Zero Dark Thirty

2012 best picture nominee

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Based on the popular "Where's Waldo?" books, this concerns a ten-year-long manhunt for a guy who ends up being difficult to find because he wasn't actually, as suspected, wearing a striped shirt.

This is a movie about finding Osama Bin Laden whose name might actually have been Usama Bin Laden. Maybe that's why they had trouble finding the guy. They weren't even sure what his name was. It's that story, but it's also the story of one woman's struggle to have her voice heard. That's the most unfortunate thing about this movie because I didn't like the character and I didn't like the woman playing her. I realize Jessica Chastain was nominated for awards, but I just don't get it. She's really terrible, almost robotic in some scenes. She gets some Big Acting moments where she gets to cry or scream, but she was just crying and screaming, not really creating a character. I just didn't care about this woman, and that was unfortunate since she was at the center of the whole thing. Maybe it's the texting/chatting during one scene.

"He's here brb"
"Cool!"
"Wassup you talking yet?"

What the hell? I can't like a character who communicates like that. Of course, her biggest moment might be when she gets the great line "I'm the motherfucker that found this place, sir," a line delivered like she thinks she's in a teen comedy. Now, I don't know, maybe that's actually what was said by the real Maya in the real meeting, but it just seemed like it was completely out of place and inappropriate here. I wish the character could have thrown in a "Yippee Ki Yay" somewhere in there. I also didn't like the direction in Zero Dark Thirty. It's subject matter so easy that it seems kind of cheap. Bigelow starts with manipulation early--a black screen and 9/11 911 calls--before heading straight for the torture. At one point during an early torture scene, I almost called somebody to tell them everything I knew. The movie is poorly paced. Why, for example, are you showing me Zach Galifianakis feeding ice cream to a monkey? Here, clumsiness passes as grittiness and art. We get all these quick shots of car door handles, people buying fruit, trees, all filmed with the beloved shaky cam. It's a style that I was tired of before the movie started, and I definitely didn't acquire a taste for it as this overly long movie progressed. The final chunk of this movie shows the night Bin Laden was killed. Lots of darkness and shaky cam there, too, but very little actual suspense. And I'll tell you what. I'm your typical American with a real red-white-and-blue hatred for Osama Bin Laden, and if you make a movie about his death without it having an emotional impact at all, you've just failed. And no, I'm not talking about the lack of a dead-Osama money shot. I don't need to see that. I do need to feel something, however, and I was too distracted by clichéd action style techniques and bad acting from the lead for it to happen.

Question: Is the ending of this supposed to be ambiguous in any way? I mean, she identifies the body as Bin Laden's (How would she know, by the way?) and starts crying at the end, but can we really be sure they got the right person? The kid who was offered a glow stick didn't reveal anything. Did I miss something where there was undeniable proof that it was really the guy? Could Maya have lied when identifying the body because she would have looked like a complete fool otherwise?

Savages

2012 drug movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Successful marijuana growers battle dangerous Mexican drug lords, and unfortunately, the love of both of their lives gets involved. They have to go to drastic measures to save her.

I am having a very difficult time understanding the relationship that drives this story. You've got the two pot guys--Buddhist Ben and war veteran and general badass Chon--and the one girl played by Blake Lively and named after a Hamlet character. And they're all in love, but it's not a love triangle. No, it's this relationship where they all live together and Blake Lively screws them both and everybody's happy with it. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don't see how that works. And if that doesn't work, the whole movie doesn't really work. I didn't like any of the three major characters. Taylor Kitsch played the badass, and he was just your typical movie badass and nothing more--tattoos, haircut, muscles, scowl, and not much else. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was the hippie, another stereotype more than a real human being. And Blake Lively was nothing more than a pretty face and later a damsel in distress. Oh, and she provides some bad narration filled with terrible puns--war-gasms, a play on Buddhist/Baddhist, a joint venture. Those and the Shakespeare references just were a little too cutesy-clever, especially for a character who was completely bland the rest of the time. Travolta's character had potential, kind of an unlikable pussy. And Travolta's not bad, but he's not really in the movie enough to really get the chance to nail down the character. Del Toro, Demian Bichir (who I know as one of the actors who has gotten a chance to fondle Mary-Louise Parker), and Salma Hayek (wearing a terrible wig) all get parts that Mexico can be proud of. Del Toro does his best to make his character completely despicable, but it's nothing we really haven't seen already. And that's probably the biggest problem with Savages--it just doesn't take any chances. There's some of Stone's experimental trickery that you get with his non-historical dramas like Natural Born Killers or U-Turn, but here it just seems mainstream and gratuitous. The biggest trick of all is when Stone provides two separate endings. Unfortunately, neither one of them is satisfying. And neither is this movie. It lacks inspiration, seeming to borrow ideas from television dramas more than anything else, and never develops the edge that it probably would like to have.

