Alien: Resurrection

1997 unnecessary sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The Company clones Ripley, who had been knocked up by a Xenomorph in the last movie, in an effort to get their hands on an alien. Things go predictably wrong. Meanwhile, space pirates!

Lord help me, but I kind of like this movie. Nevertheless, there is absolutely no reason for it to exist. There's a lot to like about it though. First, it's got a cool cast. You get big Ronny Perlman hulking around and badassing it up. He, like a lot of characters, unfortunately has some really stupid things to say in this movie. ("So, like, what did you do?" made him sound like a teenage girl, and "Must be a chick thing" just seemed too much like sitcom dialogue.) Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon plays a cool character with an even cooler wheelchair and gets to butcher some lines in English. (Apparently, his "Who were you expecting--Santa Claus?" line was originally supposed to be "Who were you expecting--The Easter Bunny?" but he couldn't stop saying "English Bunny," forcing a script change. What a dumb line that is anyway!) Dan Hedaya acts like even he can't believe he's in an Alien movie. He overacts stupendously. And there's Brad Dourif, a guy who doubtfully can play a normal character. Here, he simulates a make-out session with the alien in one of the stranger scenes from the franchise. And there's boyish and cute-as-a-damn-button Winona Ryder whose presence forces me to give this a Winona Ryder bonus point. No pun intended! In fact--no pun at all! Oh, and somebody named Kim Flowers just may the subject of the very best shot in a franchise with a goldmine of great shots. Again, no pun intended. The problem with this movie isn't with the cast. The problem is that it's probably way too quirky and has some pacing issues. And the characters, as I mentioned say some dumb things. (Ripley: "Who do I have to fuck to get off this thing?") Why did Weaver have any interest at all in bringing this character back anyway? The character she plays here is really inconsistent, sometimes acting like one of those too-human androids with less ability to emote and sometimes sitting down with Winona Ryder's character to engage in a little girl talk so that the move can grind to a halt. She does get to show off her basketball skills in what was probably the dumbest moment in any of these four movies, so maybe she was using this to audition for the WNBA. I'm not even sure the basic premise of this movie--cloning a Ripley and an alien--makes sense, but I suppose you have to forget all about science when watching some science fiction movies. Speaking of Ripley clones, one of the failed efforts was kind of hot, and if  you've seen this movie recently, I think you know exactly which one I'm talking about. In a few hundred years, everybody could probably have their own Ripley clone in their homes. Something else I find hard to believe about all this is that there are still people who are going to be smoking that far into the future. Seems like evolution would get rid of that stupid habit. I'm a Christian though, so I'm not even sure how evolution works. Despite the myriad of problems with this movie that shouldn't even exist, it is a little bit of fun and does look very good. It's no surprise that Delicatessen and City of Lost Children guy Jean-Pierre Jeunet can handle the visuals. The special effects are probably the best of the series, right from the start with some grotesque opening credits. There's a ton of gore if you're into that sort of thing. This, interestingly enough, sets up for a sequel way much more than the third installment, Alien Cubed.

Cry-Baby

1990 Johnny Depp movie

Rating: 13/20 (Mark: 14/20)

Plot: It's kind of like Romeo and Juliet except it takes place in Baltimore in the 1950s. The titular bad boy falls for one of the preppy kids, and the squares don't like it.

I've never claimed to be a fan of Pink Flamingos, but I think I prefer that John Waters to this more Hollywood-friend version. This at least has Johnny Depp who even at this stage in his career seems willing to take whatever character is thrown at him and make it his. Seriously, Depp takes every character he plays and gives a performance that makes it impossible to think of anybody else being that character, and that's regardless of whether or not he has a bird on his head. Of course, he's also Johnny Depp, so he's a little distracting in this movie. He also didn't do his own singing in this, and neither did his Juliet, Amy Locane, and that's just not how a musical should work. This also has Iggy Pop who I'm becoming convinced is the finest actor of this or any generation. He actually can't act naturally doing anything at all. He's also distracting because any time he's on the screen, you want to pay attention to him, even if he's just in the background, to see what unnatural faces or movements he's going to make. Traci Lords, Ricki Lake, Mink Stole, Willem Dafoe, and Kim McGuire are all in this, the latter playing a character called Hatchet Face. The plot and dialogue are silly, but the songs and dance scenes are pretty good and the whole thing's entertaining and harmless enough. But should a John Waters' movie be harmless?

