequence I wish you compose over again before long! As a final point, permit me to thank you for your understanding with my English as (I'm convinced you have become aware this at this moment,), English is not my main tongue consequently I am utilizing Google Translate to figure out how to write down what I sincerely mean to say." (for Cars)

"You have a very good blog that the main thing a lot of interesting and useful!" (left by "Order Anti-Depressants")

"You are truly correct with this piece." (left, of course, on the Up post)

Movie That Caused Me to Suffer the Most Abuse from People Who Are Supposed to Love Me: Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas. I need a new family.

Scene That Causes Spontaneous Bits of Giddiness When I Think about It: When the guy in 127 Hours starts hallucinating and imagines that Scooby Doo is with him. That laugh!

Number of Movie Posts in Which I Confused or Asked about Alligators and Crocodiles: 6. 7 if you count this one.

Best Nipples: Leslie Nelson in Day of the Animals! The worst scene with a nipple is probably in Ichi the Killer when a nipple gets sliced off.

Best Fight Scene: So many good ones. Anything with Weng Weng could have won. The fight between a boy with a stick and an alligator (or would that be a crocodile) in Louisiana Story is really a thrilling action sequence. In Night of the Demon, you get a scene where a guy fights a stuffed animal. Leslie Nelson could take this and the nipple category with his fight against a bear in one of the most erotic movie moments I saw this year. Arnold Schwarzenegger also fights a bear in Hercules in New York, although it's really a guy in a bear suit because Arnold doesn't have Nieson's nipple power. Rat Pfink and Boo-Boo also fight a guy in a bear suit. Lots of good kung-fu action--Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen vs. a whole bunch of dudes in Ip Man, the showcase of weaponry at the end of The Legendary Weapons of Kung-fu, several fights in Master of the Flying Guillotine but especially the ones involving the guy who can extend his arms to ten feet, Super Inframan against all those guys in rubber suits. The award, however goes to Lionel and his lawnmower against all those zombies in Dead Alive. Bloodbath-o-rama!

Best Special Effect: A three-way tie because I couldn't decide between the flying horse scene in Ashik Kerib (accomplished with a spinning globe), the woman falling in Day of the Animals (accomplished with a blue screen), and the baby octopus in Octaman. I don't know how that last effect was accomplished.

Movie That Needed Mel Tillis the Most: The King's Speech. Tillis would have brought the laughs.

Number of Movies That I Think Andy Dick Might Have Been In: 17, a new shane-movies record!

Best Giant: John Aasen in Harold Lloyd's Why Worry? despite Richard Kiel's attempts to win the award by popping up in every other movie I watched in December

Best Documentary: Marwencol! Although I also loved Exit through the Gift Shop, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, Why We Fight, Brother's Keeper, Vernon Florida, and I Like Killing Flies.

The Question I Asked My Readers That I'm Disappointed None of Them Answered: Are there any movies with a Whoopi Goldberg nude scene?

The Movie That Should Have Killed Me but Didn't: Teen Wolf, which also started the Urine Couch A.M. Movie Club. All those recurring dreams of dying while van surfing? Watching this at the most dangerous motel in Indianapolis? I risked my life to see shaggy Michael J. Fox dunk basketballs in this one.
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My Favorite Thing I Wrote All Year: "I liked Jafar as a villain. . .but when he turns into a genie and starts making puns that would make C3PO groan, it was clear that the script could use some editing."

Another Time When My Readers Let Me Down: After I asked if anybody wanted to do a "Human Centipede" thing with me for Halloween, I got no responses. None! The offer's still on the table, people.

Best Puppet: I've already mentioned how much I enjoy Emmet Otter's legs, but that little furball had too much competition this year. We had creepy Hugo in Devil Doll, the skeletal creatures and sock caterpillar in Svankmajer's Alice, the wonderful Bilial in Basket Case. Heck, if I can count Mitzi Mozzarella as a puppet, there's even a sort of strip tease in that documentary about Showbiz Pizza's band! But I have to give the award for best puppet to Gordon in Follow That Bird.

Worst Puppet Omission: How could they not put Roosevelt Franklin in Follow That Bird? Is it because they already had Gordon?

Best Shane-Movies Transvestite Experience: Easy. I only had one, the interruption of American Splendor by a transvestite who first wanted stale doughnuts and later wanted to sell me a shrink-wrapped pornographic DVD for five dollars. My biggest regret of the year? Not buying that DVD.

Most Controversial Thing I Typed: "Why was Kevin Costner's wife wearing a beanie at one point?" It was the question that almost destroyed the Oprah Movie Club!

Other Favorite Things That I Wrote This Year (If you can guess the movies correctly in the comments, you can win a prize!):

1. "Next time I'm on an elevator, I'm just going to go ahead and kill everybody just to be on the safe side."
2. "I'm going to try to start my career as a battle rapper."
3. "Halitosis bonerificus!"
4. "I want breasts on my Disney princesses."
5. "I have the hots for Mary-Louise Parker. Don't tell my wife. I can type that because she only skims this crap."
6. "[A titular character] reminds me of my penis."
7. "All I want is a two-hour film in which Renee Zellweger gets beaten with a shovel."
8. "Black people are really dangerous."
9. "[This movie] was the only source Al Gore used for An Inconvenient Truth."
10. [The spanking scene in this movie] reminds me--a baseball coach at my school was telling me today that one of his players couldn't make it to practice because he injured himself by "diving onto his bed with a hard-on," hurting the member."

Amount of Tarkovsky's Movies I Watched After Announcing That I Was Going to Watch All of His Movies Back in January: None.

Number of Movies That Used "Beyond the Sea": 27. This is a real statistic!

Best Sex Scene: Another tough one! Nicolas Cage and Satan (you have to turn your head sideways and squint a little) in the otherwise dreadful Season of the Witch. The wind and door sequence in Out of the Past. The drill/robots sex in Tetsuo. Action hero Tom Griffith's bare-bottomed work in Nightbeast. The great line that ends the scene in Taoism Drunkard: "How is it? Is it comfortable?" Silvano Venturelli and everybody else in The Lickerish Quartet movie. Nic Cage again in Deadfall, a scene with just him and a bed. The scene in Taxidermia that includes a hole in the wall of a barn, lubricant, and a rooster. Bilial in Basket Case or the Fleshapoids with their finger lightning in that Kuchar movie. Those were all good and very very erotic, but the scene that takes the prize? Ashik Kerib's sex scene in which a clown covers a couple with a sheet before a couple guys blow horns and a couple more guys release a bunch of doves. That one wins because it was in a children's movie.

Most Erotic Movie Moment That Isn't Really a Sex Scene: Catherine Keener's delivery of the line "We'll see" in Being John Malkovich. Oh, there's also that scene in The Cat in the Hat where Kelly Preston vacuums somebody. That's hot. And of course, Tippi and those birds.

Best Masturbation Scene in a Motion Picture: C'mon. I still have this award? Somebody needs to take this blog away from me! I would have thought that Natalie Portman, in what would undoubtedly be her proudest moment as an actress, would win this one easily with her masturbation work in The Black Swan. It definitely beats the Randy Quaid/dildo opener of Another Teen Movie and John C. Reilly's work in Cyrus. Crispin Glover doesn't masturbate on screen, but his line about how he doesn't masturbate in Fast Sofa is close enough: "I've never done that. . .thing. That thing with the dolphins and the ponies." There's implied masturbation of a tire in Rubber which is great, and it's fun watching John Waters watching Chucky masturbate in Seed of Chucky ("A masturbating midget!"). But this is all Taxidermia's award for its opening scene (that's right--it opens with this) where a guy ejaculates fire. Sorry, Natalie Portman. Maybe you can try again and win next year!

Movies That Made Me Cry: Make Way for Tomorrow, Edward Scissorhands, Toy Story, Cars, Yellow Brick Road, The Illusionist, Waste Land, Anvil: The Story of Anvil

Best Stunt: The bike stunt from Bad Ronald

Worst Child Actor: Mike "Boys have penises; girls have a vagina" Hughes would take this easily for his work in Kindergarten Cop but had the disadvantage of acting next to Arnold Schwarzenegger which made him look not as bad. Milton Davis Jr. is terrible in Angels in the Outfield, but at least I was convinced he was really a black kid. He pulled off "black kid" pretty well. The kid who played Bodo in Watch on the Rhine though? Eric Roberts couldn't even convince this viewer that he was a kid! A truly awful and irritating performance.

Best Sound Effect: It's got to be the hiccup from Hukkle, my second favorite movie from this year. Although I did like the final sounds in Mongolian Ping Pong and some grunting the The Saragossa Manuscript as well.

Best Monster: This category is tough every year. I'm going with the Watermelon Monster from Taoism Drunkard, but look at these other contenders: the Demon in Night of the Demon, the titular creatures in Attack of the Eye Creatures, Larry Buchanan's other monsters in Zontar--The Thing from Venus and Curse of the Swamp Monster (the monster in the latter is mostly recycled from It's Alive! though), the little uvula-stealing demon in that Miike movie, the Umbrella Monster in that Yokai Monsters movie, rubbery-blubbery Yongary, all those rubber-suited guys in Super Inframan, Ortega from Mixed-Up Zombies, the fearful Manitou, the bunny-exploding tire from Rubber, Octaman, Gooby. That's a nightmarish collection of monsters!

Best Musical Movie Moment: You've got Joe Pesci singing Chuck Berry, a wicked dancing scene in the Greek Dogtooth, another great dance number in Godard's Band of Outsiders, the guy singing "If I Only Had a Brain" in Yellow Brick Road, the piano mayhem near the end of Hausu, Bad Boy Bubby's punk antics? They're all good, but this is the actor known as Lucky Ron's award for his work in Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. His scene as Blind Jimmy Leper is a short one. He enters, scats, and is gone, never (as of right now) making another movie appearance. I'm guessing it's because he knew that he had climaxed, that nothing he ever did again would come close to touching this scene.

Best Animated Movie: Out of the ones I had not previously seen, The Illusionist takes it easily. Beautiful, beautiful movie. I also liked A Town Called Panic, Idiots and Angels, Rango, and Blood and Red String.

Weirdest Thing in Any Movie I Saw This Year: The face groping thing that John Travolta does in Face/Off. What the hell is that?

Best Movie Quote of the Year (not said by Nicolas Cage or Crispin Glover): See if you can guess the movie! No prizes though.

"God called us here to shoot this movie, and we're going to shoot this movie--camera or no camera!"
"You want a taste of my sewage pipe?"
"I am using abdominal language to joke with you."
"And the omelet stinks!"
"Hi, doggy!"
"Have you seen a five-year-old boy, blond hair, and he's wearing a t-shirt that says "bullshit" on it?"
"Remember, Boo-Boo, we only have one weakness--guns!"
"You shouldn't have been from Minneapolis."
"I haven't seen any goats!"
"You're quite a good chicken strangler."
"I'll be like, what time is it? Five o'clock? Damn. Time to rape me some fine bitches." (This one is really special and the one I'll most likely quote at dinner parties.)
"I've seen amputees with better hands than this."
"He had a lot of ukuleles in his trunk."
"Our Father, who art in heaven, you made a jackass out of me for years!" (Leslie Nelson again!)
"Let's shag ass."

Best Nicolas Cage Moment: In a year that included the ongoing Summer of Nicolas Cage, this isn't going to be an easy choice. Watch Vampire's Kiss or Deadfall in their entirety, and you will see Cage at his very best. The reciting of the ABC's and the "I'm a vampire!" scenes in the former and the "What am I--a fucking retard? Huh?" delivery or the awesome karate kick in the latter? Movie magic. Stuff like that is why we watch movies! Other great Nic Cage moments:

"Banana nut--that's a good muffin." (His real best performance in Adaptation. Heck, there are two of him!)
"You know, I can eat a peach for hours." (from Face/Off, and I'd like to meet the woman who isn't turned on by those words)
"Have you ever been taken to the sidewalk and beaten until you pissed blood?" (magical moment from Matchstick Men)
Dozens of Nic Cages on screen at the same time in Next (actually, that's not as euphoric as you'd think)
His sex scene in Drive Angry where he smokes a cigar, drinks whiskey, kills garden-utensil-wielding Satan worshippers, and screws a woman simultaneously
Cage and Tom Waits on the screen at the same time in Rumblefish

Best Scene Featuring an Animal: A cow is eviscerated in Viva La Muerte, rats jump on Roger Barnes' face in Day of the Animals, a guy calls a turtle a gopher in Vernon Florida, Crispin Glover flips out over a bird in Fast Sofa, a turtle is torn to pieces is Cannibal Holocaust, Paris Hilton's face falls off in Repo Man: The Musical, and Gooby wafts his fart. The best animal scene is the elephant funeral in Santa Sangre though. It's one of those can't-believe-this-exists things.

Best Actress: Anna Karina is just so pretty in Band of Outsiders. I just want to squeeze her. Again, I can type things like that because there's no way my wife (or anybody for that matter) will read it. Jennifer Tilly's work in both Seed of Chucky and especially Fast Sofa can't be ignored. Crispin Glover's mom in Willard (Jackie Burroughs) is really awesome, too. But the Best Actress award goes to Helen Lloyd Breed for her one line in Vampire's Kiss. To stand out in a movie where Nicolas Cage is that Nicolas Cagey is award worthy.

Best Actor (Nicolas Cage and Crispin Glover Aren't Allowed in This Category): I saw a lot of my favorites this year--Matti Pellonpaa, Paul Benedict, Klaus Kinski, Peter Stormare. I think David Thewlis in Naked is about as great as it gets, and Richard Beckwith's work as a medium in Night of the Demon really has to be seen to be believed. I really wanted to give this award to Fred Kaz for his work as Noah in ...And God Spoke: The Making of. But Tom Hardy in Bronson was just too mesmerizing and powerful to not win this one.

The Torgo Award (Best Worst Acting Performance): I really would like a woman to win this award some day. Same with the Billy Curtis! And Linda Watkins almost did it as the neighbor in Bad Ronald, most impressive because she doesn't even have a single line! Jake Busey came on strong at the end of the year with the crap he threw on the screen in Fast Sofa. The guys who played "Jim" and "Uncle Dave" in The Attack of the the Eye Creatures (my favorite on-screen error of the year) and Nightbeast were just awful, and believe it or not, Tom Waits could have won this award for his wackiness in Cold Feet ("I'd like some cowpoke stuff."). Arnold delivers a bad performance in Hercules in New York and an even worse one in Kindergarten Cop. But there's just no way anybody is beating Tommy Wiseau in this category. I have trouble imagining anybody being worse than he was in The Room.