The Man with the Iron Fists

2012 kung-fu movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Some bad guys try to steal some treasure, and it's up to a blacksmith and a government official to stop them.

This is a kind of labor of love for Wu-Tang Clan's RZA who co-wrote this with Eli Roth, directed, and ill-advisedly stars in the thing. I suppose the directing is admirable. Man looks as good as any other modern kung-fu movie with some dazzling acrobatics, some ok special effects (not the CGI wolves at the beginning--that's one of the grossest effects I've ever seen), and a lot of bloodletting, including much spurting and even some visible viscera that could get fans of that sort of thing excited enough. The story's not awful but a bit of a mess, not the worst thing that can happen to a kung-fu movie. It was good to see both Gordon Liu and Pam Grier, the latter whom the guy who works across the hall from me referred to as his "celebrity crush" although I'm sure he's talking about Pam Grier in her prime. The former is somebody I might have a celebrity crush on, and I don't even care if it's Gordon Liu in his prime or not. When I think of kung-fu, I think of Russell Crowe, and he sneaks into this thing as an under-realized perverse anti-hero with the not-as-clever-as-RZA-thinks name Jack Knife. I had to give this a bonus point because Crowe's character refers to his phallus as "the baby's arm" when requesting to put it inside Lucy Liu's character. Speaking of Liu, she's absolutely awful here, delivering lines that I'm sure both she and RZA think are much cuter than they actually are. Her performance is worse than RZA's, but he shouldn't have been in his own movie either, at least not with a speaking role. He seems tired or high, or maybe he's both. The more traditional kung-fu hero is played by Rick Yune, and I don't like that character at all. It'd be fine if there was a cool bad guy, but we're given Silver Lion played by a guy named Byron Mann. Silver Lion looks way too much like Revenge of the Nerds' Booger to take seriously. And later, there's an even worse bad guy--Dagger! If you're watching a kung-fu movie and can't root for the good guys or the bad guys, the kung-fu movie is in some serious trouble. The most intriguing characters--other than some disappointingly only nearly-nude whores that are definitely not utilized to their full potential--are the Gemini Twins who aren't in the movie enough and really don't have that much to do. They're barely more than a deleted scene or two that made it into the movie because RZA filmed the stuff and didn't want to cut anything. There's an "Attaboy, Luther" moment when a random voice in the crowd says, "Gemini Stance!" A clumsy flashback done so poorly that it managed to be comical was probably the film's worst moment, one that might showcase the director's limitations more than anything else. A worse decision, however, was the use of Wu-Tang Klan music (Ol' Dirty Bastard if I'm recalling correctly) and other questionable choices. I'm also not sure what I thought about the use of animal growls during fight scenes, but I probably didn't like those either. There's a guy made from metal--didn't I just see that somewhere else?--and a bunch of unique weapons that show RZA's potential with this sort of thing, but he, as a classic kung-fu Shaw Brothers aficionado, really should have known better and not released something that seems like less of an homage than a tacky rehash of other recent modern martial arts flicks. The credits, by the way, seem to be a prelude to a sequel which has bird people in it, and despite the inclusion of bird people, that movie looks like it could end up even worse than this one.

Tai Chi Zero

2012 kung-fu movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Some guy with a horn travels to a town to learn some kung-fu. The master refuses to teach him. A pissed guy with a giant tank invades, and the guy with the horn and a woman have to help defend the city.