House

1986 horror-comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A writer struggling with the loss of his son and break-up of his marriage moves into his late aunt's haunted house and has to battle both literal and psychological demons.

Entertaining horror-comedy here, but I kept getting distracted. First, it was good to see 80's sitcom superstars George Wendt and Richard Moll. But with Wendt, I found myself wondering how much he weighs now and had trouble focusing on the plot of House. Speaking of Wendt, if I were the director of House, I would have been a little more over the top with the horror and violence and included a scene where William Katt's character enters a hole in the house, stumbles around a bit, encounters a few ghosts, and emerges from George Wendt's rectum. That that scene wasn't in this movie shows that we're dealing with amateurs here. The second distraction was William Katt's V-neck sweater worn with nothing underneath. I'm talking about a deep V here. I suppose there's nothing wrong with the style choice, especially for 1986, but I was distracted because I was wondering whether or not I could pull that off in 2013. The third source of distraction was the appearance of a Masters of the Universe action figure, Buzz Off. I started thinking about the height of popularity of these toys and wondering if I was too old to be playing with them back in the mid-80s when I was entering my teens or when I was in my 20s. Luckily, I didn't need to focus too hard to get this. It's your typical haunted house movie with decaying fiends and silly shocks, but there's the missing child thing and a few Vietnam flashbacks to give this a bit more story. Things are a little too commercial, but the special effects are grotesque enough. A monster in an upstairs closet drips with ridiculousness, a reanimated giant fish, a bunch of tools, and a purple-dressed ghoul all recall Evil Dead 2. I wish that purple-dressed thing wouldn't have spoken though. I also wish "You're No Good" wouldn't have been used during one of the movie's better moments--a dismemberment montage. The music for most of this could have been lifted from any horror movie, and the Vietnam scenes seem artificial. But this has some creepiness and a few laughs. Just not George Wendt's rectum.

The Strong Man

1926 comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A soldier more accurate with a slingshot than a machine gun starts working with a strong man--not really the titular strong man--after the war. Letters from a Mary Brown kept him going during his soldiering days, and he decides to look for her. After an adventure with a different Mary Brown who turns out not to be a Mary Brown at all, he finds the real Mary Brown.

This was Frank Capra's first film, and it's a total mess. It feels more like 3 1/2 short films strung together and called a complete movie. I could forgive that if it was entertaining or funny, but it's really neither. Langdon plays a more heroic character in this one, but it's difficult to sympathize with the character because, as I said in the last post, he's not very likable. The best bits are probably with the fake Mary Brown character played by Gertrude Astor. Langdon does move and react well, and he has a childlike innocence that makes the story work. Well, until the end when his character seems to almost be an entirely new person. There's nothing that will have anybody in the aisles, but this has a couple moments that somebody wouldn't be made fun of for calling them classic moments. One involves a walk up the steps with Gertrude Astor, and another is a toss from a car down a hill with a surprising result. The climactic scene is a mess, but I do like this little pose Langdon keeps repeating.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

2008 teen romantic comedy

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: Sad Michael Cera meets a girl who without his knowledge has been appreciating the mixtapes he's made for his ex-girlfriend who he still pines for, and they have an late-night first date trying to find the location of a secret gig by their favorite band.

This movie wasn't made for me despite my love for Michael Cera. I'm going to spoil things for you if you haven't seen this, so if you want to see this, stop reading. At the end of the movie, the titular couple are in a recording studio where Kat Dennings' character ends up making sounds that you would ordinarily hear when copulation is taking place or when somebody is enjoying an especially tasty doughnut. But then it's revealed that Michael Cera's character still has his pants on. Am I missing something here? This whole thing isn't a terrible love story, but it's not a profound one or even an all-that-believable one either. The leads are fine--he as the same dorky/hip character he always kind of plays and she as a sort of wounded girl on the threshold of something--but some of the auxiliary characters are annoying. The story's sweet, and a lot of the dialogue's really good. This tries very hard and might succeed for its actual audience which is not me despite my love for Michael Cera. I didn't like the soundtrack nearly as much as the one in The Perks of Being a Wallflower which might only succeed in dating me. Devendra Banhart does have a song, however, and he's also got a brief cameo, too.

This Is 40

2012 comedy

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

Plot: Pete and Debbie reach the titular age and deal with problems with finances, their sex lives, their parents, and their businesses.

