The Tree of Guernica

 1975 war movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: There's a war in Spain.

This was Fernando Arrabal's third movie after Long Live Death and I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse, a pair of movies that I didn't enjoy or understand. So I'm not sure why I bothered with this one because I didn't enjoy or understand it either. The thing's steeped in metaphors, some that I didn't understand and flew by like non sequiturs and some that were so obvious that they seemed juvenile. Also juvenile was a lot of sacrilegious imagery Ok, Arrabal, we get it. You don't like the church very much. I don't need to see any more characters wiping their ejaculate on a statue. There's a lot of war footage and its grotesque imagery mixed into the barrage of often disturbing imagery. There are also a lot of little people, one with a naked guy who later gets a sex scene while other little people towel him off. And there's a bullfight scene with one of the little people tied to a cart with a bull's head on the front, a scene that I swear lasted ninety minutes. And there's a scene with two guys tongue-wrestling that looked like something that could have been in a Will Ferrell movie. Oh, and a giant ear knife on wheels (I have no idea how else I could describe it) with naked children running around it and a lady saving herself from rape by hurling snakes. It's that kind of movie, and I actually started hating myself in the middle of it. A lot of this has the feel of a snuff film, and although I'm sure there's a point being made with the whole, it was well over my head and I really couldn't connect to anything that was happening enough to even care that I was missing out on something. I would not recommend you watch this although it is a little funnier than The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.

Freaky Deaky

2012 crime comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: I don't really feel like writing a plot synopsis for this movie.

The parts don't come together for this one, a movie based on an Elmore Leonard story. Elmore Leonard's like a Hollywood goldmine. This has a semi-fun story, a bunch of semi-fun characters, and a semi-fun groovy 70's vibe. But it doesn't add up to anything that is much fun at all. When I found out that Crispin Glover and Andy Dick were playing siblings, I thought, "Uh oh. Brace yourself for the apocalypse, Shane." Glover, as expected, is the best thing about the movie. He's long-haired, sometimes plays Twister, and is perpetually stoned. The eccentric millionaire is a good role for Glover. Unfortunately, the movie's just as much about Billy Burke's character, a composite of every detective or hard-boiled copper from every other movie. Burke seems more tired than cool playing this walking cliché. Christian Slater plays a nutty bomb-maker and is exactly as good as you think he'd be. A funk soundtrack is cool, but a saxxy score is really dopey, and a few effects like page-turning transitions just seem like lazy attempts to make this whole thing cooler than it actually turned out. Chapter titles and a goofy made-up cereal won't trick anybody into thinking that "Charles Matthau" is a Tarantino pseudonym.

Charlie's Angels

2000 television show remake

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

Plot: The titular crime fighters have to defeat a bad guy who has stolen something that has to do with computers.

My wife wanted to watch this because she's a big Crispin Glover fan. The special effects team behind this twist him all around, allow him to defy gravity, and give him a cane sword. It actually looked to me like Glover might have been having some fun as a mysterious and mute villain. It's the most action he's had on screen since that punch in Back to the Future. He's easily the best thing about this mess. Well, unless you're a fan of the numerous shots of the Angels' rear ends. With hair-sniffing quirks and severely-parted hair, this will likely be the closest Crispin gets to being a James Bond villain. This tongue-in-cheek action comedy is almost a little fun, but the stupidity overwhelms it. Gratuitously sexy, unashamedly corny, and cartoonishly action-packed, this definitely won't appeal to the thinking man part of you. The trio of Angels--Barrymore, Liu, Diaz--are fine, but that something about Drew Barrymore that really annoys me is on full display here, and Diaz's character is a little too stupid. But they all move well and are shapely enough. There are a few cameos (Jen--"Tom Green AND Joey?"), and then there's Bill Murray who always looks to me like he knows that he's wasting his time when I see him in things like this. Allegedly, a fight with Lucy Liu caused by Murray questioning her talent kept him out of the sequel. I was happy to hear a Flying Lizard's song in this, but that was early in the movie, way before I realized that the makers of this were actually going to use every single song that has ever existed on the soundtrack. Oh, and there's Sam Rockwell, not surprising at all since he's in every movie.

I'm going to eventually see the sequel to this, but I won't feel good about it. I hope there are more explosions in part two!