The Manos (Best Worst Movie): Tommy Wiseau again with The Room. Not that there wasn't stiff competition. Buchanan's Eye Creatures, Zontar, and Swamp Monster could all three have given him a chance to win his second Manos in a year where I didn't watch The Room. Ray Dennis Steckler's Rat Pfink and Incredibly Strange Creatures are both solid pieces of inept filmmaking. Nightbeast, The Manitou, Hercules in New York, Bad Ronald, Octaman, Day of the Animals. I loved all of those. But they all have one problem--they're not Tommy Wiseau's The Room and therefore can't win the Manos for 2011.

Worst Movie (Bad Worst Movie): Well, I saw The Cat in the Hat on the Urine Couch. No need to count any ballots this year.

Best Movies of the Year (in no particular order): Note--this excludes Naked, Do the Right Thing, Alice, Goodfellas, Rope, Psycho, The Birds, The Royal Tenenbaums, Enter the Dragon (a 20/20 if I ever saw one!), Being John Malkovich, Edward Scissorhands, Double Indemnity, Punch-Drunk Love, Adaptation, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Santa Sangre, Out of the Past, Toy Story, and any other movie I'd previously seen. This is a list of Best Movies New to Shane:

Hukkle
Taxidermia
Make Way for Tomorrow
Ip Man
Ace in the Hole
Ivan's Childhood
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
The Cremator
Lenny
Irreversible
The Saragossa Manuscript
Tree of Life
Witness for the Prosecution
The Social Network
Vampire's Kiss

Very Best Movie I Saw This Year: Werckmeister Harmonies

Favorite Crispin Glover Moment: His answer to his mother's "What are you doing in there?" question in Willard: "I'm going potty!"

Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses

2011-12-29T21:20:00.000-08:00

1994 sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: It's five years after the Cowboys do America, and the titular worst band in the world have fallen on hard times in Mexico. Tequila has taken the lives of some of the bandmates and gotten the rest of them in trouble. A savior arrives, Vladimir the manager returning after abandoning them at the end of the last movie and "never being heard from again." He's renamed himself Moses and promises to help get the Cowboys back to their native land. Promised land, I guess. Before they depart for Europe, Vladimir steals the Statue of Liberty's nose for reasons that are never explained very well.

What better way to finish off a year of movies than with an Aki Kaurismaki movie? This isn't as solid as the first Leningrad Cowboy movie unfortunately, but it does have my favorite actor Matti Pellonpaa in it and a scattering of funny bits. The musical numbers are all pretty good, my favorite being the one sung by "Elijah," the guy who's chasing them around for most of the movie trying to steal back the nose. That song ("Kili Watch") is just pure bliss. There's a lot of Biblical satire here, some which doesn't work at all. Pellonpaa's quoting of the Bible ("You shall not eat any disgusting thing. Also, you should not cook a kid in his mother's milk." [Wheezy laugh]) is great. The burning bush or water-from-the-rock scenes are a little too silly and random. This is filled with enough absurd comedy to make it worthwhile for fans of the first movie or for Aki Kaurismaki in general, but it's not exactly a great movie.

Hercules in New York

2011-12-29T20:30:00.000-08:00

1969 action comedy

Rating: 4/20

Plot: The titular demigod is bored with life in Olympus, so his father Zeus lightning-bolts him to New York City to teach him a lesson. While in the Big Apple, he becomes a successful wrestler and competitive weightlifter with the help of a nerdy streetwise guy named Pretzie and gets himself a girlfriend. Meanwhile, Zeus sends Mercury and Nemesis to retrieve him.

This is worth watching for fans of Arnold Strong as this is his first film appearance. Or Arnold Stang fans, I guess, if there are any of them out there. I liked him in The Man with the Golden Arm enough. But back to Schwarzenegger, the real star of this show. With the screen presence this guy has in this movie, I'm really surprised he didn't have more of a career in movies. Seems like he could have had a nice career as an action hero or something even though the acting he does in this is embarrassing. He's worse in Kindergarten Cop actually. Here, he doesn't have to do much acting. He just has to be big and strong, and he does a fine job of doing that. Now, the version I watched has Arnold Strong dubbed, allegedly because he was unintelligible when delivering the wonderful dialogue that was written for him. The voice used is odd since we all know what Schwarzenegger sounds like. I watched some bits and pieces of the non-dubbed version for comparison purposes, and Arnold's heavily-accented voice would have been pretty brutal for the duration of this one. Honestly, I think this is kind of a cute idea for a movie, and writer Aubrey Wisberg got a lot of the mythology right. This, by the way, was her last writing credit. The writing's bad, but it's the inept direction that really makes this one special. The poster brags about this being filmed almost entirely in New York. Well, they really should have located a more isolated location for the Olympus scenes since you can hear traffic in the background while Zeus and Juno are bickering. The pacing of the story's awkward. Even more awkward is the amount of screen time devoted to Arnold Strong just standing around flexing. The most awkward of those is when he spots a movie poster as he's walking down the street with his lady friend and starts griping that the actor doesn't even look like him. Of course, he takes off his shirt and starts flexing in order to prove it to her. But the scene that makes this movie? Arnold Schwarzenegger fighting a guy in a bear suit! I had to rewind and watch that epic battle twice just to make sure I really saw it.

Side note: I wish Arnold Schwarzenegger would have stuck with Arnold Strong. It's a lot easier to spell.

Tangled

2011-12-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

2010 Disney movie

Rating: 15/20 (Jennifer: 18/20; Emma: 20/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Poor Rapunzel. Her fake mother keeps her trapped in a lonely tower in order to take care of the Fountain-of-Youth-like powers of her golden tresses. She watches floating lanterns on her birthday every year, not even aware that they're released by the king and queen for her. A handsome thief stumbles upon her tower while fleeing from a horse, and she sees him as her chance to see the world for the first time.

It's amazing how lively and fresh this one seems for something that borrows so heavily from all the other Disney princess movies. You've got very similar stock fairy tale characters, an anthropomorphized animal sidekick, a big romantic "Whole-New-World-Boat-Ride-Ballroom" scene, action scenes that seem like they could be identical to action scenes from other Disney movies. But this one puts all these pieces together in a way that really works and gives this one some vibrancy. I really like most of the characters. Rapunzel's now getting my vote for hottest Disney princess with those cute big eyes and beautiful hair that she can use to tie you to a chair with if she's feeling frisky. And a makeover at the end makes her even cuter! The guy's that typical bad-guy-only-on-the-outside type, but he's at least a hero you can root for from the beginning until the end of this one. The animated couple has good chemistry, and their developing romance feels more real here, probably because Disney gives it more of a modern spin to appeal more to contemporary kids, than in most of their princess movies. The "mother" bad guy is funny as that typical overly-judgemental and overly-protective mother, and I thought the anthropomorphized horse was fun. This story moves briskly, has action and humor, and has some lovely computer animation. My only complaint would be with the songs which I thought were just awful, the only exception being the big "Dream" number in the pub filled with ruffians. That was a fun scene and included voice work by Brad Garrett, Jeffrey Tambor, and Richard Kiel. That's right--another Richard Kiel spotting.

And now, here's how I'd rank the Disney princesses by how much I would, if I were a cartoon man, want to have sex with them:

1) Rapunzel
2) Mulan
3) Jasmine
4) Ariel with legs and no voice
5) Belle
6) Pocahontas (I've not seen her movie though)
7) Tiana
8) Cinderella pre-transformation
9) Ariel with no legs and a voice
10) Aurora
11) Cinderella after the transformation
12) Snow White

It should be noted that if the fairy godmother counted as a Disney Princess, she would be between Ariel and Jasmine.

How's my list compare to yours?

Fantasy Mission Force

2011-12-29T18:57:00.000-08:00

1982 action movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: It's World War II, and the Japanese, while attempting to take over the world, have already captured the leaders of France, Germany, England, and America. The latter, it should be mentioned, is Abraham Lincoln. Officials get together to find somebody who can save them and decide that Lieutenant Don Wen is their man. Rejected heroes: "Snake" Plissken, James Bond (the Roger Moore one, if you care), and Rocky Balboa who is not suitable for military action. Wen assembles a ragtag crew to save the world.

Lots of weirdness here with varying degrees of entertainment value. First, if you really need a coherent plot with your action movies, you've just got to avoid this one. It's episodic, and none of the individual episodes really go together in a way that makes sense. Not only that, the individual scenes don't really make much sense on their own. Not to say that this doesn't entertain because bits and pieces of it manage to do just that. You get a musical number, some Benny Hill speeded-up weirdness, a bunch of masked flying Amazon women wielding ribbons, Jackie Chan fighting while holding a chicken, some hopping zombie things, disembodied hands and ghost women in a haunted house, and some Nazi Japanese riding on hoopties that look like they're straight out of a post-apocalyptic action flick. I expected Mel Gibson to waltz in and demand gasoline or something. Almost all of the humor in this falls completely flat, and the characters aren't really interesting at all. Except one: Brigitte Lin's (Bride with White Hair) great as Lily, all in leather and thigh-high boots, winning drinking contests like Indiana Jones' girlfriend and waxing acrobatically. She's fun to watch, as is a fight sequence with Jackie Chan (not really the star of this, by the way) at the end. Ultimately, this one is just too confusing and goofy to be completely entertaining. I'm also pretty positive that this isn't really all that historically accurate either.

The Last Broadcast

2011-12-29T18:25:00.000-08:00

1998 horror mockumentary

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A documentarian attempts to get to the bottom of the gruesome murders of some public access show hosts looking for the Jersey Devil. It's horrifying!

I want to get settled right off the bat--the only thing that this movie has in common with the far superior Blair Witch Project is that they both have a lot of trees in them. Only a small portion of this is found footage stuff. The rest is complex and gimmicky with all kinds of television trickery and those big sound effects you hear when you're watching those television expose things. The guy making the documentary got on my nerves and misused the word "ironic," and the acting from the rest of the cast was just not good enough to carry this thing. Things get repetitious and tiresome, and there's not a single moment of this where there's any real tension or scares. By the time we get to the big twist at the end, things stop making sense almost entirely. Not only that, it confuses matters by breaking its own pseudo-documentary rules. If anything, this made me appreciate the brilliance of Blair Witch even more. The simplicity of that one, and Paranormal Activity as well, is what makes that one successful. The makers of this one bite off way more than they can chew, and they end up with a big mess.

The Garbage Pail Kids

2011-12-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

1987 garbage pail movie

Rating: 3/20

Plot: A frequently-bullied, delusional kid accidentally frees the seven disgusting titular puppets from their garbage pail prison in a magician's antique store. They wreak havoc in disgusting and unfunny ways.

This came very close to being the first movie in the nearly four year history of this blog to be too embarrassing for me to admit that I watched. I could attempt to justify spending an hour and a half with this movie, one without a single redeeming value, by saying, "Well, I've seen it on some 'Worst Movie of All Time' lists, and I'm on a quest to find the worst movie of all time," but that wouldn't make it any less embarrassing. I could say, "Well, you know. It had puppets in it" or "Hey, I was watching it ironically!" or a variety of other things that would make it a little closer to OK that I watched this, but I don't think anything could make it OK that I watched this. Don't get me wrong! I did learn a couple valuable lessons from this thing: 1) Don't shake hands with Messy Tessy. 2) Don't watch anymore movies produced by the Topps baseball card company. Apparently, there is something more difficult to digest than that nasty gum they included in those card packs. Farts, projectile vomit, puppet rapping. If somebody shoved a copy of this into an 80's time capsule, likely to get rid of it so that none of their friends would catch them with it, then whoever digs that up is going to likely want to invent a time machine just to go back to the mid-80s and eliminate the race of man before this movie or any movie like it could be made. Here, I'll tell you a story to illustrate just how painful and embarrassing the experience of watching this movie is: I saw a can of Pepsi yesterday, remembered that the Pepsi company had for whatever reason decided to include a little product placement in this movie, remembered that I had watched this movie a few days ago, and attempted suicide by running head first into a cement wall. So this movie, out of the hundreds that I've seen and written about on this blog, came the closest to ending my life. True story.

For Your Height Only

2011-12-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

1981 little person James Bond

Rating: 5/20

Plot: The evil Mr. Giant has kidnapped some scientist and is planning on using him for some evil plan that never made any sense to me. There's only one little guy who can stop him and his band of ruffians--Agent Double-O! Mayhem ensues.

I've also seen the title of this as For Y'ur Height Only. I'm going to go ahead and go with what's on the poster since, you know, it's actually a real word and all.

A story behind this movie made me laugh. Apparently, Imelda Marcos put together the Manila International Film Festival as a way of showing off Filipino culture. Only one film sold though--this one! I'm sure that made Marcos proud.

This has one heck of a body count. Star Weng Weng (pronounced Wang Wang) kills about as many bad guys as James Bond does in all of those movies combined, I think. He does it with his guns, sure, but also with his lethal little hands and feet. As ridiculous as it might seem to have an action star of his stature (2'9", the shortest leading actor ever [Troyer, by the way, is actually an inch shorter but has never had a starring role.]), the guy moves fluidly, packs a tiny but strong-looking punch, and performs his stunts admirably. I assume it's Weng Weng doing his own stunts anyway. I doubt they found a 2'9" stunt double. That the fight scenes don't look completely ridiculous is really pretty impressive. Well, let me clarify. There are multiple scenes involving Weng Weng scooting across the floor and shooting people. It's like his signature move. And it's cool and all, but he's got to be covered in butter or something in order for that to happen. Still, I'm not knocking this little guy's action chops, and if you saw this bitchin' jump/kick/shoot thing, you wouldn't either. The makers utilize Weng Weng's stature to the fullest, and part of his spy skills involve him being able to get into places that spies of a regular stature wouldn't be able to squeeze into. One great scene involves Weng Weng climbing through an opening at the top of a fence. A pedestrian (an actual pedestrian, not a film extra) spots him and looks really confused. Mostly, this is played pretty straight with more than its fair share of sight gags. Sure, there's some silliness. For one, it rips off the James Bond theme which seems pretty ballsy to me. There's a Stooge-esque pie-throwing scene, an X-ray glasses gag that ended with Weng Weng covering his mouth to conceal a Pillsbury giggle (legendary, by the way), a scene involving a lethal flying hat that ended with that same giggle, and a scene where he uses a jet pack that forced me to conceal a little giggle. Other silliness involving a telecommunications device that is essentially a mirror with lights around it with a nearby action figure, the surprise of seeing the main villain Mr. Giant for the first time near the end of the movie, and a scene straight from Mary Poppins that had to have been extremely dangerous for the little dummy they used in Weng Weng's place made it difficult to take this seriously as an action movie. The numerous scenes where Weng Weng essentially trips a villain and incapacitates him also don't seem all that realistic. The real nuttiness is with the dubbing or poorly translated dialogue. I'm sure it's poorly translated anyway because I'm sure the people responsible for writing For Your Height Only had a top-notch script that would make the Philippines and Imelda Marcos proud. But check out these gems:

"Don't be a nosy Parker, Paco."
"Talk! Talk or you'll eat lead!" (Actually, you need to hear the dubbed bad guy voices. They all sound like they're straight out of 1950's gangster movies.
(Weng Weng's boss when going over the weapons/gadgets) "I like how you pay attention."