What are people's opinions on Megan Fox? Does she have some degree of likability? I haven't seen a lot of Megan Fox movies--Transformers where I barely noticed her because it made my head hurt and Jonah Hex which I didn't like--but I almost always like when she's on the screen, and I know my wife has the hots for her. Is the consensus pretty much that she's hired for her shape? I like a lot of the talent in this. Apatow's wife (Leslie Mann) looks better than she sounds (didn't care for her voice) and has good chemistry with Paul Rudd. I always sort of like Rudd, despite the size of that chin of his. Apatow's daughters play their daughters. Albert Brooks and John Lithgow play the dads, the latter still looking a little confused from that Planet of the Apes thing. Apatow-regulars Segal and Melissa McCarthy and Chris O'Dowd are all funny in these, I'm guessing, largely-improvised scenes. Or at least they're based on improvisation. The humor does have a spontaneity to it that I like even though these comedians' streams-of-conscious too-often take them right to the scatological or genital to get laughs. Best of all might be Graham Parker playing himself, and I don't believe he makes a single dick joke. The problem with this movie is that there's way too much story. I like the relationship of the leads and their struggles to work through things even though things frequently got uncomfortable. But this movie's plot was the perfect storm of crappiness, and it was a lot to juggle, both for the storytellers and the audience. I guess that's why the movie had to be over two hours long, likely too long for a comedy like this. After a while, you're checking your watch as much as you're laughing. I really think about half of the subplots could have been dumped without making a difference, and that might be a clue that they're completely unnecessary. An editor was probably needed. That or somebody needed to finish the script. I was also a little annoyed at all the contemporary allusions, a thing I generally hate in movies because it pretty much ensures that people won't be interested in them in twenty or twenty-five years. I will say that my biggest laugh might have been the mention of John Goodman's name, however. This is funny enough and has a lot of recognizable situations for a nearly-40-year-old married guy like me to be worth watching, but it's unfortunately just way too long with far too many cheap laughs.

The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans

2009 documentary

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A look at gatherings of fans of The Big Lebowski.

I like this movie as much as guy, but these people take it to the extreme. Initially, it kind of annoyed me, but they're not harming a soul, are able to connect with people they have something in common with, and seem to be enjoying themselves. This focuses on a lot of the titular fans, and I just didn't care that much about them. I did enjoy some of the little details about the writing of and making of the movie. You get to see how fans of this movie that was overlooked in theaters can turn people with very very small roles into near legends, and there's something kind of cool about that. James Hoosier, the rotund gentleman who plays Jesus's friend, has been in exactly one movie. And he gets maybe a couple minutes of screen time. However, in this documentary, he shows up at a bowling alley for one of these Lebowski fests and gets himself a standing ovation. Jeff Bridges also shows up to one of these to remind everybody just how cool he is, and you get to meet the guys who The Dude and Walter's characters are based on. Most of the movie showcases those fanatics though as they compete in trivia and dress-up competitions.

Wreck-It Ralph

2012 cartoon

Rating: 13/20 (Jennifer: 16/20; Dylan: 12/20; Emma: 13/20; Abbey: 20/20; Buster: 19/20)

Plot: The titular video game baddie--a bulbous-fisted bully who destroys buildings--is tired of living the life of a villain and covets the popularity of his counterpart Fix-It Felix, a guy with a hammer who scrambles around fixing Ralph's messes. Ralph decides to bolt and find a game in which he can be the hero and win both a medal and the admiration of other video game characters. Things don't go well at all.

I really wanted to like this, but it was just too much. There's some humor, and it was good seeing Q-Bert again. There are more than a few nods to video games from my childhood as well as people younger than me, an obvious attempt by the Disney people to grab everybody. There's a bunch of action, and the whole thing is animated really well. The voice work--especially Alan Tudyk as the really unlikable King Candy, but also Reilly, Silverman, the almost too-recognizable McBrayer, and Jane Lynch, the latter who might have the funniest lines--is really good. Is Jack McBrayer going to be in every animated movie from now on? That seems like the kind of thing that could happen.

Studio Executives: Ok, and we need the voice for this little pipsqueak of a character. Who should we use?
Other Studio Executive: Duh! Jack McBrayer? Heard of him?
Studio Executive: Great choice! He's right next door finishing up work on another animated movie. Let's fetch him!