Scooby Doo! The Mystery Begins

2009 television movie

Rating: 10/20 (Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Details the origin of the Mystery Inc. as the gang get together for the first time to solve a mystery at their high school and clear their names.

This might be a little better than the theatrical movies. I also might not have paid that much attention to it. The real mysteries: Why does Fred a brunette sans ascot? Why is Velma Asian? How much money did they spend animating that dog? The dog looks pretty good for a television movie, but if you're going to animate the titular dog in something like this, you might as well animate everything else. And you know what? They did that several years ago, retelling the same story again and again and sometimes adding Don Knotts to the equation. There's really no reason for this to exist. Well, unless they want to add a CGI Don Knotts, and I'm all for that.

The biggest problem with this is the MacGuffin. It would be completely worthless, so the antagonist going to all the trouble he does in the movie to get his hands on it makes almost no sense.

Cashback

2006 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: An art student breaks up with his girlfriend, and combats insomnia by getting a part-time job at a supermarket. Later, he discovers that he has the ability to freeze time.

This movie's so boring that I actually started wondering in the early parts if the whole thing was an attempt by the director to help the viewer feel the protagonist's insomnia or something. It's slow going throughout, and my dislike of the main character probably didn't help. Neither did his constant narration. There were occasional humorous diversions, the best being the appearance of a sausage customer and the antics of two employees who passed their time doing anything they could that didn't involve work. It's cheap gags and a fair share of nudity under a cover of artsy-fartsiness, but naked old man drawing model flatulence poked holes through that sheet right from the get-go. This movie fails dramatically, comedically, and romantically, and all the points I'm giving this are for boobs.

The Onion Movie

 

2008 satirical news movie

 

Rating: 10/20

 

Plot: America's finest news source with anchorman Norm Archer gives us the news. But Archer becomes increasingly frustrated with their corporate sponsor and its cartoon penguin. Meanwhile, terrorists.

 

I love The Onion, but this came across as a slightly-more-intelligent Not Another Teen Movie which I don't mean as praise. On the one hand, you've got some biting satire (my personal favorite kind of satire), some no-holds-barred envelope pushing that is clever enough to make me want to use all kinds of cliches. And then you've got Steven Seagal punching cocks. Sure, "Taffy? Fucking blacks!" is something that I'm likely to repeat and the most inappropriate time imaginable, and a blue teddy bear nearly converted me into a plushsexual after years of sketchy heterosexuality. And then there's Rodney Dangerfield rolled out to say exactly what you think he'd say. There's clever stuff in here, and I'll always be more willing than most people to support a movie that features scenes with people having sexual relations with a library book return slot, but the whole thing is so poorly paced and clumsily strung together that it's not a surprise at all to find out that this had no theatrical release and was shelved for a few years. Bits went on for far too long, and the attempt to tie it all together with the Archer vs. cartoon penguin subplot never really worked. A wild ending synthesized the chaos a bit, but there was just far too much stupid involved to make it work. And Rodney Dangerfield. 

Spanking the Monkey

1994 movie that doesn't even have a monkey

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Some kid with 90s hair has an internship all set up but instead has to go back home to take care of his recently-injured mother because his dad is a traveling salesman. The dog keeps distracting him while he's trying to masturbate, and he's not having much luck at all with the neighbor gal. Luckily for him, his mother's a lot of fun to hang out with.

The box, imdb.com, and the above poster make this seem like it's supposed to be a comedy. It was definitely more disturbing than funny, and the indie-film quality somehow succeeded in making it all seem much, much creepier than it was supposed to be. There's a big shocking payoff in the late-middle part of the movie, and although I liked how it was filmed--well, maybe it should have been a lot less tasteful--when it happened, it really doesn't inspire anything but shrugs. The actors all perform as if they're either really sleepy or maybe hypnotized. Scenes with main character Raymond's friends not only seemed extraneous but interrupted the storytelling. This movie seemed much longer than it actually was. It's really unfortunate that there wasn't a monkey in this movie.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011 monkey mayhem

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A scientist experiments with drugs to help Alzheimer's patients and ends up with a monkey who is more intelligent than most Americans. In fact, Caesar probably would have been smart enough to see previews for this movie and decide not to spend the money to see it. After an act of violence forces The Man to separate Caesar from his scientist buddy, he gets angry, gives the same drug to a bunch of damn dirty apes, and breaks out to cause a few explosions.