Or take this dialogue:

Big boss man: Nobody could begin to guess. There's a lot of dough in this dough. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Happy pushing. Happy pushing. The boss says to cover every kindergarten...and sandbox. We're gonna teach them something about pleasure.
A subordinate: Yeah, but what if Double-O should appear, huh?
Big boss man: You blast him into another world. You kill him. There's always a way.

This was another nice exchange, and I wonder if the translators rhymed intentionally or not:

Subordinate: He's a mass killer, that Double-O. Who will be the next to go?
Big boss man: I said shut your hole!

Or the line after they find a signalling device on the hot little female spy? "So this is how you communicate with your little Weng." Come on! Remember, it's pronounced to rhyme with dang.

Another good one:

Guy 1: That little man has done it to us again. He's made a monkey out of the forces of evil. He's as slippery as an eel. How the devil do you hold on to an eel?
Guy 2: To be beaten by a lousy eel! We must get him at all cost!
Guy 3: I declare war on that little stinker!

But nothing beats this exchange which might be the best dialogue I've ever heard in a Filipino little person spy movie:

Woman: You're a great person, ya know.
Weng Weng: You don't have to say. It ain't the size. It's the way you use it.
Woman: Maybe, but are you a sexual animal?
Weng Weng: I don't know.
Woman: I'm crazy about you, Agent Double-O. Why, I don't know. Maybe it's the way you strut your stuff. You know sex is like tequila. Take one sip and you're a goner.
Weng Weng: Shall we get it on?
Woman: Yes, darling. Bare your bod.

All in all, I really enjoyed this fun little (no pun intended) movie and look forward to seeing this pint-sized badass ("Pettite, like a potato," as one character says) in the handful of other actioners he starred in.

Witness for the Prosecution

2011-12-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

1957 courtroom drama

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: Sir Wilfrid isn't supposed to be taking any stressful cases following a heart attack. Of course, he's not supposed to be drinking or smoking cigars either. So when a juicy murder case falls into his lap, he can't help himself. Married inventor Leonard Vole has been arrested for the murder of an old woman. He claims he's innocent, and his wife helps back up an alibi. But when the trial begins and the wife takes the stand as the main titular witness for the prosecution, things might get more stressful than Sir Wilfrid imagined.

This Wilder/Christie piece is an enormously entertaining courtroom drama with a little dark humor thrown in. It'll appeal if you're looking for a twisty and turny mystery or if you're looking for a fun character study. Charles Laughton's Wilfrid is just the type of character I really like--kinda violent and really surly, the old guy I'll eventually be provided I live that long. Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich get top billing here, but this is really Laughton's show, especially in the early going. Don't get me wrong--Dietrich is really good, too, in this multi-dimensional role. Power? He could have been anybody and probably gets in the way too much if you want to be honest. The writing sparkles, lots of wit and irony. One line that I liked was when Laughton compliments Vole by telling him he thinks like a criminal. Pretty brilliant writing. The twists in this work which is really something considering how much time has passed and how much stuff like this has been duplicated. I won't type anymore because that poster up there is telling me not to. The poster up there also calls this "the most electrifying entertainment of our time," and although I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate, everything Billy Wilder does could be described as electric and entertaining. Subtly electric!

I should point out that Jennifer claimed right after the opening credits that she had the whole mystery figured out. She wouldn't elaborate, probably because she didn't want to ruin things for me. At the end of the movie, after the last big twist, she started laughing maniacally and then ran circles in the yard.

Fast Sofa

2011-12-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

2001 movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Gary Busey's son cheats on his girlfriend with a porn actress and then embarks on a road trip to meet said porn actress at a shoot. Along the way, he picks up a bird-obsessed virgin named Jules, and they have some adventures.

So do you think I watched this for the Jennifer Tilly bondage scenes or the Crispin Glover? Either way, I would have left satisfied. If I had watched this for some kind of plot, I would have been completely disappointed though. There is a lot of Crispin though, red-headed and lazy-eyed. It's a juicy part for him, a neurotic character with all kinds of opportunities to be awkward and strange. His best moment is a freak-out in a bird shop, but he gets a great line with "I've never done that. . .thing. That thing with the dolphins and the ponies." And of course he's talking about masturbation. If you're a Crispin Glover fan, you probably need to watch this just to get the chance to watch him bowl. And if you're a fan of Jennifer Tilly's boobs, you need to see this because there's some screen time for them. You don't get to see Jennifer Tilly bowl though, so don't get overly excited. And if you're a fan of Jake Busey? Well, you must like terrible acting, and with his performance here, you are getting the best of the worst. Not only is he a bad actor, he doesn't really get anything to work with. Nothing he does seems natural anyway, but when he's telling his girlfriend that something is in the refrigerator and then adding that it's "in the kitchen"? Or when he's answering Adam Goldberg's gripe about some sunglasses ("They're too big and they say 'Disco' all over them.") with "Those glasses rule!"? Or when he's justifying cheating on his girlfriend by saying, "It's nothing to do with us. It was crucial and hilarious." I'm not making that up. Somebody wrote that for Jake Busey to say. "It's crucial and hilarious." Not only that, he uses the word "crucial" at least two other times, once in trying to convince Crispin Glover's character to drink water. Later, he defends pornography by saying, "It's hilarious. It's porno. That's what America's about--Freedom." Porn is apparently hilarious but not crucial. Despite a wide variety of flaws, I enjoyed watching Fast Sofa. I would have enjoyed it more without the artsy and pointless split screen stuff that dominated the second half of the movie although without it, I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to see more than one Crispin Glover on my screen at the same time.

Enter the Dragon

2011-12-27T14:37:00.000-08:00

1973 kung-fu spy movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Bruce Lee's recruited to participate in a martial arts tournament on an island to check out what's really going on there with Han, an alleged criminal with an array of fake hands. He meets some new friends and kicks some ass.

Less a traditional chop-suey flick than a James Bond-esque excursion with Bruce's pectoral and abdomen muscles replacing 007's gimmicks. This movie actually doesn't need a plot; it's all about Bruce Lee's presence. Whenever Lee's on the screen in this, it's impossible to take your eyes off him. You don't even want to blink. He's just so quick and so powerful, and his every gesture is like a work of art. Lee's the focus of Enter the Dragon, and he fills the screen, always right in the center. And I'm not a homosexual or anything, but what a physical specimen this guy was. Enter the Dragon takes a while to build with all this plot stuff and character development getting in the way, but it's all undeniably cool. You get a cool cast with Chinese Hercules himself Bolo Yeung, a different kind of physical specimen but always fun to see; Robert Wall, one of the seventh funkiest white men to ever live; super-suave John Saxon; cooler-than-cool black samurai Jim Kelly; and the nearly-recognizable Kien Shih/Shih Kien with all those "hand" weapons including, I think, a rake attachment. How cool would a Han action figure be, by the way? One Han gripe: He swipes at Bruce Lee pretty well and scratches him up a bit, the only character in the movie to really do any damage to the hero. There's one scene where he sneaks up behind him and cat-scratches him. Why didn't he just stab him there? Once the action in this one gets going, it's a lot of fun watching Bruce Lee slink around, but the real excitement comes in the thrilling final twenty-five minutes, building to a Lady of Shanghai-like hall of mirrors sequence which would have caused me to cream my jeans if I hadn't just seen him doing his nunchaku thang a few minutes earlier and already shot my wad. And if I even owned a pair of jeans to cream. Some early philosophical mumbo-jumbo doesn't distract from the central message of Enter the Dragon: Bruce Lee is a total badass.

Dragon Wars: D-War

2011-12-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

2007 fightin' dragon movie

Rating: 4/20

Plot: A reporter who coincidentally happens to be the reincarnation of a wizard's nipple investigates some dragon business. He has to locate Sarah, the reincarnation of some dragon princess or something, in order to save Los Angeles from dragon fury. D-War!

It looks as if South Korea spent a ton to make this movie which possibly makes them some of the dumbest people on earth. Here's how the pitch probably went:

Guys with idea for a dragon movie: OK, so we need approximately a zillion dollars.
Studio executive: A zillion dollars? (taps pen on desk) That seems like an awful lot of money.
Guys with idea for a dragon movie: Well, we've got a golden idea!
Studio executive: Fine, let's here what you've got.
Guys with zillion dollar dragon movie idea: OK, so it's called Dragon Wars and the whole thing's about these. . .
Studio executive: (breaking pen in half with excited fingers) Hold on right there! Did you say Dragon Wars? We're in!

Because who needs a story, right? You've got fucking dragons fighting in Los Angeles! All you need are some big special effects, some loud noises, and an audience dumb enough to pay for movie tickets. This certainly is a big, loud movie. And you know what? I'm just going to say it. People who enjoy this movie are probably really dumb. I don't even care if I just offended any of my 4 1/2 readers. I don't feel like wasting time typing coherent thoughts, so here's a list of this movie's offenses in no particular order:

--Two narrators within the first three minutes--that's two narrators too many!
--At 6:45, we get a flashback. At 11:20, we get a flashback for the character who is having a flashback. Then, a little later, there's a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. Come on! I can't keep up with all that!
--Imoogi. Enough said. The thing's called Imoogi.
--Quick edits during the action scenes made me dizzy and sick to my stomach.
--The bad guy makes me laugh everything that I see him. He's taking his bad-guy-ness way too seriously and should not be walking around Los Angeles dressed like that. And his magic sword thing? I really got sick of seeing that one.
--Terrible acting that doesn't mesh with the big, big effects. You'll have a giant dragon bursting through a building, and then, not exactly with good timing, a very staged reaction. It's almost like there wasn't even a real giant dragon!
--A kissing scene on the beach? Sure, why not?
--The special effects are ugly and unnatural. The dragon slithering through streets left blurs of damage, but it didn't look good at all. The dragon stuff looked fine. The setting detail around the dragons? Not so much.
--There's a fucking dragon wrecking Los Angeles and nobody seems to know about it? What the hell? The characters say, "There was a rumor that a dragon knocked down an entire hospital but we can't verify it." That doesn't make any sense!

At one point, one of the characters says, "None of this makes sense." I agreed completely. I never thought I'd find a movie that made me wish I was watching one of the Transformers, but this one did. This movie made me angry, and I don't think I'll be seeing a Korean monster movie for a very long time after this trio of crappy movies.

Yongary, Monster from the Deep

2011-12-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

1967 monster movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Yongary, a monster from the deep, is awakened and goes on a rampage, inspiring a video game with the same name. Rampage. The South Korean people do their best impression of scared Japanese people and flee before trying to fight the thing with toy tanks. [SPOILER ALERT!] And itching powder.

I thought I'd go ahead and make it a trifecta of Korean monster movies since nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit more than Korean monster movies. This baby's from South Korean, and nobody, as far as I know, was kidnapped and ordered to make this movie. Nope, somebody made Yongary on his own which, in a way, is even sadder. This is a really cheap production, presumably because South Korea is poor. I can understand a production company not being able to afford a real rocket, or even a realistic rocket, but to not be able to afford a real sky? The miniatures in this are charming. My favorite thing about those is how there are some things that don't even need to be fake that for some reason still are. I guess they wanted everything to look fake. I'm not sure which is worse actually--the miniatures or the big lizard. Actually, maybe things are really made like that in South Korea, so I'm not even sure I can knock the miniatures, but that Yongary needs to eat more. He's very rubbery and way too skinny and for most for the majority of the movie, he shows no personality at all. Until a scene where he starts dancing that is. I'm not sure what's going on there. I'm also not real sure what was going on with the editing in some of these scenes. There's one where you see a blue jeep driving along and then it cuts to one of the passengers making a face. Then, you hear a screeching tire sound before the vehicle makes a fiery tumble down a cliff. And then you hear the screeching tire sound again. Another weird scene--at about the 51 minute mark a character says his line twice, almost like they cut and reshot that part and forgot to remove one of them. I can forgive all that though, especially since I knew exactly what I was getting into with an especially cheap rubber monster movie. What I can't forgive is the child actor in this one, a kid who had me screaming at my screen, "C'mon, Yongary! Get him! Get that little bastard!" I don't have any tolerance when it comes to bad child acting anyway, but this kid was especially unpleasant. Also bothersome [SPOILER ALERT!]: a ridiculous and silly ending in which itching powder of all things does the monster from the deep in. Itching powder? Come on! Not only itching powder though. No, this is itching powder that apparently leads to rectal bleeding. Oh, well. At least it made the kid sad for a while. Not long though because he was back to grinning like a moron a few seconds later. I would have liked to have seen more of the filthy "Repent, you sinners!" guy, by the way. If there's a sequel to this silliness, he should be given a more prominent role.

Pulgasari

2011-12-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

1985 monster movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: In an oppressive regime, a jailed blacksmith makes a doll out of rice, probably because he doesn't have anything else to do. When that doll comes in contact with the blacksmith's daughter's blood, it comes to life, and when it starts eating metal, it grows to an immense and destructive size.

The story behind the making of this is probably more interesting than the movie. The South Korean director, Shin Sang-ok, was kidnapped by North Korea, orders from none other than Kim Jong Il. And then he was forced to make this movie with the help of folk from Toho studio. The movie itself is really kind of dull, a boring entry in the guy-in-rubber-suit-wreaking-havoc genre. The thinly-veiled communism allegory makes it all a little more interesting, but the monster itself is a little stiff and without much personality. The adult Pulgasari anyway, as the little baby one that munches on sewing needles and door locks is about as cute as a fierce monster can be. He's also possibly retarded, and I can justify the use of that word here because what Kim Jong Il did in his career as a dictator is a whole lot worse. This has some really poor fight scenes with all those 1970's martial arts movie sound effects. The whole thing has a much older feel actually, so much that I wondered just how long Kim Jong Il had been in power before noticing this movie comes from the mid-80s. The movie takes a very long time to get going and as a whole is nearly as stiff as Pulgasari. I'll say this though--I was impressed with the amount of extras involved in this production. The battle scenes were epic!