Though there's a lot of vibrancy and neat ideas, this movie is the type that is better to casually watch and appreciate aesthetically instead of think about and try to care about the characters at all. There's plenty of cutesiness with little pop-ups that tell about characters and the town. And the mash-up of steampunk imagery and weapons with the martial arts genre, the reason I decided to check this out in the first place, is kind of inspired. The giant tank thing, like a bulbous metallic turtle or some sea creature, moves quickly from being a novelty to something you just don't care about anymore. The special effects, those flashy sorts of effects that dominate a lot of modern kung-fu movies, cheapen the whole thing and make the fight scenes glossy and cartoonish instead of anything that has any real emotion. There's enough different about this to make it frustrating that it wasn't something better, and it's just fun enough in spots to make me interested in a sequel.

Stephen Fung directed this and played a character. Hark-on Fung is also in this. I just wanted to type that name.

Yogi Bear

2010 family fun

Rating: 11/20 (Emma: 14/20; Abbey: 20/20; Buster: nr)

Plot: Yogi and Boo Boo have to help Ranger Smith save Jellystone Park on its 100th anniversary after the mayor decides to sell the land in order to help balance the budget.

Buster saw this dvd sitting around the day I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. I asked her, "Hey, Buster, do you want to watch a Kubrick movie with me?" and she said, "Yes!" a little too enthusiastically. She patiently watched the monkeys and some of the space stuff before asking me, "Daddy, where's the bear?" Apparently, she thought Stanley Kubrick directed Yogi Bear. Three-year-olds are so dumb!

This is one of those television show adaptations that doesn't include any evidence that a single creative mind was involved in the production. The thing's completely harmless and mildly fun, but it has absolutely no zip and feels uninspired, bland. The animated bears look pretty good although the conversations between the human characters and them don't seem natural at all, almost like Tom Cavanaugh, T.J. Miller, and Anna Faris aren't even sure if there will be bears talking to them in the finished film. "Alright, I'll run through these lines, but if you don't stick a CGI bear in this, I'm going to be pissed!" I really like Tom Cavanaugh because he starred in one of my favorite television shows of all time, and I wish the poor guy's career was going a little better. Unfortunately, he's awkward. Dan Aykroyd provides the voice of the titular goofball, and it's probably among the least annoying work of his career. And Yogi Bear, along with his sidekick, is an annoying character who I really don't want to spend an hour and a half with. Boo Boo is voiced by Justin Timberlake which probably explains why I was aroused while watching this thing. The story's weak and predictable, the humor is spotty, and the characters probably aren't as likable as anybody remembers them. This was maybe better than I thought it would be, but nobody is going to list it among Stanley Kubrick's best works.

Look at that promotional poster up there. That's my favorite thing ever. It might not automatically look like Yogi and his little pal doing it "bear style" to anybody who isn't a pervert, but the "Great things come in bears" tagline invites the image. Somebody had to have been fired over that one.

Who's the Caboose?

1997 mockumentary

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Documentarians get a grant to do a film on homeless people, but instead turn their attention to a young comedienne who is on her way to Los Angeles to try to get a television pilot.

I like Sarah Silverman. She's cute and generally funny. She's the very best thing about this--only possible exception is David Cross who is really funny and angry in a too-tiny role--which is good because she's the main character. She's so natural in front of the camera. Unfortunately, she and her character aren't in a movie where very much happens. Things approach mildly humorous, and the satirical look at Hollywood shallowness almost works. But this needs to let go a little bit, get a little more outrageous, or--at the very least--be funny. Kathy Griffin even keeps her shirt on. Andy Dick and that one guy are also in this.

The Hangover Part 2

2011 remake

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

Plot: Second verse--same as the first! Except this time, they're in Bangkok, and there's a monkey instead of a tiger. And they don't lose their friend. No, this time they lose another guy. And Mike Tyson isn't in this one. No, wait. He is in this one!

Jennifer rated this higher than the first movie for some reason. I liked it almost exactly the same but don't remember what I rated that one. We had a few laughs, and I do appreciate that the makers of these things aren't afraid to get really ridiculous. I still like Bradley Cooper (hell, I might have a crush on Bradley Cooper, but plesae don't tell anybody), Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms. They're all trying awfully hard in this, but like the first movie, the sheer insanity kind of loses its steam after a while. It's not a bad formula, but the humor's just inconsistent.