There's a funny scene in this movie where Franco's character meets his love interest for the first time. Caesar starts making these hand gestures that are very obviously sexual, but Franco's character covers with a "He thinks I should take you to dinner." Other than that lone scene, I can't think of another reason to even watch this movie. It's a big dumb summer blockbuster that's all special effects and no depth. A basic plot outline would sound like something that has a lot of potential, and a prequel to Planet of the Apes to explain how the maniacs blew it all up and why they deserved to have that gun nut damn them all to hell in the first movie isn't a terrible idea. And this is much better than that Tim Burton travesty that resulted in me taking a trip to the zoo just so I could get in a shouting match with an ape. But no, this is just embarrassing. You get a really big start with a buttload of fake-looking monkeys. The CGI monkeys in this look so fake, as a matter of fake, that after watching this, I wasn't even sure if I'd ever seen a real monkey. And there are times when I can see that what the special effects gurus behind this did is really pretty remarkable. The actors' rapport with the fake looking animals, all those monkeys on the screen moving around at the same time, and even Andy Serkis's skills in giving Caesar so much personality all make you think, "Yeah, I'm sure a lot of money went into this and it's really a remarkable achievement." But those monkeys just don't look real at all, and that took me completely out of the movie. And Serkis? I hope he isn't reading this because I don't want to hurt his feelings, but I think what he does is really pretty overrated. Caesar overacts, and it gets worse the older he gets. And the more scenes we get of Caesar (or any of the monkeys for that matter) moving around, the more ridiculously cartoonish they look. The only thing even coming close to that level of ridiculousness would be John Lithgow's distracting performance as Franco's father. I'm just not sure Alzheimer's is supposed to be this funny, but I laughed at Lithgow's delivery of this "Look at him go!" line and then again at these expressions he was making as he was wrecking his neighbor's car. No, I didn't really want to laugh at a character with Alzheimer's. It just didn't seem right. Draco Malfoy (ok, Tom Felton) didn't seem right either. He almost blasphemy screams "It's a madhouse! It's a madhouse!" at one point and then, even tackier, gets a "damn dirty ape" line. Felton better be careful or he's going to be typecast as "young punk bully guy" and miss out on his chance to eventually be a James Bond. All this builds to a silly looking action scene on a bridge that is about as thrilling and realistic as the scenes in that last big action movie you saw. It's violence that takes no chances, likely to avoid an R rating, I imagine. And there's just no real tension or any reason to care about what's going on with either the underdeveloped monkey characters except for maybe Caesar or the human characters who don't even have names. But you'll dig it if you like fake-looking monkeys jumping around and destroying helicopters. I had hope going into this movie, but this was nothing but disappointment. And now I have to make another trip to the zoo to take it out on some animals who had nothing to do with the production of this.

Soup to Nuts

1930 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: I don't know. It's something about a costume store trying to stay in business. Firemen are involved somehow. It was two in the morning. I had to dry my blanket and planned on watching this for forty minutes or so. I kept listening for the dryer to stop so that I could turn this off, get my blanket, and go to sleep. Next thing I know, the movie's over. The dryer was still going. I think the dryer and Shemp Howard conspired to force me to watch this entire movie. Or, more realistically, Shemp Howard has been reincarnated as my dryer.

I watched this more because Rube Goldberg wrote the story, but you can look for yourself on the poster to see how it's marketed. It's not a Three Stooges movie though. They're in the beginning and end of the movie, but they're peripheral characters. Sadly, they and Fred Sanborn, the latter who is playing a fireman as quiet as Harpo, are the funniest things about this movie. Sadly, since they aren't funny at all. There's not a laugh to be had in this mostly-incoherent mess. The dialogue is about as funny as you'd expect from a 1930 comedy (yes, I'm biased) and the slapstick doesn't work at all. A few sight gags nearly work during a climactic fire-fighting scene, but it's the type of thing that only succeeds in making me wish I was watching Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin or somebody else who wasn't screaming at me. I wouldn't watch this if I were you. You'll be disappointed if you're a Three Stooges fan. If you're not, you'll still be disappointed.

God Bless America

2011 satire

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: Originally, she told me 16/20. After she heard my rating, she changed hers to a 6/20 and said she was "just kidding." I'm starting to think she's not taking my rating system seriously.)