True Stories

2011-12-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

1986 movie

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 10/20)

Plot: Talking Head David Byrne visits a Texas town on its sesquicentennial as its inhabitants prepare for a talent show. One of those inhabitants, Louis Fyne, looks for love.

Band Radiohead nabbed its name from this movie.

This is a mess of a movie, but it's an interesting enough failure, probably one that would appeal to those in tune with Mr. Byrne than those who aren't. Like the Heads' music, this one kind of has its own rhythm, one that does quite fit in with pop movies like the Heads' quirks make them one of pop music's more unlikely successes. If I had to pick a movie this reminded me of, it would be Soderbergh's Schizopolis, although this is a lot less subversive. There's almost a documentary feel to the movie with a sprinkling of satire about life in small town America. Byrne's narration, mostly from a red car which contrasts sharply with the Texas landscape, is humorously naive, and his costumes are goofy and fun. Being a musical guy, director/star Byrne gives his characters multiple opportunities to sing or, in one memorable scene, lip sync. There's a lot of clever in this, but you have to wade through a lot of clumsiness to get there, and I don't imagine it'll be worth it for too many people. John Goodman lumbers as enthusiastically through this as he does in that Bob Dylan mess, Masked and Anonymous. Spalding Gray also makes an appearance. I can't say I completely understood what Byrne's intentions were with this thing, but I did enjoy watching parts of it.

Deadhead Miles

2011-12-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

1972 truck movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A possibly-crazy Cooper steals a Peterbilt, paints it yellow, and starts a transcontinental trip. He picks up the Jeffersons' butler, and they have a series of misadventures.

If you like trucker movies or 70's counterculture road movies, you need to check this one out before you forget about it and it goes away forever. A large percentage of the population ain't going to get this Malick-penned undiscovered little gem, but for those who do, it's going to hit hard. I came for the truck driving and Malick script, stayed for Alan Arkin's ridiculous performance, and fell in love with the Paul Benedict brilliance. Let's start with that script which seemed aimed straight for my funny bone. There's very little story here, just episodic free-form truck-driving tomfooleries, but there's a great feeling of nostalgia and a celebration of the open road. The story has a very made-as-you-go feel, but not in a bad way at all. Take this sequence when the characters try to go to a drag race: They can't get into the drag race because they either can't pay or don't want to pay. Paul Benedict's character says that he is going to watch the drag race from inside. The two have a little fight. Benedict buys a fake mustache. They steal a doll. Arkin rips off the dolls head and attaches it to the bottom of the gear shift in somebody else's truck. He moves the gear shift which contorts the doll's face and then says, "The world is bigger than you know." Nothing in that scene connects with anything else. Hell, the scene doesn't make sense on its own, but for whatever reason, it adds to the experience and is really funny. Here's another bit of dialogue after the characters throw full stolen bottles of soda at signs from their moving cab in a scene that might be about six bottles too long:

Arkin: Boy, I never had so much fun. Howdy mighty damn!
Benedict: Golly.
Arkin: That was fun.
Benedict: Gee.
Arkin: That's what I call fun.
Benedict: That was something all right.

Come on! That's almost Shakespearean! I also liked this exchange, following some enthusiastic singing:

Benedict: You know "Red River Valley"?
Arkin: Yeah.
Benedict: You want to sing it?
Arkin: No.

As I type that, I realize it's one of those you-had-to-have-been-there moments, but I don't care. I'm typing it anyway. I'm not sure any of the dialogue would work without Arkin and Benedict. The latter I was just thrilled to see. Arkin is completely unhinged here, so close to Depp's Hunter S. Thompson that you almost wonder if Depp drew inspiration from this before remembering that he drew his inspiration from an actual guy. Arkin's performance is one of the oddest I've seen as he hollers at blow-up dolls, claims his name is Bingo Freighthaulers, or tells stories about Jesus. A lot of the fun is this weird rapport that Arkin and Benedict have. Watch Benedict's face as Arkin is talking through a drive-in showing of Samson and Delilah when he says, "Hey, look at Jesus up there!" or claims that "Jesus don't make no deals." Or when Arkin's rambling something like "If I see him again, I'm gonna stick his head with a fork mumble mumble mumble" followed by a pained scream, a moment when Arkin just gives up on using words. That look on Benedict's face is priceless. My favorite moment (possibly ever) is when both characters are screaming. A feeling of euphoria washed over me, dear readers.

OK, I'm going to start reminiscing with myself about this movie that none of you will ever see. My new favorite movie!

Oh, but for all you Richard Kiel completists--you could blink and miss him, but he is in this one. You know, the dude with the 7'2" teeth.

A Christmas Carol

2011-12-25T07:52:00.001-08:00

2009 Christmas horror movie

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 14/20; Dylan: dnf; Emma: dnf; Abbey: too terrified to finish)

Plot: An old guy mixes up his medication again and has a series of fever dreams and hallucinations that end with his obsessing over a crippled little boy. Merry Christmas!

I don't think Robert Zemeckis has a clue who his audience is. This isn't as terrifying as the ultra-creepy Polar Express movie (Shane trivia: That's the only movie that, since I was watching it on a plane, made me wish for a plane crash.) which is odd since this one has a lot of scenes that are supposed to be terrifying. It is scary though, so much that there's no way this would appeal to children. And it's a cartoon, a genre that a lot of adults have no interest in, so it's not really for adults either. So who's the audience for this thing? Speaking of the cartoonishness, I don't care for this kind of animation at all. I don't like the unnatural way the characters move while they have such a realistic look to them. I think it's that clash that makes this feel so cold and stiff and creepy. I did like how the camera moves, and being able to zoom beneath character's legs or through wreaths is almost enough reason for this story to be told yet again. The animated telling of the story allows for some different perspectives at least, and there's a liveliness to this version that only gets old at about the 2/3 mark. Zemeckis does a great job creating an animated London that effectively sets the mood for Scrooge's story, and the ghosts look pretty good. Well, Marley looks ghastly cool. The Ghost of Christmas Past is the wrong kind of creepy, and the Present one looks like it could be a Will Ferrell character. Dug the shadowy final ghost though. Overall, this just seems loud and extraneous, and far from the new Christmas classic I think Zemeckis is trying to make, it's not even one that I'll likely ever revisit again. Unlike Polar Express which I do periodically revisit in my darkest of nightmares.

Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas

2011-12-24T20:02:00.000-08:00

1977 holiday miracle

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 12/20; Dylan: 20/20; Emma; 14/20; Abbey: 12/20)

Plot: Pa's dead, and Emmet Otter and his mother Emily struggle with odd jobs to make ends meet. When they both hear about a Christmas Eve talent show that pays fifty bucks to the winner, they sacrifice tool chests and washboards in order to capture the prize. A flashy rock band from River Bottom threatens their chances of winning, however. Will Emmet or his mother be able to win the big money? Will they find something more valuable than fifty dollars? Will somebody who uses the slide Pa made injure himself and sue?

My favorite thing about this is how their legs move when they walk. You'd almost think that Jim Henson or somebody would say, "OK, fellows. We tried with this leg thing, but we just can't get this to look right. Oh, well." Maybe they did, but somebody else stepped in and said, "Don't change a thing! Those legs look awesome the way they are!" And that second person, Christian readers, was correct.

This sweet little story was one of my favorites when I was a kid, mostly because I like both puppets and jug-band music. That and Emily Otter is one hot little number. It's probably been close to thirty years since I last saw this, but I could still do a mean air-guitar/vocal version of the River Bottom Nightmare Band song. They're my favorite characters, of course, because they're misbehaving rock 'n' rollers. Chuck with the voice of Cookie Monster, a bass-playing snake, an otter that looks like he could have been one of Fat Albert's buddies, and a fish that is apparently just there for decorative purposes. I'm so glad [SPOILER ALERT] that they won the thing because they freakin' rocked. Being a Muppet production you can expect certain things--quality songs, recognizable voices (if you grew up on Sesame Street), and great and creative puppeteering. This delivers, and if my wife and kids just want to make fun of it the entire time we're watching it, they may wake up on Christmas Day to find that their father has abandoned them.

I Like Killing Flies

2011-12-24T12:38:00.000-08:00

2004 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Kenny Shopsin's operated a restaurant where he's put a variety of things in pancakes for over thirty years in Greenwich village. Like the Soup Nazi, he's got an eccentric personality and a series of rules he expects his customers to follow. He loses his lease and is forced to move down the street. He was already grumpy, and this development isn't going to help his temperament any.

This is the sort of oddball, like Timothy "Speed" Levitch, who I enjoy spending some time with. I'm not sure I'd want to eat the food after watching it prepared or getting a glimpse into the guy's kitchen. This is the kind of old guy that, given the right circumstances, I'll likely turn into. He's a colorful personality with an interesting life perspective. This documentary is quotable and endlessly entertaining as he tells the camera that "This [stove] looks like a whore's ass" or that new customers "have to prove it to me that they're OK to feed." At the end, he gets downright philosophical, discussing the need for people (specifically, his children) to realize that they're "not so terrific" and encouraging people to "pick an arbitrary, stupid goal, become involved in it, and pursue it with vigor." Shopsin's looks like a fun place, and I'm glad this little documentary gave me the opportunity to visit it. Still not sure I'd want to eat something that's been prepared on a whore's ass though.

Fists in the Pocket

2011-12-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

1965 family film

Rating: 16/20

Plot: An epileptic young man named Ale decides to murder everybody in his family in order to give his brother a chance to live a normal life.

This is strange little Italian movie that reminds me quite a bit like that other Italian movie. At the center of things is Lou Castel and his performance as the bad (or good, depending on how you look at things) brother. Even during his calmer scenes, you can see a lot of craziness burbling beneath the surface. Of course, the real fun is watching him come completely unhinged. His performance is really mesmerizing and my eyes were just glued to him. Unless Paola Pitagora, his character's sister, is on the screen because my eyes really enjoyed watching her for different reasons. This bleak and cynical family drama is shot in an interesting way with Bellocchio taking advantage of the architecture and geography to help illustrate the family dynamics and situations. They family leaves on a cliff which works to not only create some beautiful shots but as a metaphor. I also liked an early dinner sequence with some creepy editing and choreography really paints a picture of what this family's all about. It's a picture that's worth a thousand words as all these slight movements give you this strong impression that things ain't right with these people. Morricone's score, a lot of it consisting of ghostly vocals and dropping things, is also very effective. This had some slow moments and a confusing relationship between Ale and his hot, hot sister, but it's still a nice feel-bad picture of a dysfunctional family.

Best Worst Movie

2011-12-24T08:17:00.000-08:00

2009 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A look at Troll 2 and its cult following as a so-bad-that-it's-good-although-it's-in-no-way-really-good film. Michael Stephenson, the boy who pisses on hospitality in Troll 2, assembles most of the talent (Note: I'm using that word liberally here.) and the Italian director, explores the phenomenon of cult cinema, and returns to Nilbog (It's Goblin backwards!) for an often awkward reunion.

OK, I'm not seeing anything on imdb about Claudio Fragasso making a sequel called Trolls 2: Part 2, and I can't decide if I'm disappointed or relieved. I'm not sure this is magic you can just recreate.

I avoided watching this as I was afraid it would yank the Wizard's curtain away and reveal something that would somehow ruin the experience of Troll 2, but it really doesn't do that at all. It's comforting to know that everybody involved in this had every intention to make a movie that was actually good. Fragasso at least claims that he's almost insulted by people referring to this as a bad movie (he almost gives himself away during a screening where he's caught laughing) and the delusional actress who played the mom compared Troll 2 to Casablanca. My favorite scene involves her, by the way. George Hardy (the dad) and Michael Stephenson (the son and guy who put this documentary together) are at her house trying to talk her into showing up at some reunion thing. She nervously refuses and then describes noises she's hearing at night, presumably from Troll 2 fans. Hardy asks what kind of noise she's hearing and she unleashes this hellish scream. The looks on the faces of Hardy and Stephenson are classic. The rest of the principals seemed a little embarrassed or confused by their involvement in this. George Hardy's at the center of all this as the dentist with acting aspirations. The guy's enthusiasm is infectious, but things get a little sad when he starts forcing that "You can't piss on hospitality!" line on people at horror conventions who have never even heard of his movie. Also sad: the look in Robert Ormsby's (Grandpa Seth) eyes when he says, "I guess you could say I've wasted my life." I really enjoyed the antics of Don Packard, the guy who played the shop owner in Nilbog who had spent time in an asylum just prior to the filming of Troll 2.

Yeah, this is a movie about one particular movie and how it's because famous in unexpected ways, but it does a good job exploring the fandom with cult movies in general and, a lot like Winnebago Man, showing how the love people have for the stars of these kinds of oddball phenomena is genuine.

I might try to convince my family to make Troll 2 a Christmas Eve tradition.

Terror in a Texas Town

2011-12-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

1958 Western

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A greedy oil tycoon is trying to drink everybody's milkshakes up. One of his thugs shoots and kills a Swedish landowner, and when his son comes for a visit, he finds out about it and gets all pissy.

Iron-hooked fury! They say you can't bring a knife to a gun fight. What about a harpoon though? This doesn't have a terribly original plot, but it opens and closes with one of the craziest Western showdowns you're likely to see--a ticked-off Sterling Hayden yielding a harpoon as he's marching down the dusty street to face the bad guy with his guns and black outfit. Slap my ass and call me Ishmael if that's not just completely badass. Sebastian Cabot is great as the oil baddie, but it's really Sterling Hayden's terrible Swedish accent that steals the show. I was distracted by having to figure out if he was supposed to be mentally challenged or not. Derivative, other than that bitchin' harpoon, but well shot with some solid character development, this isn't a great Western but it's not a bad one. And I'm not joking when I type that this might be the best Hollywood example of iron-hooked fury ever! Iron-hooked fury!

Strictly Background

2011-12-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

2007 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A look at ten professional film extras.

An oft-amusing and at time surprising poignant look at the lives of these folk. Some of them are completely delusional as you might expect, but you can't really accuse the director of going out of his way to find the real nutcases. Most of them are realistic and just have an enthusiasm for this kind of work, a love of being on the set, and an excitement with getting to see themselves, even briefly, on the silver screen. With a documentary like this, one where you get a glimpse at the lives of eccentric people, you always want to judge it on how fair it is to the subjects. There are times when this seems like it might be poking fun a bit. That's fine with me because I really like making fun of people anyway. I really enjoyed seeing these people in their movies, the footage changed to completely black and white except for the extra. Some of these cats were even featured pretty prominently, like the guy who was semi-nude in The Shawshank Redemption or the other guy who even looked like he got to act a bit in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Then again, you also had the poor woman who kept talking about movies in which she had appeared where the clips would only show the top of her head or a shoulder or something.