When Part 3 comes out, a character's got to die. Probably Ed Helms. That's the only way I'm going to allow them to make another one of these.

People Like Us

2012 movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Some nondescript guy named Sam has all kinds of financial problems and no fighting robots to help him out of his jams. He finds out that his father dies, and although he does everything he can to miss the old man's funeral, he is curious to find out if he was left any cash. Unfortunately, a large chunk of money was left to some boy he's never heard of. Sam investigates and discovers that that boy is the son of a woman who might be a sister he never knew he had. So naturally, he flirts with her.

I like riding on planes because it forces me to watch a movie that I otherwise wouldn't watch. I wasn't thrilled to get this one, but I didn't figure it would matter anyway since I was traveling with a toddler. Luckily for me, Buster didn't had so much interest in the woman trying to read and then sleep in the window seat, and I could just let her take care of herself. I kept trying to place the nondescript actor playing the nondescript protagonist of this. He has the type of face which made me think he's somebody I should know, like he's the next big thing or something. I looked him up. Apparently, he's Captain Kirk and the guy on the runaway train with Denzel Washington. His character here is strange, almost a stalker, and his charming ways really do make it seem like he's flirting with a gal he knows is his half-sister. There's no way that the half-sister, played by the mundane and probably-too-polished-for-this-role Elizabeth Banks, wouldn't think that. But Chris Pine doesn't have much range at all. That picture up there is pretty much all he does except sometimes he does it in a sadder way. And then there's Michelle Pfeiffer who doesn't seem old enough to be Captain Kirk's mom, but I'm sure she is. This is a a nice enough story, apparently based on a true story, but the whole thing is almost painfully comfortable. It's an elevator music kind of movie, criminally pleasant, and I'm really surprised that I was able to stay awake during it.

Lo

2009 romantic comedy

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Justin's girlfriend April has been abducted by a demon, and he has to use a book of spells she left behind to call upon Lo, a demon who looks a heck of a lot like Lord Voldemort, to get her back.

I wanted to like this extremely low-budget independent romantic comedy because the concept is kind of neat, maybe more for the stage than the screen, and the director Travis Betz is a fellow Hoosier. The modern take on the myth of Orpheus unfortunately just isn't clever enough or entertaining enough to keep a person's interest. At the start, I thought I was watching low-grade horror until the titular demon shows up, starts calling the guy Dinner, performs a demon-head-busting-open magic trick, tells the main character to clean the shit from his pants, and asks, "Where the fuck am I?" He's got a little Beetle Juice in him. And he really does look like Voldemort, but that's just probably the lack of nose. I don't think my problem with this is the single setting with a few flashbacks mixed in. The problem was more to do with the Lo character being a little too dopey. There was also too much dopiness in the asides with gay Nazi demons busting into songs (though I imagine "Demon Girl" with a demon saxophonist is deservedly a big hit in hell), a random dancing demon waiter that made me ask "Why is this happening?", and a flashback scene complete with canned laughter. It wasn't until a second flashback scene featuring these weird gold-painted heads sticking out of the wall that I figured out that I'd already seen this movie, nearly fifteen years before it had even been made. There's also a scene where the guy talks to his hand, but it's not nearly as entertaining as when that happens in Evil Dead II. I do enjoy scenes in movies where a bunch of characters laugh in creepy ways at another character, and this does have a nice one of those. The demon costumes probably aren't bad for the budget this movie had, but I think I've seen better masks on trick or treaters. There's just too much exposed flesh in the eye-holes. In the end, this isn't funny enough to work as a comedy and not emotionally compelling enough to work as anything else. A scene at the end is supposed to be touching, but I was distracted because the actors just couldn't pull it off. This movie does contain a line that reminded me of something I said when I proposed to Jennifer though: "Tell me you won't eat me, and I'll make you my wife."