Plot: Frank's more than a little fed up with the state of affairs in the titular country in which he lives. Well, he's fed up with television and the popularity of certain imbecilic reality and news programs. More personally, his wife has left him, his daughter's become a preteen spoiled brat, his boss has fired him, his neighbors are too loud, and his doctor has informed him that he's got a brain tumor that will kill him. He responds like most level-headed fellows would--by taking his aggression out on a teenage reality star. He murders her, befriends one of her classmates, and goes on a killing spree.

Bobcat Goldthwait always shows enough promise and an exciting willingness to take risks as a filmmaker that I keep giving his movies a shot. It almost paid off with the not-so-bad World's Greatest Dad in which we got to see Robin Williams' lil' genie. As established, that was something I've been wanting to see since he nanu-nanued into our hearts in the late-70s. But there's not a penis to be seen in this movie. The biggest flaw with this Bobcat piece is that it is that it's just as objective and balanced as the right-wing news guy he's making fun of. I'm fine with an anti-meanness or anti-vapidity theme, but this is so anti-red state that it becomes embarrassing. Or blue state. The Republican ones. I get those confused just like I get alligators and crocodiles confused. Anyway, I can support a director who wants to criticize America and its entertainers for being generally nasty or contributing to a dumbing-down of mankind. But to pick on Nascar fans? Why was that necessary, Bobcat? Why make fun of people just because they harmlessly like something that you don't like? Goldthwaite's handling of dark comedy ranges from queasily humorous to really clumsy and oddly predictable. Some of the reality show or "news" spoofs are pretty good, but it's a lot like shooting fish in a barrel and after a while seems about as funny as something you'd see on Saturday Night Live. And they're disturbing, probably because despite the absurdity of it all, it's so close to reality. I did enjoy the performances of the leads. Joel Murray is perfectly cast to play this guy who's reached rock bottom, probably because he kind of looks like he could be from Eastern Europe. He spends too much time being too much of an action hero or acting as Goldthwaite's mouthpiece, however, ranting against televised singing competitions and morning radio talk show farts or saying things like, "Why have a civilization if we're not interested in being civilized?" And Tara Lynne Barr, likely because Ellen Page was a little too expensive, played her character enough as a child to make her activities in this even more disturbing. She's as cute as Winnie Cooper and might have herself a career in the movies. Their good performances can't elevate this mess though. Goldthwaite succeeds in offending, but it's because of his preachiness instead of the way he probably intended.

The Cable Guy

1996 black comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Steven, recovering from a break-up, has cable installed, and the titular character forces a friendship upon the poor guy. The relationship moves from inconvenient to annoying to threatening which reminds me of nearly every friendship that I've ever had.

Un Loco a Domicilio!

This is the perfect example of a movie that hits its peak right off the bat and then gets worse and worse as it goes. Considering that peak is the appearance of a Whammy from the game show Press Your Luck, that's probably not a good thing. The Broderick as a straight man to Carrey's wackiness works for a little bit although Carrey is, as you'd probably expect at this stage of his career, a bit much. Once we're through the exposition, this turns into an interesting enough story with these big clumsy comedy interruptions. The basketball scene, the Medieval restaurant scene, the Jefferson Airplane song. They're not all that funny--just really big. I do like how Carrey mimics the score though. And old people singing karaoke is always comedy gold. And this really is a who's-who of comedy legends--Jack Black, nearly tolerable in a couple scenes; Janeane Garofalo ("There were no utensils during medieval times hence there are no utensils at Medieval Times. Would you like a refill on your Pepsi?"); Kathy Griffin, all-too-briefly; Andy Dick, predictably the funniest person in the movie; director Ben Stiller playing two sort-of characters; Owen Wilson, also briefly; a tiny bit of David Cross; the omnitalented Eric Roberts. But it just doesn't work. It's already lost its way before it switches gears and gets ultra-dark in the last third, and it had already run out of gas before then. And trying to inject a little anti-television theme into the proceedings is really silly. There's a really nutty scene where a guy's television stops working so he picks up a book and starts reading. Come on. That's just nutty.

I had a hard time figuring out why I even bothered giving this movie a second chance. I think I saw it on a best "black comedy" list somewhere and figured I had missed something. Apparently, I only watched it because I wanted to see a large chunk of Sleepless in Seattle again.