My favorite bit: A guy outside of the Ricardo Montalban theater calling it the "Tattleban Theater" and then saying, "I might not be saying that right."

Punching the Clown

2011-12-24T06:52:00.001-08:00

2009 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A semi-autobiographical tale of comic singer-songwriter Henry Phillips, this follows the protagonist to L.A. where he tries to make it big and get himself a record deal. Meanwhile, he deals with his brother, love, accusations of Neo-Nazism, and being a sell-out.

This is smart and understated like I prefer my comedies. I watched it on a whim, probably because Sarah Silverman liked it and I want to impress her, and I'm happy that I did. It's not so much a mockumentary, but it's got a vibe similar to Curb Your Enthusiasm where it feels like you're just following this hapless character around as he has misadventures instead of watching a character in something more written. No, Henry Phillips doesn't have the acting chops (does Larry David?) to make it all that believable or Larry David's personality to carry the premise, but this is well written enough that it doesn't matter that much. And Larry David doesn't have a guitar. Phillips' songs all the sound the same, but at least I like his voice and they are consistently funny. As his manager, played hilariously by Ellen Ratner, says, he's like "James Taylor on smack." Loved Phillips' response to that: "But James Taylor really was on smack." I also enjoyed Phillips' rival Stupid Joe (Mark Cohen) and the cuts we get to hear from his album Let's Get Guitarded, probably enjoyed them a little more than I was supposed to actually. But c'mon, it's impossible not to laugh at "Cut loose, footloose, there goes some more brown juice," isn't it? This feels like a Phillips-penned love letter to his career, and I really enjoyed it.

Run Ronnie Run

2011-12-24T06:27:00.000-08:00

2002 comedy

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

Plot: The titular redneck frequently makes appearances on a Cops-like reality show, so a struggling producer decides to give him his own show where he gets arrested in different cities every week. It's a smash hit, and Ronnie has to adapt to a new celebrity lifestyle.

I laughed at this a few times, but I never felt comfortable doing it. It really felt like a blow to my dreams of being an elitist hipster. Elitist hipsters, by the way, will refuse to admit that this is just a slightly-more-intelligent Joe Dirt with performers slightly cooler than David Spade. David Spade would have trouble stuffing this much star power in his comedy. Seriously, look at this list of famous folk:

Jeff Goldblum. A bunch of others.

It's just missing Andy Dick, and I could have sworn I saw him, too. Couldn't find him in the credits though. Mark and I watched this after watching the lighthearted Mishima and had time for another piece of classic cinema. I demanded something "stupid" and ended up with this. It's definitely stupid.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains

2011-12-22T18:52:00.000-08:00

1982 punk movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A triad of punk grrls grab them some instruments and form The Fabulous Stains which, after opening up for a couple of boy punk bands, begin to develop a following despite their complete lack of talent. It's the style that sells records anyway, right?

This is choppy and uneven, it nearly put me to sleep, and it lacks thematic clarity. Still, there are some endearing components, most notably the performance of Diane Lane as the lead Stain. She's going to be Clark Kent's mom in the superfluous upcoming Superman movie, but here she's young and angry. She plays naive and pissed really well here, well enough that it should have launched a great career. She would get to play Patty in Rumblefish and one of Charlie Chaplin's wives in that biopic. Laura Dern and Ray Winstone are both good here, too. The Stains' music is fun, kind of reminiscent of The Shaggs only with a little more attitude. This movie's got a large cult following apparently and was difficult to find for a long time though it is available on Netflix now. It just didn't connect with me, and I doubt I remember much about it five years from now. Well, other than a really disappointing ending maybe.

Cannibal! The Musical

2011-12-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

1993 historical musical

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The story of Alfred Packer, the lone survivor of a failed mining expedition somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Upon his return to society, he's tried and convicted of eating the rest of his party, something you're apparently not supposed to do on a mining expedition. His only hope to escape an impeding hanging is a young newspaper reporter named Polly Pry and some Japanese Indians.

This one, as you'd expect being an early project from one of the South Park dudes, is a mixed bag. It's a musical about cannibalism, so it's nothing I need to be talked into seeing. Since this is a Trey Parker project, you might guess that the songs would be pretty good. They are, too. Parker's songs have a way of feeling they could actually be in a legitimate musical until you listen really closely to the lyrics and hear things that would have Rodgers and Hammerstein reaching for their shotguns. Lyrical genius:

"The sun's as warm as a baked potato."
"The sky was a lot more blue when I was on top of you."
"My pa was an elephant, but that is irrelevant. My ma was an Eskimo."
"I've got a chest of wonder and balls of thunder. I can break right through a wall."
The entirety of the snowman song.

This is brazenly low budget, and I really got a kick out of the costumes and faux facial hair. The trapper characters' outfits were the best. They even had "Trapper" across their backs which made me laugh. My favorite characters were the Indians, played stereotypically by Japanese people. Favorite line: "We are. . .Indians. Look at all the teepees." All kinds of little oddities in this one--references to The Odyssey and unexplained aliens. This one isn't a home run or consistently great, but it can be mentioned in the same conversation as an Airplane or a Holy Grail, which a lot of comedy directors would take as a huge compliment. People will think a lot of this is pretty juvenile but there's enough clever in here to make it worthwhile. Also of interest to South Park or Team America: World Police fans or anybody who likes musicals or cannibalism. And if you appreciate both musicals and cannibalism? Hold on tight!

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

2011-12-22T16:44:00.000-08:00

1988 biopic

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The Karen Carpenter story, detailing her rise to fame in the 70s with The Carpenters and her battle with anorexia nervosa.

But with Barbie dolls.

This is Todd Haynes first movie, and it looks like it's probably a student film. It's made on the cheap, but the use of the dolls is definitely effective. The initial fun of watching this reenacted with dolls does wear off a bit after a while, and I'm glad this movie isn't longer than the forty or so minutes that it is. I happen to like The Carpenters' music, but the fact that there is so much of it in this little film made it really difficult to both watch this movie or find a poster since its use (and probably the use of Barbie dolls actually) makes this movie illegal to sell. Well, the former wasn't all that tough actually since you can see this thing on the Internet. You'll see the use of the dolls as novelty, but it really does help drive home a point of some kind. I might not know exactly what that point is, but I'm sure there is some kind of point.

By the way, if you're into this sort of thing, there is a Barbie spanking scene in this one. Hot!

Leningrad Cowboys Go America Redux!

2011-12-22T16:10:00.001-08:00

1989 Aki Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 16/20 (Only gave it a 13/20 last time I wrote about it on this blog--I'm embarrassed about that.)

Plot: The titular worst band in the world go America after being told that Americans will buy anything. They travel the country, trying to earn a buck by playing gigs in trashy bars that their unscrupulous manager has set up for them. Their ultimate destination is Mexico where they've been hired to play a wedding.

This movie is already on the blog, but I just don't have access to Aki Kaurismaki's movies and needed to see one. Plus, Criterion (God bless 'em) just released a box set with this and two others (stay tuned!), and I didn't want to watch the sequel without giving this one another spin. When I first checked this out, I wasn't familiar with Kaurismaki and probably just didn't get it. It's a brilliant comedy though a little more slapsticky and goofy than his other movies on this blog. The camera also moves a lot more. It's moving right off that bat actually in a sweeping shot that ends with the frozen Cowboy you see on the poster up there. There are a lot of sight gags in this one, some hilarious and some that just aren't. Seeing the dog's hair? Hilarious. The picture of their ancestor--Abe Lincoln with the Cowboy's hair style? Not so much. But actually, that little gag is so bad that's actually good. A tire popping gag, a scene with beer cans, a picture of a tractor. These kinds of shenanigans aren't going to appeal to everybody, but seven-year-olds who don't mind subtitles will think it's all pretty funny.

Here are four scenes that I really love, at least two of them almost entirely pointless:

1) A scene in a shoe store
2) A scene where the guy who is following them around is carrying a large fish while slogging around in a swamp
3) A funeral march that ends with "Chuck" the cop arresting them
4) The most ridiculous fight scene ever filmed, one with more hopping than should have been allowed

Brilliant stuff. And it's Kaurismaki's willingness to linger on the pointless that makes this stuff so good, I think. The written "jokes" are so subtle that you can't really even be sure it's all supposed to be funny. My favorite exchange is this one:

Concert venue guy: Before I can book them, I need to hear them play.
Manager: Is that necessary?

That's followed by this terrific shot of the accordion player's face that made me laugh out loud. Bam! Speaking of their music, I actually like it, and they're far from the worst band in the world. The tuba-accordion-accordion-mandolin-fiddle rock sound you hear at the beginning will have anybody with legs dancing around the living room, and their "Bad to the Bone" is so good that it hurts a little bit. My favorite song might be the bluesy number with the lyric: "Who made that horrible noise in the sauna, what, huh?" Or the country song which ends with a hearty "Yee-haw!" It's great stuff if you're entertained by this sort of thing. And you've got to love a movie that manages to find places in America that look more depressing than the Tundra these polka superstars came from.

My favorite actor of all time--the late, great Matti Pellonpaa--is superb as the manager. You don't need to look further than the scene where he greets a person with a barking "Hello!" and an awkward wave to see why I think this guy is the greatest actor to ever live.

Jim Jarmusch has a cameo as a used car salesman.

Next up: Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses.

Double Indemnity

2011-12-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

1944 noir classic

Rating: 20/20

Plot: A horny insurance guy meets a dame (I think that's what they were called back then) with gams (I think that's what they were called back then) that don't quit and decides to help her kill her husband in order to impress her.

Sorry to tell you this, but if you don't like this movie, you just don't like movies. True, you could probably say that about every Fred MacMurray movie that doesn't involve him turning into a dog. I remember seeing this for the first
time after knowing MacMurray only for The Shaggy Dog and the Flubber movie and having no idea he could be this cool. I guess we can't give credit to MacMurray for these gems though:

"I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."
"How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?"
"I wanted to see her again. . .without the silly staircase between us."

No, Raymond Chandler gets credit for those. I'll give MacMurray credit and possibly a lifetime achievement award for the way he lights a match though. I dig everything about this movie, from title credits with the approaching shadowy figure to the Stanwyck's terrible wig. A slow-moving train, a hide behind a doorway, excessive perspiration, the A-ha look that Edward G. Robinson has in his eyes throughout the entire movie. Double Indemnity is probably the purest example of noir storytelling, all Venetian blinds and femme fatales and shadows, and although it's reportedly Ass Masterson's 7th favorite movie of all time, it's impossible not to see it as the classic that it is. jHe probably just likes it because none of the characters are happy at the end though. This picture of depravity, greed, and horniness is just perfection.

Stand by Me

2011-12-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

1986 buddy/coming-of-age movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Four boys in Oregon lie to their parents and go on an adventure to look for a dead kid.

First off, this movie isn't very believable at all. I've seen what happens to people who pull guns on Kiefer Sutherland, and I don't buy that Wil Wheaton's fate would be any different.

This movie has a special place in my heart for a couple reasons, both sentimental. When I watch it, I can't help reminiscing about my own adolescence since I grew up in the 1950s and frequently walked around with my idiot friends looking for dead bodies and cussing up a storm and pulling leeches off each other's nutsacks. Also, I was twelve when this movie came out, and I went to see it with three of my friends--Scott, Maurizio, and Vernon--and it was very easy for us to connect with the characters. I liked the fun oldies music, the loose and episodic plot structure, and the rapport the four friends have. I liked how the tone could change so smoothly from reflective and meditative to comical to adventurous and then back again. These boys had the same kinds of problems and feelings that I had but would probably never talk about with my friends. They had better hair and access to cigarettes, but other than that, I felt like I could have been one of these kids. As you know from reading this blog (I'm talking to 2 1/2 of you here), I like movies where characters walk around and do nothing. Unless they're Hobbits, I guess. This is a good one of those, and it only has one pointless tale about pie eating and only slightly goes overboard with the sentimentality a little bit. Here's an example of quality child acting by the way. Wheaton, Phoenix, O'Connell, and Feldman aren't exactly realistic 1950's teenagers, at least the way I imagine 1950's teenagers to be, but I did believe them as teenagers. It's a shame that River Phoenix and Jerry O'Connell both died so young because either one of them would have been perfect in the sequel to Teen Wolf. A nice little Hollywood movie. I should call up Scott, Maurizio, and Vernon and have a little reunion and watch this movie actually. Unfortunately, one of them got hit by a train. Another might be in jail.

Punch-Drunk Love

2011-12-20T14:25:00.000-08:00

2002 romantic comedy, P.T. Anderson style

Rating: 17/20 (Dylan: 14/20)

Plot: A guy with a blue suit and a business that makes novelty toilet plungers witnesses a car accident, has a harmonium delivered to him, and meets a new friend all in the same morning. It's a lot for the guy to handle since he just wants to focus on how to take advantage of a Healthy Choice foods promotion to get frequent flyer miles. The secret--pudding cups. Meanwhile, he gets in a little trouble after calling a phone sex line. The world's just not an easy place for poor Barry.

I love this movie, and it's not just because it made me change my mind about Adam Sandler. In fact, I'm not even sure that's a good thing. He's good in this though, and the only scene I'd pitch in the whole Sandler-heavy movie (he might be in every single scene) is one where he breaks character and does a little dance in a supermarket. This one caught me by surprise back in '02, and I actually watched it three times in a two-week period because I had to show it to people. Great cast. Emily Watson's pulls off normal-but-with-an-barely-perceivable-not-quite-right so well, and Philip Seymour Hoffmann is great in the limited screen time he gets. Jon Brion's score is an adventurous harmoniumicious affair, and he uses mutant pop sounds to perfectly parallel what must be going on in Barry's head. Most of all, I think this movie's really funny. I like my comedies, especially my romantic ones, to have a generous helping of quirk and discomfort, and this one's got plenty of both. I'm not sure how realistic Barry's autism or borderline personality disorder is, but I sure enjoy laughing at it! And sure, it's nice to watch the guy overcome whatever issues he has to get the girl in the end. The story's simple but a sprinkling of oddities distract from a lot of Anderson's genius. Shots are perfectly framed, and there are some really cool extended shots with this amazing character choreography. Anderson set out to make a much simpler and shorter and easier to swallow movie than the opus that is Magnolia or even Boogie Nights, but that doesn't mean he got lazy with this one. Is Paul Thomas Anderson, by the way, America's best contemporary director? I'm asking that question without thinking about it. Discuss.

Dylan had to do a psychology project where he watched a movie with a mentally-ill character. I picked this for him. We almost watched the equally-hilarious Awakenings though because the scenes where the patients catch the tennis balls make me laugh uncontrollably. They're also really fun to imitate.