That's right. Jack McBrayer is the kind of actor who is fetched. I can only recall one other animated feature film with his voice (not that I've seen them all), but I have a feeling I'm about to get really sick of the guy. Sarah Silverman stretches things a bit. I didn't recognize her voice, but Jennifer did. Anyway, the voice work is fine. The characters, however, aren't all that likable. There's really nobody to latch onto here. Ralph's not a bad character, but he just doesn't work as the emotional center for this thing. For one, we're supposed to buy that he's forced into this bad guy life but is really a hero at heart, but he acts so selfishly in this movie that I had trouble seeing that heart. He's also not very bright. Secondly, about midway through the movie, the audience is jerked from his story into Vanellope's (am I missing a pun here?) world and the conflict in that game. Like the colors, camera swoops, and barrages of sound thrown from my television screen, the clashing stories was just a little too much to take. I didn't like Vanellope's character either, and the limited amount of feeling that I could spare for these characters was stretched really thin. I liked a lot of what I saw and I really thought it was a creative idea with loads of potential. I just wish the story wasn't driven by too many modern animated movie cliches and had better characters.

This got me thinking about modern animated films that are very visually busy compared with the older, much simpler animated treats such as, say, Bambi. How do you think somebody in the 40's would react to seeing something like this? Would they vomit? Froth? Convulse? Flee in terror? A combination of those? I wonder what effect modern entertainment--especially visually with a definite shift from very simple ideas to very complex ones and the sonic barrage we get nowadays--has on children and their minds?

Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: Starchaser: The Legend of Orin

1985 animated science fiction

Rating: 13/20 (Fred: 12/20; Josh: 11/20; Libby: 13/20, although she fell asleep; Carrie: technical difficulties)

Plot: Robots keep humans underground as mining slaves until one finds a magic sword hilt and pops up the surface to have a look around.

We wanted a bad animated flick for the Bad Movie Club this week, and although I was really pushing a Titanic cartoon on my friends [Note: A different Titanic cartoon than the one with the rapping dogs that I reviewed last year], they eventually decided on this one. I agreed because I had been accused of being a Bad Movie Club dictator and wanted to change that perception. Libby suggested it initially and fought hard to get everybody else on board. Then, of course, she fell asleep long before it was over.

I actually kind of liked the movie. The storytelling's a mess, and the titular hero--the Luke Skywalker of this Star Wars rip-off--is a little lame. The main baddie--the Darth Vader--isn't very compelling and never seems quite as intimidating as he should. I think it has more to do with his wardrobe choices than anything else. There are a ton of creative ideas, however, including these mandroids that search for body parts in a Dali-esque swampy landscape and a really cool spaceship--the Millennium Falcon of this movie. The action sequences, especially the little spaceship battles, are as confusing as they are well done, and there's even a scene in which a cigar-chomping character named Dag--the Han Solo of this movie--violates a female android by manipulating her butt circuits. Dag calls Orin a "little water snake"--kind of like how Han Solo calls Luke "kid" in the original trilogy--which made Josh decide that he's going to call me his "little water snake" at school next year which makes this barely effective teacher want to do something else for a career. There really were a lot of Star Wars parallels, but this also seemed to borrow from Masters of the Universe, Dune, Back to the Future (only because they were life vests like Marty), and Terminator. As mentioned, the story's got issues. There's a lot of meandering and too much of a blind kid, a character that leads to an ending detail that nearly ruined the entire movie. Oh, add the Gospels to things the makers of this borrowed from. I forgot that one. More annoying than the blind kid is a little fuzzy glowing thing--the Ewoks of this movie--that randomly save the universe a few too many times. So although there is some cool animated landscapes and nifty-looking characters, this is a little too much of a mess. Of course, I didn't watch this in 3D like I was supposed to, so maybe I'm missing out on the artistic genius. I did enjoy the score, a very synthy and cheesy 80's sound that had my toes tapping throughout the movie.

That poster up there is very misleading, by the way. That blind kid never rides a horse.

Island of Terror

1966 science fiction horror movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Scientists using radiation to look for a cure for cancer accidentally create spongy turtlish tentacle things that pussyfoot around an island and suck out its inhabitants bones. Scientists have to helicopter in and try to stop them!