Any Italian speakers want to translate that? Google tells me it's "A spot at home" which doesn't make any sense.

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie

2012 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: The titular guys waste the titular billion dollars they got to make the titular movie and try to run a run-down shopping mall in order to make money to pay off their debt.

Those of you who aren't entertained by references to the "penis hole," watching children defecate on a guy, watching one character urinate on another, or Jeff Goldblum need not apply. This goes far beyond your typical gross-out comedy into something more bizarre. This is based on a Cartoon Network's Adult Swim show that is just as bizarre but in much shorter installments. The punchy absurdity of that works for its principal audience--people who eat drugs. Here, the absurdities piled on absurdities is exhausting, and although there was enough to laugh at here (shamefully) to make it worth it, especially if you're in the mood for this sort of stupidity, it's probably too much for most people to handle. I'm not even sure fans of the show would be too excited about what comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have done here. Will Ferrell and Will Forte are both pretty funny in this. John C. Reilly? Not so much.

Riki Oh: The Story of Ricky

1991 kung-fu movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: The titular guy who can't decide how to spell his name winds up in a prison run by corrupted officials and has to put a few fist-shaped holes in a few guys in order to survive.

This was high on my list of Things Shane Needs to See for a really long time, and then I finally saw it and ended the experience surprisingly flaccid, especially for a movie with so many internal organs that end up external. Naturally, I had to see it again, only to discover that although it's technically a pretty bad movie, it's one you just can't look away from. It's ridiculously dumb, the dumb exemplified best in a scene where our hero spills a dude's intestines with one punch, hits another guy so hard that he explodes, and takes a spike through his hand without batting an eye before "Tattoo Guy" (my name for him) says, "Hmm...you're not bad." Not bad? He just disemboweled a guy with his fist and made another guy explode! Tattoo Guy sure has high standards. There's another intestine-heavy scene featuring what might be the pun of the year--"Alright! You have a lot of guts, Oscar." Despite all the mayhem and very-low-budget gore (these inmates' heads look like they're made out of Play-Doh), this movie strangely lacks personality. The characters are either too goofy or bland, but at least the bland ones fit in with the ugly and bland prison setting with its tomato-soup-colored floors. But a movie that can't find its personality despite scenes of nails on faces, heads being punched off, multiple eviscerations, guys skinned alive, chin demolition, hand destruction, and a guy with an effeminate voice kicking a dog in half for no good reason is a movie that has some issues. Some distracting dubbing doesn't help. But as a bonus to all the kung-fu gore, you do get a great scene where a guy takes a dump and sings "Satisfaction" about as poor as one can sing it and another scene where Japanese people are playing basketball, a spectacle that probably looked exactly like you'd expect it to look.

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

2009 train wreck

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Documentarians risk their lives and chronicle a year in the life of the titular West Virginia family, the most famous member being the subject of Dancing Outlaw.

I'm getting too old for this shit. My late-30s has transformed me into something stuffy. I think I would really have gotten a kick out of something like this in my younger days, but this drifting and pointless look at this family filled with not a single likable individual just managed to depress and bore me. I distracted myself by wondering what Hank Williams III was doing with these people and whether or not the documentarians were using the Whites didactically or if they were just kind of being made fun of. I didn't care either way. I imagine this sort of entertainment is analogous to a Jersey Shore or The Whorish Housewives of Wherever or something like that. Early on, a police guy or maybe he was the county prosecutor or something brought up a kid "from a humble background" going to MIT and wondered why he wasn't being followed around with a camera. It was actually a really good point.

Rocky IV

1985 propaganda piece

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A powerful Soviet boxer named Drago punches Rocky's friend Apollo Creed to death. Rocky travels to the Soviet Union, a place that once existed, to train and fight the monster.