Rocky Balboa

2006 sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to an original good movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: The titular former heavyweight champion of the world is adjusting to a new life as a retired athlete whose fame has withered away, a restaurant owner who owns a burgundy jacket, and, sadly, a widower. That's right. They'll killed off Adrian, probably because of some contract dispute with Talia Shire. There's a fire burning (boynin' as Mickey would have said) inside Rocky, and he longs for one last chance in the ring even though he's in his 90s and can't find those ridiculous red, white, and blue shorts still drenched with his buddy Apollo's junk sweat. The new champion, a cocky and unchallenged Mason Dixon (seriously?), becomes disturbed when ESPN boxing analysts suggest that Rocky was a better fighter with a virtual match between the two proving them right. Rocky agrees to an exhibition match. Cue theme music/workout montage!

The best thing about this movie is that it isn't the last movie. This is the first one of these sequels where we don't have to watch a big chunk of the previous movie, presumably because they were all embarrassed by Rocky V. "What? This is how we ended it?" This makes for a more fitting end for our character (though a part of me was hoping this would end in his death) but it really feels like they've dug up a dead horse so that they could beat on it. Like a pinata, hoping that candy or maybe even money will come out. Everything that reminds me of the other movies feels tired, and everything that is different isn't really different. For example, Adrian's gone, but this movie still manages to have her stink all over it. His restaurant's got pictures of her all over the place, and there's a sickening scene where Rocky returns to his old crib and says "I remember when she was standing there" which of course makes an Adrian ghost appear. In the years that have passed since the last movie, Paulie's become a complete cartoon. My favorite Paulie moment is when he's rambling, "I got a watch! I got two watches!" I wasn't sure if that was comedy or tragedy so I laughed and cried at the same time. Another nice Paulie moment:

Paulie: Are you made because your wife left you?
Rocky: She didn't leave me. She died.
(Blubbery weeping)

Mason "The Line" Dixon (seriously, they really went with this?) has the boxing chops, but doesn't have nearly the personality of any of Rocky's other opponents, even Tommy Morrison in that last pitiful movie. There's the obligatory training montage where you get to see Rocky do all the stuff that he did in the previous movies when he was much younger. He even runs up those steps, this time with a dog. Here, it just seems like an excuse to show off how good Stallone thinks he looks as a guy in his 60s. Speaking of that, something artificial has to be going on there, right? And speaking of artificial, I didn't buy the father/son stuff in this. And where was Rocky's son anyway? You're telling me that they could get Skip Bayless in this, but Stallone's son was too busy? And holy cannibalism! There's Mike Tyson's tattoo! Iron Mike gets to say, "You got that midget with you right there!" which makes me wonder why the heck anybody would let Tyson improvise in a movie. And once you've thrown Mike Tyson talking about midgets in a movie, you have nowhere to go but down, so the boxing match that takes place afterward is anti-climactic. I'm not a boxing expert, but I'm pretty sure this fight would have been stopped in the 2nd. This lays the theme on so thick that the whole thing seems like an over-icing'ed cake collapsing under its own weight. It's like a very small cake, a heaping layer of Adrian, a layer of father/son, and at least five layers of redemption.

My two favorite things about this movie: Rocky's new quirk--a "How ya doin?" long after a "How ya doin?" is appropriate in a conversation. He does it twice. And the second is Angela Boyd's performance as "crazy woman who turns all gangsta in the bar" which is quite possibly the worst performance from any of the Rocky movies. And that's saying something! "A fool? I'm the fool? You're the fool!"

We Bought a Zoo

2011 movie

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

Plot: Benjamin writes about his adventures for a magazine, but he's about to have his greatest adventure ever when he buys a zoo and tries to get it up and running. His two children and he try to get over the death of the family's matriarch which seems awfully whiny since they seem to get all the free lasagna they can eat. The tiger's sick, and Scarlett Johannson's there to wave her cute little ass around.