It was the last week of school, and I decided to spend my prep periods watching a movie since that sounds like something a barely effective teacher would do. I stumbled upon this randomly and accidentally watched a second movie in a row with Peter Cushing. And he has something happen to him here that is a very Star Warsy thing to have happen to somebody even though it is not something that happened to him in Star Wars. The monsters--Silicates, apparently--are really silly but are so different from anything I've seen in a movie like this that I kind of ended up liking them. They really are like spongy turtles with a stalk thing that sticks out the front of them and grabs potential victims. The slurping sound effects during those victims' demises are a nice touch. The problem is that they're not very menacing. They move so slowly and just kind of sit there when the characters are shooting at them, tiptoeing around them with Geiger counters, or hurling sticks of dynamite in their directions. Sometimes, they're crafty and fall out of trees on to unsuspecting victims. I can't imagine the things climbing trees. The solution to the titular island's problem--a solution that involves cattle--seems a little goofy, but I'm sure it makes perfect scientific sense. I'm not about to argue with science on this blog! This was produced by the same people who made Fiend without a Face which I rated harshly and made fun of. The titular fiends in that one resemble smaller versions of the Silicates. Anyway, this isn't a terrible movie. It's got the kind of script which can make scientists seem cool, something that causes me not to trust a movie quite as much, but it's got a little atmosphere, interesting scientific detective work, and some pretty cool little slurping monsters.

The Karate Kid, Part II

1986 sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Following the events of the first movie, Daniel and Mr. Miyagi travel to Okinawa to see the latter's dying father. While there, the old guy reunites with an old flame and a guy who wants to kill him. Then, some guy wants to kill Daniel!

I read a novelization of this before I saw the movie and thought, "Oh, man! Daniel LaRusso in a fight to the death? Miyagi schooling the Cobra Kai guy, the 'Drum Technique'! This is going to be rad!" Because that's how I talked when I was twelve. I said things like "rad," short for "radical" which is short for "Hey, girls! You should probably just avoid me." Then, I saw the movie and was pretty disappointed by the whole thing. My favorite part probably was at the beginning where Miyagi is dodging punches and making a fool out of the guy. This was the first time I've seen this since then, and it's really not a terrible sequel, definitely one that could have been a lot worse. I'm glad they tried something completely new. Putting the characters in Okinawa gives them new context, and I really did like how both Daniel and Miyagi were developed by the experiences. I like how Miyagi is given a little more context. The stuff from the first movie where Daniel snoops around while drunk Miyagi snoozes was a start, but this gives the character a lot more background, kind of like the Star Wars prequels did for Yoda. Or like the opposite of that. I liked Daniel's new love interest who a twelve-year-old Shane would have chosen over Elizabeth Shue if either of them would have been the type of gal who would be attracted to a scrawny doofus who went around calling things radical. Most disappointing for me was that the Drum Technique ended up so stupid. I mean, looking back realistically, I guess the Wax On/Wax Off thing is also kind of lame, but it at least seems like something that might work. The Drum Technique looks like it would be predictable and therefore easy to defeat. I bet even Will Smith's daughter would have no trouble beating up a forty-three-year-old Ralph Macchio--his age when this movie was made, I believe--when going up against the Drum Technique. Surely that ripped guy--Yuji Okumoto--could take him out. Okumoto's character sure was a nasty guy, but what a body! There's a scene where he took off his shirt, and I very nearly forgot all about Elizabeth Shue and became a member of the Boy Scouts of America right then and there. Danny Kamekona played Sato who is supposed to be just as nasty but who is hard not to laugh at because he sounds like a freakin' Muppet. How did the other actors keep a straight face whenever that guy talked? I didn't watch any outtakes or a blooper reel or anything, but I imagine there was a lot of this:

Kamekona, as Sato: Miyagi, I wait long time for this. No tricks tonight, or tomorrow, everything gone. Their homes. Their church. Everything! Gone!
Morita and several extras: [bursts of laughter]
Kamekona, breaking character: Come on, guys. We've been trying to shoot this scene for over four hours.

I also thought the tsunami or whatever kind of storm happened in the movie was a little too random, the sort of thing that could only happen in a movie. Later, I learned that Okinawa has a tsunami every other day on average. Also disturbing: No reprise of the Joe Esposito song, "You're the Best Around," a song that almost always motivates me to feel like being motivated to do something. Overall, this isn't an embarrassing sequel at all even though it doesn't quite feel as good or have even close to the drama of the original, ironic since the titular kid could actually die instead of just lose a trophy. And I don't come close to tears or pump either of my fists even once!

Eventually: The Karate Kid, Part III, a movie I have never seen.

Nightmare on Elm Street

1984 horror movie

Rating: 15/20 (Rating changed after I was told that my pretentiousness was making somebody sad.)