Monster. Seriously, was I supposed to be rooting against Drago in this movie, and more importantly, does the fact that I really wasn't put me on some kind of Joseph McCarthy list? As pro-America and pro-democracy as this movie is (and believe me, it's as proud to be an American as a guy wearing red, white, and blue boxers at a monster truck rally), there are some mixed messages throughout this. We start with exploding boxing gloves, not the traditional title crawl from the right, and automatically, this does not bode well. Then, you get to Paulie's birthday party where the birthday boy gets a robot. Only in America, right? This was actually the first "Rocky" movie I ever saw, and I remember being confused and bored by all this birthday and robot shit. I probably wondered, just like I did when I watched it this time, if Paulie and the robot were going to have an intimate sex scene. Apollo seemed to think so. The robot is probably a good symbol for what is wrong with America in this movie, but I'm too tired to get my thoughts together on that. I do know that America just seems so cocky and cheap and loud. You get all these flashy shots of a Camaro at the beginning of one of about five thousand montages. Then, you get flamboyant Apollo's entrance before his last tragic match, and you can just tell that James Brown confuses the heck out of Drago. So you get these clashing ideals in the ring--capitalism vs. communism, old (Apollo and his training techniques) vs. new (Drago and all those machines the commies got), a cocky guy who is all style vs. a guy who just wants to freakin' box, pomposity vs. stoicism. And by the way, I prefer Drago's entrance music more than anybody else's in any of these movies. I like movie music that I can play anyway, but that synthesizer/hissing breath thing is just cool. Drago trains really hard, just as hard as Rocky or Apollo, so I'm not sure what the message is supposed to be. And Rocky is chopping down trees for no good reason, so you know the environmentalists (probably, commies anyway) are going to be rooting against him. And then, look at the fight itself. First, you know who's going to win because these movies have gotten predictable. But look at how Rocky wins. He gets lucky during the fight, and he cheats by hitting after the bell, but they try to keep Drago as the bad guy by having him retaliate. I wonder if Rocky had something stuffed in his glove to cut Drago actually. I wouldn't put it past him! There's also a moment in round two where Rocky gets knocked down but doesn't get a count. What the heck? I just don't see how Drago is the villain in all this (aside from a half-second shot of him being injected with something which suggested he's not all-natural), but his hometown crowd does as they start rooting for Rocky at the end which has to be the dumbest thing about any of these Rocky movies. Poor Drago was probably shot like a wounded racehorse after the fight, and after all that hard work, I just felt sorry for the guy. I also feel sorry for anybody with an aversion to movie montages since Rocky IV has to break the record for most in one movie. There are at least seven, and counting the opening sequence which, just like the other sequels, is the end sequence of the previous movie, this has about forty minutes of footage that we've already seen before. It's like they filmed Rocky IV, realized they only had about fifty minutes of movie, and said, "Yeah, we can just pad the rest of this with some of the best moments from the other three movies." This movie, despite being an offensive chunk of propagandist cheese, gets a 10/20 only because you get a formidable foe with Drago (I like Dolph more than Mr. T. and the Hulkster combined actually) and because even though Mickey is dead (he shows up in those montages though), that ring announcer's mustache is alive and well. But overall, this movie should be as embarrassing to America as slavery and the treatment of the Native Americans.

As mentioned, I watched this Rocky before the others. More than likely, this one turned me against the series and kept me from giving the first movie a chance until I was in my late-20s.

One more thing--2,150 pounds per square inch, the most force of one of Drago's punches, I believe. Wouldn't that be enough to completely destroy Rocky's skull or literally tear his head from his neck? That would have been a nice end to the story actually--Adrian catching her husband's head in her lap and Rocky looking up at her and saying, "Yo, Adrian. I guess this is it for old Rocky, huh?" Or just "Adrian! Adrian!" with a cut to Paulie having his way with his robot or Rocky's son, who acts just as well as his dad, crying. That's an even better end to the Balboa story than the one I imagined for Rocky II where a truck hits the boxer and kills him in front of thousands of children.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

2009 movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Following a difficult break-up, a graduate student dives right into her work, conducting the titular interviews with the titular hideous men.

I don't know why I watched this. I wasn't in the mood, had trouble staying focused, and haven't read the source material. I was curious to see what The Office's John Krasinski could do, I guess. There's just so much acting in this thing, and everything that was being said, whether it was in the interviews that served as little more than darkly amusing interruptions to a story that wasn't really going anywhere or the actual conversations the characters were having, just seemed so written. I was really kind of bored out of my mind. I also didn't care for the protagonist. Juliane Nicholson's performance is not good here, and the character lacked depth. The only reason I'm glad that I watched this was because there's a scene where a one-armed man makes air quotes. That was like a cinematic koan.

Attack the Block

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.

Fast Sofa

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.

Pulgasari

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!

Run Ronnie Run

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.