I really thought that I was liking this sweet little movie, but the longer it went on, the less and less I liked it. In fact, I can't think of a movie with such a sharp descent from "Ehh--this isn't too bad" to "Oh my God! I need to wash the stupid from my eyes!" I will say this though: I like Matt Damon here. I don't know if the real Benjamin Mee is this likable, but Damon makes the character very easy to root for, despite or maybe because of his flaws. I also thought his daughter, played by a cute little girl named Maggie Elizabeth Jones, was really good, but then I remembered what human children are actually like and ended up irritated by what was actually on the screen as a cute little prop than an actual character. The son (Colin Ford) isn't much better at playing a human child, but that might just because I don't like people named Colin. Worst of the bunch is Elle Fanning, the convenient love interest for son Dylan, who acts like she's either been drugged, hypnotized, or hypnotized and drugged. Or maybe she's supposed to be vacuous in an almost eerie way, probably the product of home schooling. And Scarlett? Gosh, I want to like her as an actress, but she doesn't seem to have much range (but I haven't seen her in any superhero movies) and her character here was dopey and weird. I just have a tough time believing her as an actual female even though she wouldn't have slept with me in high school just like every other actual female. She looks more like a Scientologist than a person. And what the hell is up with Thomas Haden Church's head? I think there's something living in there. But these people aren't the main problem with We Bought a Zoo and neither is the amount of times the little girl says "We bought a zoo!" Although that repeated line might symbolize the collective problems I have with this syrupy thing. There's just too much movie here. It's predictable, and even the montage, Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" of all songs, shows up right when you know it will. Not bad soundtrack selections, by the way, with a choice Dylan cut and some Cat Stevens or whatever the hell he's calling himself these days. But I digress. There's what I imagine was penned to be the emotional heart of this movie, a scene featuring a tiger, that is just so artificial, and that's about where the movie falls to pieces. Add a fallen tree and a "Hi, Mom" that came closer than any movie to making me shove the business end of a spoon into both eyes and the handle into both ears so that I wouldn't see, hear, or be reminded of the scene again. Somebody should have stopped production and said, "Wait just a second--we can't show this shit to people!" Yeah, artificial. That's how I'd describe this one.

Equinox

1970 demon movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Picnicking college kids find a laughing old guy and an old book in a cave and incur the wrath of some devil monsters. That, in case you don't have much picnic experience, is worse than ants.

There's a promising start with the opening credits, creepy Bernard Hermann-esque music with shots of clock innards, something I never mind seeing in movies which makes me wonder if I should have become a watchmaker. Then, this really goes nowhere for a while. There are a few minutes of a guy running awkwardly and a car driving by itself and then some talking. The story's told in flashback by the lone survivor of the worst picnic of all time. That's one of the few reasons this 1970 movie feels like a 50's B-science-fiction movie. There's some terrifically bad performances throughout Equinox. Director Jack Woods keeps popping up as the creepy Forest Ranger Asmodeus. Woods apparently thought it would be good for his career to show extended close-up shots of himself doing this:

A crazy laughing guy in a cave is really awesome, and I'll have to figure out his name if he ends up winning my Torgo Award this year. And science fiction/fantasy author Fritz Leiber has a small role as Dr. Waterman and although he gets no speaking parts, he still manages to be really awful. It's a special performance. Things aren't looking good, but then there are these great stop-motion tentacles, a stop-motion ape thing murdering a stop-motion old-guy-from-cave, and a stop-motion devil bat thing that nearly saved the movie. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing anyway. Low-budget effects, but pretty cool. There's also an exploration of the evil book that reminds me a lot of what Sam Raimi did with his book in the Evil Dead movies. Parts of this manage to be effectively eerie, and it's worth a look if you like 1950's B-movies that were made in 1970. Oh, and it ends with a "The End" that morphs into a question mark which you've got to love. You just imagine the makers of this saying, "Hey, our story won't really make anybody think that a sequel is needed, but just in case, we should probably put a question mark at the end!"

Question: Why did Criterion release this one?

Meatball Machine

2005 science fiction movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Aliens infect humans and transform them into beastly robotic fightin' machines. They meet, they fight, and then the victor gets to eat the loser. One nondescript guy tries to either save the woman he loves by destroying her or prevent his own destruction.

This might be the first movie on this blog that has a scene where a woman is violated by tentacles. I've been looking for a movie with a good tentacle rape scene so that those with that particular fetist (apparently, there are loads of them) will stumble upon my little blog. I've now got Hunger Games fans, women's prison exploitation aficionados, and tentacle rape fetishists covered, and I'm feeling pretty good about the future of shane-movies.