Oprah Movie Club Pick for August: Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

2011-12-19T17:35:00.000-08:00

1985 biopic, apparently in four chapters

Rating: 16/20 (Mark: 15/20)

Plot: It's the rockin' good times of the titular author, Yukio Mishima, a man all messed up in the head because he was forced to rub his grandmother's legs as a young boy. This weaves three of his stories/plays and his parallel life events before describing the details of his last day when he commits suicide after his buddies make fun of his Harry Caray impression. Or something. I really don't understand this culture at all.

This is one of the more challenging biographical movies you're likely to see. It's conveniently broken into four chapters, three which attempt to blend biography and Mishima's literature and one which matter-of-factly reenacts the man's final act. And by "convenient," I mean "not really all that convenient at all" since it's hard to connect the dots with the fragments of this guy's life. The styles and colors vary--the beautiful black and white of memory, the lavish and almost gaudy colors in the staged literature excerpts, and the realism of that final day. I don't think too many people will watch this and not think it's all beautifully filmed, the individual chunks of Mishima's story told in visually stunning ways rich with symbolism. My man Philip Glass's pulsating score adds to the experience. Striking. But for me (and maybe this is just because I'm a dumb guy), it was hard to put some of the pieces together, and there are times when it got a little boring. Mishima and his contradictions are hard to get your head around in this. He's a writer who doesn't believe in the power of words, a married homosexual, a guy with convictions that really aren't all that clear. All the actors playing Moshima do a fine job, especially Ken Ogata (the last Moshima) who also did a great job in the The Pillow Book where he played Ewan McGregor's penis. This is a pretty and intense movie, and it's a very good movie if you're in mood for a really complex story about a really complex guy. It's just not completely satisfying.

Trivia: Philip Glass only used two fingers when composing to score for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie # 20: Next

2011-12-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

2007 movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Oh, snap! Somebody wants to blow up Los Angeles, and the FBI thinks the only person who can stop it is a two-bit Las Vegas magician who can see two minutes into the future. That magician (Cris Johnson, a guy who gets my nerves automatically because of the lack of 'h' in his name) is too busy trying to make a quick buck and ball Jessica Biel though.

Sleazy hair and silky-smooth narration. That's really what modern Nic Cage movies are about. Unfortunately for my boy Nic and this movie, I don't really like his character. There is one terrific moment where a character asks him if he's a leprechaun, and he laughs hysterically. And we get to see his flirting on display as he woos Biel with conversation about raining fish in Denmark, Zen monks eating hot dogs, and quotes from Italian painters. This movie's got some unfortunate special effects and some very big music. The characters aren't allowed to evolve; they're just there to set up big big action sequences anyway. The finale is the dumbest with Nicolas Cage looking like he's in a movie made by M.C. Escher, duplicated and re-duplicated until there are about a dozen running around. Yeah, don't get excited Nicolas Cage fanboys because it's just about as stupid as it sounds and only slightly arousing. You also get a Matrix-y Nicolas Cage twisting away from bullets. It also borrows from A Clockwork Orange in another implausible scene where the FBI forces C[h]ris to keep his eyes open and watch something-rather. I just didn't buy much of what was going on in this. The seeing-two-minutes-into-the-future premise has promise, but what they do with the special magic power isn't all that interesting. I also didn't buy the Biel relationship. This seemingly half-assed effort lacks the depth to make you think about anything and doesn't have the special effects or action choreography to make this a very good action-thriller.

I really wish Nicolas Cage would only work with monkeys or Werner Herzog. Eagerly awaiting, by the way: Ghostrider: Stallion of the Cimarron. I saw a preview where he pisses fire in that one!

Box Elder

2011-12-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

2008 college comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A group of friends experience college together. They misbehave, fall in love, eat each other's Chinese food, trash an apartment, party, occasionally go to class, and party more.

This was recommended to me by a drunk Kent, and this free-flowing and nearly plotless look at college life, like a Dada Dazed and Confused maybe, really got me. I chortled at the antics of these characters who, to be honest, I could in no way identify with and who didn't seem all that realistic to me. A lot of it has to do with the comic timing and chemistry between the principles. I'm not sure how much of this was improvised, but it's got that feel, and it's one of those cases where I'm not sure how the performers kept from giggling at each other's shenanigans on screen. It also feels like it was filmed over a long period of time, probably on weekends or whenever a few of the actors could get together, a real labor of love. Cheap, irreverent, and destined for cult classic status if enough people bother finding it. There are so many gags stuffed in this thing that it demands multiple viewings. It's something I'd probably watch again which says a lot. Or maybe it doesn't say anything. Anyway, I'll look forward to seeing what else young director Todd Sklar does.

Extreme Animation: Films by Phil Mulloy

2011-12-19T06:59:00.000-08:00

2009 collection

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Shorts about perverse and violent cowboys, the invention of writing and language, the ten commandments, head-crotch aliens, and the sex life of chairs.

I didn't have this long enough to enjoy it like I should have--in short installments. Over two hours of these crudely-drawn, almost entirely black and white animations turns out to be too much. Don't get me wrong. I did like the animation. Mulloy does a lot with stick figures, and his characters often move in surprising ways. I like Mulloy's humor, and there's a raw creativity with these shorts. At times though, the humor gets as juvenile as me with artsy references to sex and genitalia and all sorts of slapstick violence. All in all, I liked these things, just not in bulk.

I Spit on Your Grave

2011-12-19T06:01:00.001-08:00

1978 feminist movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: A writer retreats to the woods to work on a novel but is repeatedly assaulted and abused by four thugs. After they rape and humiliate her, three-fourths of them think she's been left for dead. Unfortunately for them, she's still alive. And pissed!

Trashy. There's a thin line, and the prolonged scenes of rapin' and killin' in this throw it firmly in the trashy category. The lack of budget isn't really a problem; as a matter of fact, if anything, it adds to the tension. So does the complete lack of music, though I suspect that it's because the makers of this couldn't afford any music or just forgot that movies are supposed to have music. This is a movie in two halves. The degradation of the protagonist goes on and on in the first half. Her story of revenge takes up the second, and the reason it didn't work for me is likely because the violence seems so unrealistic compared to what happened to her in that first half. I bet you a dollar, by the way, that I don't ever see the remake of this one.

Date Night

2011-12-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

2010 comedy

Rating: 8/20 (Jennifer: 11/20)

Plot: A couple a little bored with their married life have a night of adventure when they take another person's reservation on their titular night, a simple act which sets off a chain of events that involve them being chased by some punks searching for a computer file.

Not a single laugh to be had here. I like both Steve Carell and Tina Fey just fine, but somebody forgot to give them a script. There's probably a clever idea for a comedy here, something with enough action for the dudes and romance for the ladies, but this couldn't survive as just a clever idea. That's the problem with these contemporary comedies. It's like they just go through the motions. Oh well. At least you get to see Marky Mark's nips for extended periods of time.

Edward Scissorhands

2011-12-18T15:49:00.000-08:00

1990 movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: An Avon lady discovers a lonely manchild with scissors for hands when she ventures to the dilapidated mansion to sell her wares. She brings him to her colorful suburban neighborhood. He's instantly the talk of the town as he shows off his mad topiary and tonsorial skills, but not everybody is thrilled to have somebody so different in the neighborhood.

This cry-out against conformity seems a little simplistic and whiny since the first time I watched this, back when Burton's themes resonated with me as I searched for excuses to be a weirdo. But this one's still got a special place in my heart, and not just because it's a beautiful final film appearance for one of my favorite actors or because I'm secretly in love with both Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder.

First, the history. I didn't ask girls out on dates when I was in high school because I was smart enough to know that girls don't like weirdos. I might as well have had scissors for hands, too. But there was a girl named Jennifer who I fell for while I watched her ride a merry-go-round, and when this movie came out, I decided to ask her to go see it with me. The very idea sickened her, naturally since I was wearing a rayon shirt when I asked her and couldn't keep my nose from running. She didn't say no exactly; she just sort of laughed until I went away. I got in my parent's mini-van which for some reason I had driven to school and started home. I didn't make it though because I was driving way too fast on a gravel road, something that I don't believe they warned me about in the driver's training manual, and flipped the van upside-down into a ditch. I sat there upside-down for a while and thought about whether or not I should see Edward Scissorhands by myself. I decided against it.

But enough about me. Nobody reads this blog because they want to find out more about me. Heck, nobody actually reads this blog, but if they did, it would be for my expertise on all things cinematic. This movie's Tim Burton's finest hour. It's got my favorite Hollywoody score, Danny Elfman at his most Danny Elfmanest. It's also got all these terrific pre-CGI sets, from the sprawling and oh-so-colorful suburban hell suspended in time to the contrasting house of Vincent Price. And that shrubbery! There are little touches that I like, too, like the car choreography as the men of the neighborhood head to work and Edward's fireplace "bedroom" collage. Speaking of Vincent, his scenes are touching. His character is a spiffy dresser, really pulling off that ascot, and you've got to love the elaborate way he makes cookies. That's such an awesome scene, Vincent shuffling and watching the cookie-making mechanism and almost moving to Elfman's music. His death scene makes me cry although admittedly, I cry from the beginning of this movie. But why did he give Edward scissors for hands in the first place? Why would that have ever made sense?

This is my favorite Winona Ryder, too. I've admitted before that the only reason I wrote "Speedwalk Fantasy" and wanted to start an alternative rock band was because I wanted to sleep with Winona Ryder. Love her look in this so much. During the dancing-in-the-snow scene, spinning Winona's got this almost classic silent beauty look. I love a scene where Depp looks at Winona Ryder's picture for the first time.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, here's some more Shane trivia: Kevin, Winona's little brother, has the same baseball sheets I had as a kid.

This one also appeals to my quirky sense of humor. I like the freak slapstick of the displaced character and can't help smiling every time I think about Edward slamming his head into the window on the drive home, poking the water bed, or trying to put on a pair of pants. Alan Arkin is hilarious as the dad, especially his reaction and first line while he watches Edward eat. I also love how he just sits in a lawn chair and watches bowling in his backyard because in this Burton world, that's really pretty normal. "No no no. That's a terrible idea." "We don't want him rusting up on us." Fantastic delivery.

This has a much darker second half that almost clashes with the fairy tale-ish and comic first half, and you really have to be willing to suspend your disbelief to get any enjoyment out of this. For instance, a black cop in this neighborhood? That just doesn't seem believable. And where the hell does Edward get all the ice at the end of this movie?

But I cry every single time I watch this movie. I cry because Tim Burton and his characters pull just the right heart strings. I cry because Jennifer would never have had any interest in seeing this movie with me. And I cry because Winona Ryder would never have had any interest in sleeping with me no matter how high "Speedwalk Fantasy" charted. Even the old woman Winona Ryder who, by the way, I'd still want to bang.

The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy

2011-12-18T15:15:00.000-08:00

2009 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A guy takes some water, some writing material, a few books, a piece of plastic to use for a tent, and a desire to die into the woods. He eats nothing for a few months and dies. A trucker stops to take a piss in the woods and discovers his body. No, maybe that was the Lindbergh baby.

You know what this is? It's a really good book-on-tape. It's not a great documentary, especially visually as it's just a random series of images to accompany the guy's diary. The images, like a half-assed collage, grew a little pretentious, and you can wait for them to develop and add up to something insightful but they never really do. Still, the text is so gripping that the experience is worth it. I do wonder how we're supposed to think about this guy, however. I imagine a lot of readers (or viewers or, listening to my recommendation, just listeners) are going to see this as some act of courage, and I don't think that's fair to either insects or mummies. The insight and honesty of the starving man was fascinating to me though. There are these moments in the writing where he knows it's his last chance to back out of the plan, and that there isn't much of a conflict between his desire to die and a human being's natural will to live is really depressing.

By the way, it should be noted that I enjoyed a bowl of clam chowder while watching this movie. Chased it down with a large portion of banana pudding.

The Gore Gore Girls

2011-12-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

1972 trashy murder mystery

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Somebody's mutilating strippers, and a suave private dick and a sexy newspaper reporter team up to try and crack the case.

Some Herschell Gordon Lewis gory funk, something I think I might have watched instead of going to church. First off, what a cool detective. He's got a cane and makes all kinds of inappropriate and cold puns about the murder victims. What's not to love about this hero? Well, except the acting of Frank Kress. I checked his filmography, and it's another example of a one-and-done, a performance that the guy knew he'd never topped so he never even bothered. The sickest thing about these proceedings is the comedic flavor which instead of giving this a healthy injection of very dark comedy only manage to make this seem like it's made by somebody who's slightly sick in the noggin. Look no further than the scene in which a throat-slitting isn't fatal but apparently a vicious spanking with a meat tenderizer is. Afterwards, the killer adds spices which in the hands of somebody a little more capable than Lewis's could possibly be funny. Here, after the extended shots of the bloody rump after other extended shots of mutilated thises and thats, it just seems sick, the wrong kind of twisted. Add relentless go-go music and prolonged scenes of nearly-attractive dancers disrobing rhythmically, and the experience of watching the movie just makes you want to take a long shower afterward. You know what you're getting into when popping in a Herschell Gordon Lewis flick though.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

2011-12-17T13:24:00.000-08:00

2010 cave painting documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Werner Herzog and a bunch of boring people go into a cave to look at some paintings a child probably drew. See, they didn't have refrigerators in France 32,000 years ago, so cave parents just had their children draw on the walls. I'm not even a paleontologist, but I could figure that out. I have no idea why Werner Herzog didn't interview me for this movie.

This didn't thrill me, but it was nice seeing these pictures, the oldest human drawings we know of, even if it was just in boring old 2D. Some would say that Werner Herzog's narration gets in the way of his documenting, and although any of the 4 1/2 readers of this blog know exactly what I have to say about that, I thought his script here reached a bit. The outside-the-cave shots are really beautifully filmed. The inside-the-cave ones looked weird on my television, kind of wavy or something, probably the result of the 3D stuff. This didn't keep my interest for the duration, but it was worth watching.

I could probably paint a horse better than these people though. So overrated.

Lost in Translation

2011-12-17T12:24:00.000-08:00

2003 story of friendship

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 15/20)

Plot: American actor Bob Harris travels to Tokyo to make an easy buck filming a few commercials. He's lonely and surly until he meets a buddy, fellow tourist Charlotte. They hit the karaoke hard!