Plot: An undead janitor attacks teenagers in their dreams.

I suppose this has enough gross-out gore and jump scene thrills to lure your typical fan of the horror genre, but after a cool beginning showing the construction of Krueger's scissor hand and Tina's nightmare which for some reason features a goat or a sheep, things get and stay pretty goofy. And that--the unapologetic goofiness--is really what appeals to me. Consider the villain, for example. He scowls and has bad skin, and if he was just lurking or popping out of dark places, he would be pretty terrifying. Instead, there are all these goofy Freddy antics, mostly with 80's synthesizer accompaniment. His "Watch this!" followed by cutting his own fingers off for absolutely no reason? Tina's look during that scene is priceless, by the way. The goofy long-armed thing? Cutting himself open and exposing maggots? Some silly tongue wagging? An obscene phone call with more tongue wagging action? Nobody needs to make a Freddy Krueger parody movie because he's already sort of a parody. I also don't really understand his character and what he does or how he does it. Is that explained in sequels or something? I believe I've only seen a couple of these. But he's inside dreams and then he's outside dreams. What's going on? Is this whole thing thought out very well? Am I just not paying enough attention? Freddy also gets some pretty silly things to say--a blasphemous reference to his scissor hands [By the way--has Johnny Depp appeared in a third scissor hand movie? Is there a scissor hand trifecta that has been completed?], "I'm your boyfriend now," "I'm gonna split you in two." They really should have made him a silent killer, instead of a snarling trash talker. Of course, nothing Freddy says seems dopey compared to Jsu Garcia's Rod, a character who not only says "Up yours with a twirling lawnmower" but also throws out a line I used to woo Jennifer: "I woke up with a hard-on, and it had your name on it." Depp, in his first movie, also gets a lot of stupid things to say. Still, he still manages to be Johnny Depp in this. He's got an It, a charisma, even in a small, silly role. This isn't all silliness, however. Tina's death--a scene where she is dragged up to the ceiling--looks really cool, and Johnny Depp's demise is also creative and pulled off with just enough black comedy. And if you look fast, you'll see Bruce Campbell. And I really do like Freddy's look, at least when he's not moving. So there is quite a bit of coolness in this little horror movie. But then there's a character reading from a book called Booby Traps and Improvised Anti-Personnel Devices and the whole movie threatens to turn into Home Alone and the silliness is back. This is a movie that really needed to pick a tone. They certainly picked a tune, and those repeated nine notes really got tiresome quickly. It all ends with a waving skeleton, one of the goofiest things that I've ever seen, an image that makes me wonder if this entire movie is a joke.

Question: Who do you think would win in a battle between Freddy and Jason? 

X-Men

2000 supermutant movie

Rating: 13/20 (Emma: 20/20; Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: The bald guy in the wheelchair and his mutant friends including a guy who wears sunglasses indoors and an albino woman and a fuzzy guy and Boobsy have to stop the guy with the funny-looking helmet and his mutant friends including his own fuzzy guy and a naked blue woman and a guy with a long tongue.

What's all this stuff about evolution? I heard at church camp that it wasn't real. Evolution, an opening scene that takes place in a concentration camp, hints at McCarthyism. I'm not sure this is as smart as it wants to be. In fact, I'm pretty sure this movie indirectly calls Jewish people mutants which doesn't seem very nice. The stories, including Magneto's big plot to take over the world or whatever the hell he's doing, are strong, but the storytelling isn't. Comic book movies usually confuse me, and this one wasn't exactly easy for me although it helped that this was my second time. There's an interesting hodgepodge of mutant super powers which I imagine is part of the appeal, but they do kind of come together in really convenient and therefore kind of unbelievable ways at times. Also kind of unbelievable--the special effects. The multitudinous explosions were fine, probably because Hollywood's had more than enough practice with explosions. However, a scene where Lion Man throws Wolverine around, the senator's oozing through bars and his rubbery visit to a beach, a fast motorcycle, and a big white laser show were all laughable. I was also annoyed by how much these characters talk during action sequences. There's a lesson that action movie screenwriters need to learn: Characters don't need to talk to each other during action sequences. Halle Barry's Storm Lady character actually says, "Do you know what happens when a toad is struck by lightning?"--a line that caused me to miss a chunk of the climax because my eyes were rolling too much. The entire climax at a national landmark is actually pretty dopey. I do like the conflict, especially since the good guys and the bad guys, in a way, are kind of looking for the same thing, but this movie felt repetitious after a while. I also got tired of them finding excuses to get Hugh Jackman to take his shirt off. His character even has a line about that in the movie. Now, don't get me wrong--I'm a warm-blooded American male and can enjoy a shirtless beefcake as much as the next fella, but this got ridiculous after a while.