Meatball Machine won't be mistaken for a good movie, but it does have its visually interesting moments, all done very cheaply--spaghetti wire shaking, junkyard costuming, phallic jello. The monstroids (have I coined a word?) are cool, and the violence is splattery if you're into that sort of thing. I couldn't care less about the plot or characters, and the filthy atmosphere, though intially kind of cool, grew tiresome. So did the climactic battle scene which I'm pretty sure is still going on. A tacked-on end scene that attempted to explain everything that happened was really dumb. It's almost like the makers of this wanted to make a movie only so that he could call it Meatball Machine, neglected to tell the audience anywhere in the movie why it was called Meatball Machine, and added an ending just to throw those words in there sometime.

Somewhat reminiscent, by the way, of Tetsuo, the Iron Man.

Cube

1997 movie about people doing math

Rating: 12/20 (Dylan: 13/20)

Plot: Seven strangers wake up in the titular cube. Well, really it's a whole bunch of cubes inside of one big cube. At least that's what they think. It's not like they can see the outside. Some cubes are booby trapped, so they have to be careful as they maneuver about to locate an exit. At least the cubes have pretty colors.

"Is that your two cents worth, Worth?"

"For what it's worth."

"But it is pointless!"

"That's my point."

See, this almost turns into an Abbott and Costello routine a few times. I think it's intentional. Dylan and I have been quoting that second bit of dialogue all week. This is a less-traditional entry in our prison escape movie festival, and it really was a little pointless. Of course, that might actually be the point, a sort of nihilistic or existential nightmare. It's not a bad premise, and I have to give credit to director Natelli for making something that looks so cool on what was likely a minuscule budget. Unfortunately, the writing isn't very good at all, and the acting might be worse. The woman who played the doctor (Nicky Guadagni) is the worst of the bunch, but the others really aren't far behind. Granted, I can't imagine shooting something like this would be much fun, and they did have a lousy script to work with. After a couple scenes of shocking violence, this loses its momentum and turns into a story about people doing math while really bad music plays. Seriously, this has a soundtrack so bad that the music actually made me tired. My initial prediction, by the way, was way wrong. They surprised me by using a different cliche than the one I thought they were aiming for. Neither would have made for a satisfying ending though. All in all, Cubeis a failure, but it's at least a pretty interesting one. And, in case I didn't mention it before, it's got math in it!

Dead Snow

2009 Nazi zombie movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Some medical students go on holiday (isn't that what it's called over there) to a cabin out in the middle of Norwayere. That last word is a portmanteau word--Norway and nowhere. I think I did a good job with it. Expect more portmanteau words as my confidence builds. A mysterious stranger stops by, warns them about Nazis, and then leaves. Then, as expected, Nazi zombies.

I think this will satisfy your desires if you get a hankerin' for some Nazi zombie action. I guess that's a sub-genre--Nazi zombie movies. I think I've only seen one other (Shock Waves), but it wouldn't shock wave me to learn that there were dozens more of these. I was just happy to see Norway again to be honest, but there's enough in this movie to keep it fun enough. It's not for the squeamish, however. Most of the movie is red blood and wrinkled gray on white snow, and there are some scenes where you get more red than gray or white. And disembodied body parts. And scenes where guys stitch up wounds in their necks while blood gloriously and noisily continues to spurt out. This alludes to Evil Dead, Brain Dead, Friday the 13th, Indiana Jones, and April Fools Day in ways that might be fun to fans of those films. It's also got a contender for line of the year when the stranger says, "If you stand with your intestines in your hand, will you know what to do?" Speaking of intestines, Nazi zombies seem to like them. The screenwriters must like them, too. Lots of intestine action, but nobody gets choked with his own intestines. I think I have a label for that. I'm not sure how I liked how these zombies moved. What I really didn't like about this were the clashing tones. This went from deadly serious with mutilation and head squishing to, after a pause, a terrible and ill-timed joke that made things too goofy, even for a Nazi zombie movie. I also hated the big scary music that was used throughout this thing. Sure, the big scary music probably made me jump a few times, but it was a detriment to the overall tone of the movie. This is good in chunks (pun probably intended), but it's a little uneven and just seemed to be missing something.

The Goonies

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

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.

Creature with the Atom Brain

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 Help

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.

A Christmas Carol

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.