This might have the best opening shot of all time, the prettiest pink, gratuitous undergarments. I like Scarlett Johansson just because she had the urge to butcher a bunch of Tom Waits tracks. She's the type of actress I like to imagine eating pickles, lots of them in a variety of sizes and forms. Spears, hamburger, those giant honkers you you have to retrieve from barrels with tongs. Bill Murray's the exact actor for his part. He can just stand around and look like he's in the center of a pretty dark funk. I like how their characters' relationship develops, naturally and without a single Hollywood moment. What really makes this movie interesting is that the real story is left out. You get a glimpse into the source of Charlotte's funk and loneliness (that jerk, Giovanni Ribisi) and you hear Bob describe his marriage or talk to his wife on the phone (Lost in Translation trivia--comedy legend Don Rickles does the voice of Murray's wife), but the story here doesn't focus on any real issues, just the distraction from those issues. It's a movie that requires a reading-between-the-lines, and personal connections would make this a different experience for everybody, I think. Things do lag a little in the middle when the characters are having more fun than I was having (or probably have ever had), but overall, this is a nice quiet little movie.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club (The Lost Episodes): Matrix Revolutions

2011-12-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

2003 trilogy conclusion

Rating: 6/20

Plot: I don't know. I never really could figure these movies out.

Here's the scoop, Betty Boop. This was mislabeled in the TV Guide, and I sat down on the Urine Couch expecting to see the middle movie of the Matrix trilogy--Matrix Retarded--but got this instead. And this might be one of the most boring movies ever made. At least the second movie, as bad as it is, has a pair of albinos in it. This one has a lot of talking, a bunch of flying, some lurking, a lot more talking, a gratuitous sex scene, a handful of scenes from the first movie, some seemingly endless third world country ritual party scene, and more talking. A lot of the special effects remind me of some of the science fiction stuff you can catch on cable television. I wonder if any fan of the first movie was really happy with the way this trilogy concluded. I've probably said it before, and I'll say it again: The two sequels of The Matrix managed to make me dislike The Matrix.

Full disclosure: I remember sitting down to watch this on the Urine Couch, but I can almost guarantee it led to me getting paid for a 2+ hour nap.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club (The Lost Episodes): Edge of Darkness

2011-12-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

2010 drama

Rating: 11/20

Plot: I don't remember. Mel Gibson's daughter is murdered, and he gets all sad and tries to find out who was behind it.

Damn it! This movie doesn't have a beaver puppet!

While cleaning out my underwear drawer of superfluous items, I came across some notes that I'd written down on motel stationery. By "motel stationery," of course, I'm talking about scrap paper that we front desk clerks used to jot things down. I'd completely forgotten about catching this movie on HBO one AM, probably while the Urine Couch was still in the lobby. Completely forgetting that you watched a movie more than likely isn't going to lead to a glowing review or even a coherent one. According to my notes, I thought it was either funny or creepy when Mel Gibson said "You're my girl" to his daughter. It might have been a funny/creepy hybrid. And then I wrote down "morphing/hawking [?] xu dead daughter" which doesn't look like much of anything. I really don't remember this movie at all and wonder if I fell asleep during it. I fell asleep quite a bit on the Urine Couch, probably because it was the time I normally slept. That and I didn't have much to do there. I miss that place though. I miss talking to the truck drivers and whores and staring down the Waffle House people. Plus, the great movies. If I still had that job, for example, I'd be all excited about watching Get Smart and Doctor Detroit tonight and American Pie 2 tomorrow night. But I don't have that job, and I all I have to look forward to is reminiscing about watching this Mel Gibson movie that doesn't even have a damn beaver puppet in it.

I sincerely hope this review was helpful.

I Think We're Alone Now

2011-12-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

2008 documentary

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A middle-aged autistic gentleman and a hermaphrodite have one thing in common--an infatuation for 1980's teen pop superstar Tiffany. And really, who wouldn't? This documentary explores their delusions and chronicles a meeting between the two.

I don't know. To me, this felt both exploitative and pointless. I can handle exploitative, and I can handle pointless. But I'm not sure I can handle both of those. I don't know what goal director Sean Donnelly had in giving us a glimpse into the lives of these two people. Maybe I'm just unsympathetic or something, but these two just made me feel uncomfortable and sad. We see the hermaphrodite showing off his running skills, a scene that almost convinced me that this was actually a mockumentary. Same with the scene involving the autistic guy's psychotronic helmet. This might have something to say about celebrity obsession or people with mental problems being like everybody else or something, but I completely missed it. I think I was too distracted.

The Blair Witch Project

2011-12-07T16:59:00.000-08:00

1999 horror movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Some kids explore the woods with a couple video cameras in an attempt to make a documentary about a local urban legend. They die!

I always avoided seeing this a second time because I didn't figure it could be anywhere near as good as the first time. And it really isn't. The initial shock of watching this no-budget horror movie without a single damn witch just isn't going to be duplicated in subsequent viewings. But the movie, one that my brother says is the best horror movie ever made, is still so well done. They really do a ton with their one hundred dollar budget, and the three principals do a good job of keeping this thing real. I've said it before--if the actors fail in something like this, the whole foundation falls to pieces. There might be a handful of moments where they slip and don't quite respond like normal folk, but for the most part they sell this. This movie feels very loose, more or less unscripted, and I think it benefits from that. The three probably look genuinely freaked out at times because they are genuinely freaked out. I also like how Blair Witch builds tension, subtly and with never an over-the-top moment. The mystery progresses realistically, and the rather ambiguous ending keeps the feeling of unease alive long after you take this out of the dvd player. Blair Witch really succeeds because it doesn't do things the way regular movies do--the unknown actors, the lack of script, the absence of a score, the refusal to ever show us anything that resembles a witch. And unlike most movies like this that unleash a caboodle of copycats, I don't mind it so much because a lot of those copycats are actually pretty good.

Lost Highway

2011-12-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

1997 psychological nightmare

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A jealous guy meets a creepy pale guy at a party and then either murders his wife or doesn't murder his wife. He probably does. While in jail for the crime, he transforms into a mechanic and makes a series of decisions that are probably going to get him into some trouble. There's the creepy pale guy again. Cue backward explosion! Marilyn Manson! And cut.

I think David Lynch's last three movies were made as some sort of test. This, Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive. I've not really had the urge to see any of them again unlike Eraserhead which I could watch once a week. These three are a test on the senses, perplexing and frustrating riddles, clumsy nightmares. Thinking about any of those three movies--a trilogy? They are linked thematically, right?--kind of gives me a headache actually. They're so dark, so dismal and hopeless. The non-linear approach is fine, but Lost Highway seems to almost break its own rules, and Lynch creates this world that very few people will want to enter and fewer will want to stick around in. Neo-psycho-noir, blacker than black. It's not always entertaining even though there are some things you kind of want to laugh at and other things that you'll never forget (that conversation with the creepy pale guy at the party is as terrifying as dialogue gets). This starts with Scott Walker, by the way, so that's cool. And Richard Pryor's in it, only he doesn't look so good. His best moment: "There are nine people down here. I'll let you ask seven of them, and if you can get that price from one of them, I'll let you ask the other two." My very favorite moment though is probably getting to watch Mr. Eddy's road rage. Ultimately, I think this a movie about movies, but I'm not completely sure, and I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about this movie in a bar. It's as fascinating a two-plus hours as you'll get with a feature film, but I can't say it's entirely pleasurable. Either something is wrong with David Lynch or something is wrong with the human mind in general. I'm guessing it's the latter.

Super Inframan

2011-12-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

1975 Power Rangers predecessor

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An alien witch woman (I think) invades earth with an army of mutants. Only the bionically-engineered titular super hero can save the day!

This is pretty badass, and unlike a lot of movies with guys in rubber monster suits, terrible special effects, and an ultra-wacky plot, this gets better as it goes along. The final 40 minutes or so is a feast of kung-fu mayhem with these cool skeleton guys, sort of the Super Inframan-equivalent to Storm Troopers, and the rubber-costumed mutants. Mayhem! I'd say it all looks like a Power Rangers show made for adults, but it's very clearly been made for kids and therefore not different at all from the Power Rangers. And that should embarrass me, but I am going to unapologetically like this. It's not even going to be a guilty pleasure. I enjoyed the opening, pure 70's Shaw Brothers goofballery with Inframan doing backflips while some great white-bread game show funk plays. I was joyfully confused with the editing during an opening scene where a rubber Pterodactyl sort-of flaps onto the road and then abruptly disappears before a road crumbles, some people start yelling about getting kids off a bus, the bus falls off a cliff, and a miniature city explodes. The summoning of skeleton warriors and demons by the strangely-hot witchy woman? Badass. Just a hodgepodge of monsters! The creation of Inframan with some of the cutest little special effects you'll ever see, naturally in a cruci-pose to make him a Christ figure because Christ figures are apparently big in Japan. But anyway, he's prepared to die to save mankind, willing to risk it all to have cartoon circuitry put in his head and appendages. The first monster that attacks--a blog with a drill for a hand and, wait a minute. . .Is that Octaman? Only a more powerful Octaman that can sink into the ground and unleash tentacles and regenerate, making him nearly invincible. During this first attack on the laboratory, there's also a guy with a rather unfortunate hole in the crotch of his Lycra suit. Another thing I thought was funny during this attack scene--Super Inframan makes his appearance and everybody already knows his name. And he's awesome! He shoots lasers and fire, so I'm not even sure why he ever bothers to kick and punch the bad guys. I guess because it's a Shaw Brothers movie. Lots of creativity at play here. There's another hot little number, another alien witch, with eyeballs in her palms like that guy in Pan's Labyrinth. The characters also morph into a giant form at one point, another thing that it has in common with the Power Rangers. And keep in mind, this is all before the movie really gets to its best parts. Later, you get lethal kick explosions, a character who I named Handlebar Mustache Viking Lizard, robots with spikyball hands and spring-loaded heads, and some really awesome sets, like something straight out of the Batman television show. It's terrific dorky fun!

My ankle hurts, and I am sad.

Kung Fu Panda Redux!

2011-12-03T14:33:00.000-08:00

2008 kung-fu movie with anthropomorphised animals and Jack Black

Rating: 15/20

Plot: See here, where I already wrote about the not-all-that-original plot.

OK, mea culpa. This is Dreamworks' best movie, and it's got a whole lot to like about it. The action sequences, contrary to what I thought the first time I watched this movie, are actually really cool, and the characters, though either a little cliched or underdeveloped, are good. Voice works good, too, although I don't like Jack Black here all that much. But David Cross makes up for that. I really liked the colors and the details in the multitudinous settings. There's some real beauty in the animation here. The final fight scene is a bit of a let-down, going too much for the funny throat instead of anything meaningful. For whatever reason, the stuff that ticked me off in this one (the faux-homages to classic kung-fu movies or the deluge of martial arts movies motifs) were enjoyable in this one. Add Dreamworks best animation efforts and a good score, and you've got a movie that I don't mind watching over and over again.

Speaking of that, Buster likes this movie, but after about six attempts, she has not made it to the end of the movie. She has no idea what happens to the fat panda!

Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave

2011-12-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

1976 Bruceploitation pic

Rating: 2/20

Plot: It's Bruce Lee fighting back from the grave. Duh! No, actually it's not Bruce Lee. It's some other guy who may be of the same nationality of the kung-fu superstar who finds out that his kung-fu master has been murdered and wants to find the people responsible--a cowboy, a guy with a cape, etc. Along the way, he gets himself a girlfriend.

I don't trust the people behind this movie. It's one thing to throw Bruce Lee's name in the title to put asses in the seats. But add to it the most bitchin' movie poster of all time that makes it seem like you're about to watch a movie about an immaculate dead guy (Bruce Lee doesn't decompose?) popping from 6 feet under to battle a beast with the head of rapper Slick Rick and the body of a bat while a scantily-clad woman looks on. Everything pre-credits, the part that does include stock footage of bad weather and a guy really emerging from a grave misled me into thinking I was about to watch the greatest movie of all time. But like the bitchin' poster and title, it's all just misleading. This is as offensive to the legacy of Bruce Lee as all those Dr. Seuss movies are to Theodor Geisel. They really over-do the Bruce Lee chirping noises, especially during the fight with the black guy who has a cape and an ax. They also pull a Dolemite and give you some slow-motion instant replays for a couple of the fake Bruce Lee's better moves. And he's got some good moves in his arsenal. He's not Bruce Lee though. You do get to see him fight a taxi at one point, so that's something. The action's overall pretty stale though, and this is one of those modern kung-fu movies where it takes place in an urban setting, and I just don't dig those as much. The best action scene, by the way, starts with the woman going to her car and a guy without a shirt hiding in the backseat. I think there's an urban legend about that actually. This guy made me think, at least momentarily, that the movie should have been called Chuck Norris's Chest Hair Fights Back from the Grave. Anyway, a chase ensues, and there's a sound effect that makes it sound like both of the characters are wearing high heels. The chase through an airport parking lot is just about endless. The worst things about this are some of the choppiest editing I've ever seen and the poorly-translated dubbed dialogue. Observe the following interrogation scene:

Po-po: You're going to get the chair.
Fake Bruce: What sort of chair is that?
Po-po: You what? What's with this guy? He wants his own special kind?
Other po-po: He wants his own maid. (I played this several times. I couldn't hear anything else.)
Po-po: The fool!
Other po-po: Are you putting us on? Give us some proof or you're gonna fry, boy.

And the voice work, as you'd expect, is not good. Especially the guy (I think?) who does the voice for a character named Welby. Oh, and you don't believe me about the bad dialogue? Check this one out:

Girl: What are you going to do tonight?
Fake Bruce: How am I suppose to know what I'm doing tonight?
Girl: Tell me.
FB: What do you mean?
Girl: I mean, where are you gonna go to?
FB: I got nowhere. I don't know a single soul in the city of L.A.
Girl: Where are you gonna go?
FB: Where my fancy takes me, I guess.
Girl: Really? Your fancy just go anywhere? (Rewound this one a few times, too.)
FB: I'll just wander (dramatic pause) around.
Girl: You poor boy. I've got a better idea. Why not just come home with me?
FB: Where to?
Girl: Come on!
FB: You don't have to, you know.
Girl: Come off it!

Do I sound bitter while writing about this bad movie? Maybe. But I feel like there were promises made and promises broken. I mean, a character with an ill-fitting cowboy hat is introduced, and I'm thinking, "Oh yeah! I can't wait to see this guy fight!" But then that fight [SPOILER ALERT] is just the fake Bruce Lee jumping 40 feet backward to avoid being shot by the cowboy. He doesn't kick or punch at all. Disappointing.

If I were you, I would not see this movie.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

2011-11-27T19:33:00.000-08:00

2002 horse movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A cartoon horse runs around the prairie, is captured by a guy with a mustache, escapes with the help of a Native American, hooks up with a girl horse, and listens to Brian Adams' music obsessively.