I hope that's not why Emma's suddenly into X-Men movies. For whatever reason, her biology teacher showed the students this movie in its entirety and part of the sequel. She likes them for some reason. Hopefully, Plastic Man is in the sequels. He's an X-Man, isn't he?

LolliLove

2004 mockumentary

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A prospective Hollywood power couple decides to help the homeless by giving them lollipops with the husband's paintings and inspirational slogans on the wrappers.

I'm not sure there was enough of an idea here to comfortably stretch this into a twenty-minute short film. And that's a problem since it was stretched into a feature-length film. Director Jenna Fischer co-wrote and starred in this with her then-husband James Gunn, a guy who reminds me of David Arquette which caused me to spend the majority of the movie wondering why she married somebody who reminds me of David Arquette. Their rapport on the screen wasn't too bad, at least not as bad as it must have been in their real lives. There are a handful of funny moments, but so much of this was a little too obvious. They're shallow, and they're kind of stupid. The audience figures that out pretty quickly, and then the movie just keeps going on and on and reminding us of those two things. Judy "Kitty" Greer is in this, and there are enough humorous ideas--more than a few improvised, I reckon--to keep this entertaining enough for the duration.

Released by Troma, a company that James Gunn worked for.

This is only the second time I've mentioned David Arquette on this blog.

Poolhall Junkies

2002 pool movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: An ex-hustler returns to the game in order to help out his brother.

This is like Rounders for the pool hall. It's got the narration with some pool jargon, a troubled relationship, a character being dragged back into his former life, and an older mentor. The older mentor in this is Christopher Walken who apparently knows his way around a pool table. So does Mars Callahan who not only stars in this, but wrote and directed it. I'm guessing it was so he could show off his pool skills. Rod Steiger plays the type of character he always plays well (his last role actually), and Ricky Schroder is also in this except he's apparently Rick Schroder now. You know, because losing that "y" is likely to jump-start his career. I almost liked this movie, but it felt awfully derivative, and whenever there was humor, it seemed like humor that had already been in movies ten years before this was made. It's really the type of movie that you watch, know it's not very good, and still enjoy anyway. You might even be able to guess exactly where it's going and still enjoy it.

As one of my blog readers could tell you, I am an accomplished pool player myself. That might be why I enjoyed this a little more than some people would. I'm also very good at sex which might explain my love for pornography.

My new life goal: Have a picnic with Rick(y) Schroder, play badmitten, and convince him to drop the "k" in his name and try out Ric Schroder for a while.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

1996 cartoon

Rating: 13/20 (Buster: no rating)

Plot: Two boys go in search of their stolen television set and get mixed up with a pair of smugglers and the FBI.

"This sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before."

Not quite. This movie might have made me feel old if I thought about it a little more. I was never a fan of the MTV show but still managed to see this in the late-90s. And now I've seen it in 2013. It's the perfect sort of thing for a middle-aged man to watch with his mind completely shut off when he's supposed to have his mind turned on and actually accomplish things. There are a few film allusions including the opening sequence which parodies Shaft, but for the most part, this is the very opposite of clever. However, I did laugh a few times, and I liked a psychedelic dream sequence and a David Letterman voice cameo. Speaking of voices, I wonder what this had to do with the break-up of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.

I am sorry. I can't dedicate any more time to this movie.

ParaNorman

2012 cartoon

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 14/20; Emma: /20; Abbey: 18/20)

Plot: A boy who sees dead people inherits the job of reading a magic book to a centuries-dead witch from John Goodman, and along with his friends and sister, he's got to save the town from zombies.

Rapid Fire--Where Shane desperately tries to catch up and refuses to put much thought into this, write like a grown-up, or proofread himself.

Either I'm going nuts or there was a Manos: The Hands of Fate reference in this one. I really wanted to like it, and there are plenty of things to like. The creators have loads of creativity, there's a lot of fun visual humor, there's a visual style that keeps it from being just another one of those animated things, and Jon Brion does a nice job with the music. Then again, there's some crudeness and frightening imagery that made me wonder who the audience is, the humor in the dialogue doesn't work nearly as well as the visual stuff, the characters are really flat, and things just start looking stupid during a crazy climax. The story's weak. There's just not a lot of depth here, but this skims along entertainingly enough. It's darkly humorous and really probably not for children at all. Tim Burton fans might like it. The movie reminded me of him for a lot of reasons, not necessarily in a good way. Or is there a good way anymore?

Small Town Murder Songs

2010 drama

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Walter, a cop with a violent past, investigates a murder. The suspect is the guy currently having sex with his old love interest.

Rapid fire--my attempt to catch up.

I watched this because Peter Stormare plays the lead, and I like that guy. He's good here, too, and he does it all with a mustache. He gets a sex scene where he's--of course--on top, a position that I'm going to refer to as The Stormare for the rest of my days. Or at least the rest of my days during which I can still perform sexually and be on top. Stormare's a good actor, and he's a good actor in this, too. He doesn't have much to work with though, and his accent gets in the way a little bit. And then there's a drooling issue. Jackie Burroughs--best known as Morag the Tulgah Witch in the Ewoks television show--plays a woman named Olive here, a character who might be mentally challenged. It's her last role. This plays like a character study rather than a murder mystery. In fact, the murder mystery part of this is so light that there's barely a story here at all. Pulsating neo-gospel tribal music and Biblical quoting muddles things and doesn't really add that much to the proceedings, and after this is all over, I had trouble finding the point. Stormare's performance saves this from being a complete waste of time

Goon

2011 hockey comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A dumb guy in a family of smart people amazes a hockey coach with his fighting prowess and is signed to the team despite his inability to skate or play hockey. He's the titular goon, a guy put on the ice not to score goals or even do much at all related to hockey but instead fight opposing players and protect his team's talent.

Doug Glatt. Hasn't that name been used in another movie comedy? I know I could Google this and get an answer, but I'd rather somebody else do the work for me. This is one of those dumb comedies that seem to attract Eugene Levy, so it's no surprise that Eugene Levy is in this. And Eugene Levy's eyebrows. Seann William Scott is our protagonist, and I don't like him or any of the dumb movies that he's in, mostly stuff with Eugene Levy's eyebrows. As I wrote in my Dukes of Hazzard review, Scott has too many first names and too many n's in his first first name. That's reason enough to not like him, but he also plays simple-minded goofball too naturally. Having said that, he's a likable doofus here, and this movie, though not really very good, is frequently funny. Raunchiness abounds ("We have not pissed together since last time we double-teamed Belchior's mother.) as the characters all seem to have Tourette's Syndrome or something. The goalie gets the best lines, likely improvised although the announcer is pretty funny, too. There's never too much hockey. A love subplot, likely forced into the screenplay to get the ladies on board, succeeds in making the main character more likable but is other pointless. My favorite line: "It was Doug Glatt in the conservatory with his ass."

Doug Glatt. Seriously, where have I heard that name before?

Blood Bath

1966 horror movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: An artist who may or may not be a vampire kills attractive women and then dips their bodies in hot wax.

This one recalls the superior and more comedic (blackly) Bucket of Blood with its sculpting techniques and beatniks. Blood Bath, a movie that unfortunately isn't as interesting as the above poster makes it look, has an interesting history which explains why it's kind of a mess. Corman produced this movie and wanted Jack Hill of Spider Baby and The Wasp Woman fame to use footage of a movie Corman released in Europe but not in the U.S. He wasn't completely happy, so another director (Stephanie Rothman) came along and added a few scenes and changed the story around a little. So it's no wonder that this is disjointed and confusing. And it's too bad that it's slightly incomprehensible because the movie has so much style. There's great atmosphere early in the film with greasy atmosphere and impossible architectures and creepy bells, great black and white shots that look like they could have been in The Third Man or something. Later, there's a cool desert "He was mad!" scene and a nice shot of floating high heels in a swimming pool. The climactic scene, the only thing that even approaches horror, is effectively and efficiently dark and creepy. There's some cool movie artwork and even a little satire with some beatniks discussing the application of quantum physics to painting. This doesn't really overcome its convoluted production history or problems, but it is interesting enough to take a peek at.

Note: Like A Bucket of Blood, this has a very misleading title. There's sort of a bath, but no blood. And remember, you're not quite getting the cleavage or "the shrieking of mutilated victims caged in a black pit of horror" promised on the poster.