Is it just me or does it seem like half the movies I write about on here are cartoons? This is another old-school flat-D animated feature that, like The Iron Giant, more people should have bothered seeing. Actually, I have no idea how this one did in the theaters or with its subsequent dvd release. I do remember it coming out and the commercials boasting that it had "more action than Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" which Dylan and I thought was pretty funny at the time. Spirit: Stallion of the Blah Blah Blah doesn't even have Yoda! This does have a lot of solid action scenes though, enough to make it a horsey movie that boys would probably like. Vibrant music and animation perfecting capturing the American West circa when we was killin' all the Indians make this fun for both the eyes and ears, and I liked seeing the historical fiction narrative through the eyes of a horse. I liked the protagonist, voiced hunkily by Matt Damon back when he was skinny. Honestly though, one more Brian Adams song, and I would have left the house to find a horse to kick as hard as I could. This has a nice lively story with good themes for both the little ones and their parents. Dumb title though. It probably failed at the box office because nobody wanted to ask for tickets to see something called Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

Paranormal Activity 2

2011-11-27T19:03:00.000-08:00

2010 horror sequel

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Some demon thing is bullying a family, threatening to swipe their baby. And their little dog, too. It slams the cabinet door, makes messes, and stays out well past curfew. Oh, and it might be having sex with the pool cleaning device. If this is anything like the first movie [SPOILER ALERT: It kind of is.], then these people are probably going to die. And the dog. Dog's not making it either.

Second verse, same as the first? Except this bunch of paranormal activity involves a dog and a baby. The dog's good, maybe my favorite animal actor of the year. This builds suspense really well and has some moments that about made my stomach leave my body, but unless my recollection of the first movie is just wrong, the scares here are more of the loud, sudden noise or sudden movement variety than pure unadulterated psychological horror. This movie's got a pattern. It lulls you to sleep by showing you the series of blue-hued (see poster) security video where nothing is happening unless you count a pool cleaning robot thingy moving around as "something happening." But whereas the first Paranormal Activity movie managed to seem original despite borrowing heavily from Blair Witch, this one seems too much like a gimmicky Xeroxed copy. The acting's not bad although the dad doesn't always seem like a normal guy to me, and I'm still impressed with the no-budget affects and the amount of creepiness this conjures up. A lot of it is that it just takes away so much that is familiar about traditional horror movies--the music, a lurking camera, changes in perspective. The sameness of it all really creates a feeling of uneasiness. I do wonder how much the performances in this know beforehand or if the director just sticks them in situations and then makes things happen. I suppose that I could look that up, but I don't care about the movie enough to do it.

Spy Kids

2011-11-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

2001 kid action movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Carmen and Juni don't even know that their parents are spies, but they are forced to play the spy game themselves when Mom and Dad are spynapped by an evil and eccentric genius.

First off, Danny Trejo is in this playing a character named Machete. So that's cool. I've gone ten years thinking that this is a pretty cool movie, especially for kids looking for an action movie to watch. Turns out that I was half wrong. This is a really dorky movie, and it's got some of the most annoying computer-generated special effects, effects that really make this seem like a live-action cartoon and just get in the way. Don't get me wrong. There's a creative spirit at play here that I do like. Any movie with this much color and with this many cool gadgets and bad guy cronies that look like giant walking hands can't be all bad. The leads give energetic performances. Antonio Banderas is as cool as can be, and Alan Cumming, even though he looks a little like Pee Wee, makes for an ok evil genius. The kids are as bad as you'd expect them to be, but they're not completely irritating. Well, actually that boy's hair is pretty irritating. I think it's CGI-hair. And Cheech Marin is also entirely CGI in this movie, I think. Anyway, the movie's kind of a mess. Rodriguez directs with vigor and makes an almost-fun movie here. It's just a tad bit too much.

For those of you who are fans of rich, Corinthian leather like I am, it should be noted that Ricardo Montalban is in two Spy Kids sequels.

Pinocchio

2011-11-27T16:29:00.000-08:00

2002 family fun

Rating: 2/20 (Dylan: 0/20; Emma: .5/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Pinocchio, as made by mentally challenged people.

"Who stole the salami?"

This may be the worst movie ever. Unless watching Roberto Benigni hop around like he's doing on the poster, only with less blue, is your cup of Pinocchio, you're not going to like this. Abbey claims to have liked it, but this might just confirm my theory that she's on drugs. At the 21 minute mark, Dylan started screaming in anger and ran upstairs. I continued watching but passed out and woke up later with the hair on half my head shaven. This is an ugly and stupid movie without a single redeeming quality. I will say this: We watched a dubbed version that is available on Netflix, and it was really tackily done. Sometimes, that can be comical; here, it's enough to make one old guy sick and a younger guy scream in anger and run off. Add to that some of the worst special effects you'll find. It's almost like there were real special effects, like Italian special effects or something, but the producers didn't think that Americans would understand them and dubbed them with really cheap C-studio special effects. A loud and painful movie.

Here's the question that I'm left with: What the hell is a puppet in Italy? Or a boy? Because a 50-year-old Roberto Benigni looked like neither. I think "puppet" must mean "ornery old man" or something over there. Or "one who inflicts great amounts of torment and pain." Or "character who is going to make your career much harder to defend to my friends."

Blood Tea and Red String

2011-11-27T14:20:00.000-08:00

2006 stop-motion fairy tale

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Some bird-headed bipods and some upright white mice battle over the fluffy heart of a crudely-made doll. I can see why they're fighting though. That is one hot doll!

Matt knows how much I dig grotesque puppetry and recommended this one to me. It's not very long, and not-very-long is just about the right length since this one wore on me a little bit. I liked the characters and the entirely voiceless storytelling approach, and like most stop-motion geniuses, Christiane Cegavske's got a clever way about her, creatively but in an almost old-school way showing the movement of water or other non-character movement. This really does look like an old-school puppet production for children, only it's a bit too surreal and bloody and just plain weird. They do have the feel of those more kid-friendly Jiri Trnka films though with a fairy tale ambiance. And not unlike a Svankmajer movie, this utilizes sound effects really well. Cegavske does a terrific job creating this imaginative little world of hers, and she makes technical brilliance look so easy. I'd love to see more, but it seems that she's not in a situation where she's going to be prolific.

Winnie the Pooh

2011-11-27T10:57:00.001-08:00

2011 cartoon

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 13/20; Emma: 19/20; Abbey: 20/20; Sophie: too young to rate movies, especially ones this explicit)

Plot: Pooh wants honey, Eeyore's lost his tael, and Owl's got everybody convinced that a terrifying creature called a Backsoon has kidnapped Christopher Robin. It's just another afternoon in the bedroom of a terminally deranged young English boy. You just know that in a future sequel, Owl and Rabbit are going to convince him to start his classmates and/or parents. Actually, where are his parents in these movies? Somebody better check the freezer!

This is not your parents' Winnie the Pooh cartoon! No, in this one, Pooh Bear is disemboweled in what has to be the most horrifyingly grotesque scene this side of one of those Saw movies. Actually, this isn't a carbon copy of the older Disney Pooh material at all. It shares a love for childlike songs, endearingly simple and nostalgic animated backgrounds and characters, a wonderful playfulness, and sweet little stories. It actually does some things better than the original. It blends its stories, some from Milne's text and some created specially for this, really well, perfect for the no-attention-span of modern kiddos. The 2D animation doesn't look as flat as the characters weave in and out of their settings. And this is a whole lot funnier than the original with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. This new Pooh's got a wackier tone that is different from its predecessor while not disrespecting the previous stories or its source material. (It should be noted that my wife, a Pooh aficionado, did seem offended by a lot of the goings-on here.) I also really liked the voicework despite having to initially get used to the slightly-different-sounding character voices. Some guy named Jim Cummings, an actor with a resume packed with versatile voice acting roles, does both Pooh and Tigger. We recognized Bud Luckey, the depressed clown in Toy Story 3, as (of course) Eeyore. Luckey's more of an animator than an actor, but he could make a career out of voicing depressed characters. Checking imdb.com, it looks like he's got a handful of roles on the animated horizon--suicidal monkey, despondent puppet, moody Amish guy, heartbroken octopus. One of my favorite people, Craig Ferguson, is perfect as Owl, and John Cleese should win some kind of award for not making me miss Sebastian Cabot. I didn't care much for the songs in this one although there were some clever lyrics. Pooh's a briskly-paced barely hour-long breezy flick that's great for young children and funny enough for older ones. And it might help Disney make a buttload of money with children's clothes and stuffed animals, so everybody wins!

13 Ghosts

2011-11-26T16:28:00.001-08:00

1960 horror-comedy with really hard-to-see ghosts

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A family inherits a haunted house with 12 of the titular 13 ghosts. Luckily for them, they also inherited some special glasses that will allow them to see the ghosts. Then, Scooby Doo comes along and eats everything!

I wish William Castle was my grandpa. I don't even know why I want him to be my grandpa, but I do. 13 Ghosts starts with some of his goofball narration about the whole ghost-viewer gimmick, Illusion-O or whatever it's called. It's these glasses things where you use the red part to see the ghosts or the blue part to make the ghosts disappear. Or vice versa. I didn't pay much attention because I didn't have a ghost viewer. And that made it annoying when the words "Use Viewer" or "Remove Viewer" flashed on the screen. I could sort of see the ghosts at that time, but I had to squint, and I really only like squinting when I'm watching Clint Eastwood movies. I could hear the ghosts a little, too, despite any special ghost hearing aides. They sounded like cartoon chipmunks. The opening of this movie starts promising enough with some splashy paint effects and a picture that looks a little like Voldemort. The best part of the movie is about seven minutes in when a telegram guy (David Hoffman) slides on screen. It's easily the creepiest part of the movie. The housekeeper is played by the Wicked Witch herself, Margaret Hamilton, and although she's got the ears for the part, she looks bored out of her mind here. I did get to learn all about the Ouija Board in this. Yes, it's got one of those cliched Ouija Board (here pronounced Wee-Juh; have I been pronouncing it wrong all this time? It's not Wee-Gee?) scenes. Anyway, I did get to learn the etymology of Wee-Juh and the rule that it won't answer if you ask it a silly question. As a whole, this thing is weak on plot and gimmick and isn't successfully funny or scary.

The Tree of Life

2011-11-26T13:51:00.000-08:00

2011 piece of abstract art

Rating: 18/20 (Mark: 17/20; Amy: 15/20)

Plot: In the beginning, there was darkness. Yadda yadda yadda. A dinosaur farts. A kid dies. Then, darkness again. The end.

Absolutely staggering, and this despite me not listening to Larstonovich and seeing in a movie theater. I'll go ahead and get my gripe out of the way: I was not a big fan of the whispered multi-character narration in this. I almost would have rather seen the almost completely wordless series of images that this would have been. The structure of Malick's family drama is going to frustrate a lot of people who see this. It's non-linear and episodic, excluding big moments in order to include minutia and memory tidbits, blending dream with the most mundane of human interactions, piling metaphor on metaphor and metaphor. That's what it is really, an orgy of metaphor. Metaphor porn, and if you're into that sort of thing, you'll get off while watching The Tree of Life. There's a story here, but it's a puzzle, like a fragile piece of porcelain that Malick has ballping-hammered into fine pieces and many years later attempted to glue back together again. This is one of those movies that almost speaks its own language. You clutch onto what's familiar--the actors, who I thought were good only because they didn't get in the way; the gorgeous visuals that you'd expect from something Malick took this long to put together; the haunting, largely classical score. And if you're like me, while you're working hard in the beginning to clutch on to something and trying desperately to put the pieces of the puzzle together or wondering why the hell there are dinosaurs, the movies going to clutch back. This one got a grip on me and still hasn't let go. It's poetry on the screen, big and ambitious and more than a little pretentious, a visceral experience that I think I'll carry in my bones for a long, long time. Was this storyboarded?

Malick apparently has four movies in production or filming. That would nearly double his output from the last 28 years!

The Iron Giant

2011-11-26T13:13:00.000-08:00

1999 giant robot movie

Rating: 17/20 (Dylan: 12/20; Emma: 6/20; Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: Hogarth finds a new large metallic buddy one day. Unfortunately, the government wants to destroy him. With the help of a guy who owns a junkyard, he tries to keep a monstrous hunk of metal that is impossible to hide hidden.

Brad Bird's second best movie, The Iron Giant is a humorous and ultimately touching E.T. clone that succeeds on almost every level. I did have to deduct points for the lame Superman reference at the end though because it was just too much. The 1950s are captured perfectly with beautiful animation. I especially like the way the titular robot contrasts with nature, the visuals contributing to a theme, I guess. There are shots that, although maybe not as beautiful as some recent CGI-shots, are almost frameworthy. The giant itself is a sympathetic character. You can identify with him even though he's not a human character both as he struggles with identity and has tanks shooting at him. Of course, he is an anthropomorphized robot, the kind you can only get in a cartoon. This is a simple story animated simply with a great score and hardly a single wasted moment. It's a great last splash of 2D wonder before computer animation would completely take over.

John Mahoney's also got a part in this. I knew a guy who was in a movie with John Mahoney who was Frasier's dad. And Kevin Bacon was in an episode of Frasier which means there are only four degrees of separation between Kevin Bacon and me.

Shrek the Third

2011-11-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

2007 sequel

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Shrek doesn't want to be the next king, so he and his friends travel to locate a true heir to the throne. Meanwhile, Prince Charming is still ticked off after the last movie failed to end the way he wanted it to, and he attempts to take over the throne himself. Oh, snap!

Well, they're just going through the motions now. I lost interest in the plot of this one almost right off the bat, and the characters, none of which I actually like at all, are even more grating here than they are in the first movie. There's not a single laugh to be had here, and the novelty that makes the first movie tolerable is almost completely gone. It's replaced with the reverberating sound of a cash register actually. I wish Dreamworks would grow a pair and kill a couple of these characters off. Pinocchio? Have him sawed in half? Gingerbread Man? Didn't he have his legs bitten off in the first movie? You know what else Dreamworks gets wrong here? There's a scene where a character actually does die, and they stomp all over it with halfassed humor. Then, they have a funeral scene where I'm actually supposed to be sad. In the fifteen minutes when this is all going on, they manhandle both emotions and leave me wondering why they even bothered. Why didn't they just have Shrek fart in Donkey's face for fifteen minutes instead? Pop songs, general loudness, allusions that aren't as clever as anybody thinks they are. This is just tired. They made a fourth one of these?

I've always wondered. You know how foreign countries translate the names of American movies and they sometimes turn out kind of funny? I wonder if this one is translated as Farting Moody Monster in Vietnam or somewhere? Somebody research that for me.