The Peace Killers

1971 motorcycle gang vs. hippie movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: When the leader of a biker gang hears that his ex-girlfriend is living in a nearby hippie commune, he and a few of his comrades bike off to go fetch her. The hippies fight back!

This is a fairly entertaining entry in those no-budget movies that attempted to make a buck after the success of more successful counterculture movies, some featuring both bikers and hippies. The trio of bikers at the beginning of the film--the floppy-hatted and lazy-eyed, a guy who can't quite get his words out, and a short guy--are almost comical until a flashback with a fairly nasty rape scene. You really only root for the hippies because the bad guys are so nasty. Otherwise, you wouldn't like the hippies much at all, especially their leader whose lines consist mostly of crying about how fighting isn't very nice. Jess Walton makes a great damsel-in-distress as the ex-girlfriend. The real star of the show might be the psych-rock soundtrack. The action scenes are fine for a movie like this--a lot of overhead shots of guys riding motorcycles. There's a scene where a pair of motorcycles carry the woman in a bag suspended between the two vehicles which is well done. The climactic fight scene with the hippies teaming up with a rival motorcycle gang including the afro'ed Lavelle Roby as Black Widow is so obviously not choreographed. One guy gets a great dying scene though where he says "Eeeeee!" And there's a scene where the titular killers of peace embarrass themselves by torturing a guy with a pencil, lamely.

Women of Cell Block 9 (aka Tropical Inferno)

1978 women's prison movies

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Three revolutionaries are captured and interrogated at a women's prison run by a sadistic warden. They try to escape.

The second in my trio of Jesus Franco movies is not a good movie at all, even for a women's prison movie. Franco dabbled in that genre, probably because of the pervy potential, and this effort is the kind of movie you kind of feel dirty for watching. The prisoners spend about 95% of the movie naked. When they're clothed at the beginning, they're the kinds of revolutionaries who wear short shorts and high heels. And when they're not being tortured, they're chained side-by-side by the neck so that the camera can pan over their bodies whenever Franco decides he needs another scene like that in the movie. And that's frequently. Folks who like movies that are degrading to women would almost love this. There's virtually no story, just a trio of torture scenes, one including a rhino horn and Howard Vernon saying, "Most men I've done this to are now homosexuals." Oh, yeah. Howard Vernon is in this. He's terrific despite the terrible dubbing--dubbing that includes voices when nobody's mouth is moving at all--and a scene where he watches lesbian action awkwardly. Well, that's also probably made awkward because of the dubbing. That or the leering. Now that I think about it, this movie is pretty much just shots of naked women and close-ups of Howard Vernon. And you know what? That's fine with me. I don't know who plays the warden because I can't figure out the warden's name, but I liked her. There's plenty of cheese amidst the sleaze with some game-show music that is completing distracting when the prisoners try to use lesbianism as a distraction to trick the dumbest prison guard ever, the line "Turn around, you pig!" which leads to the worst blood I think I've ever seen, and plenty of crocodiles or alligators during a scene where the naked women are being chased through the forest. As usual, I can't tell the difference between crocodiles and crocodiles. I don't think Franco can either though, so it doesn't matter. And the movie ends with shades of necrophilia with a nifty closing sound effect. Sweet move there, Jesus Franco. Sweet move. No one is going to mistake Women of Cell Block 9 or Tropical Inferno or whatever this movie wants to call itself (Note: It probably would rather hide than call itself anything.) for art, but. . .no, there is no but. There's nothing I can follow that with.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009 prequel

Rating: 8/20 (Emma: 20/20; Abbey: 14/20)

Plot: Wolverine's story, leading up to that first X-Men movie. He gets metal put in him, falls in love, chops down trees, and has fights with another furry guy, but not necessarily in that order.

As some of my readers might recall, I sort-of watched this movie with my brother back when it came out. It was a leaked version without completed CGI. My brother tried to tell me that completed special effects wouldn't make a difference, but I really thought they would. Nope. He was right, and I was wrong. Other than Hugh Jackman, who really does his very best to give this a little something, this movie's got nothing going for it. Part of the problem is that it's a prequel, so any fight scene between Wolverine and anybody else has very little if any tension or suspense. And the fight scenes are ludicrous, the CGI effects laughable. I did like the montage during the opening credits that took Liev Schreiber's character and Wolverine through various stages of America's bloody history. I did wonder, as the duo stormed Normandy, why they didn't end up in Saving Private Ryan though. The Liev vs. Wolverine fights though? They're jumpy enough to give you vertigo, and unfortunately, there are about a dozen of them. And they're all sort of the same except the last one which takes place in an implausible location. I can't think of a movie that gets worse and worse and more and more nonsensical like this one does. I thought it had reached the bottom of the barrel with one of those overhead shots showing Wolverine screaming after his girlfriend dies, but I was wrong. Then, I thought we'd reached the bottom when Wolverine, after running around naked for a little too long, interacts with some farm people, farm people who end up dead in a really shocking scene that, to this conservative viewer, just seemed unnecessary. But no, that wasn't the bottom because there's a grotesque Fat Fred who might have been modeled after the obese glutton who dies in Se7en. I'm pretty sure he's got CGI man tits. And there's lots of Will.i.am, poker great Daniel Negreanu, and a climax that seems to go on for hours. The movie's absolutely no fun at all, and unless I missed something, doesn't really give us all that much background about the character or the story that isn't in those first two X-Men movies. This is superfluous entertainment, and no amount of bad special effects could save it. I'm almost insulted that this movie exists.

Bonus points for the work of Septimus Caton as a bartender. "Guys, whatever this is, take it outside." It's easily the best performance in this terrible movie. He's also got a great name.

Hey, I've noticed there's a second Wolverine movie coming out. What the hell could that possibly be about? Emma says we're seeing it in the theater, so I guess I'll know soon enough.

Fire, Ice & Dynamite

1990 movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Sir George fakes his death and makes all the people he owes money to and his three children compete in a race called the Megathon to win his fortune. Lots of stunts happen.

At least the stunts were good. This is a sequel to Fire and Ice, a movie that I haven't seen. Apparently, it's mostly lots of skiing stunts strung together with a little bit of a plot and narration by John Denver, a man who died during his own stunt. If you liked the stunts in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, you'll like the stunts in this more. Willy Bogner, Jr. directed this and was a cameraman for the Bond movies that featured skiing. This has also got Roger Moore, my favorite James Bond, and some bald people. Oh, and Roger Moore's son is in there. My guess is that Moore said he would be in this movie but only if his son could also get a part. It took me a really long time to figure out that this is supposed to be a comedy, and that's never good. The comedy is just as dangerous as the stunts. Did I mention that there were stunts in this movie? Because there are! Stunt people bungie jump, white water raft, fall, plummet, ski, ski more, climb things, explode, and ski. At times, it's like a live action Wacky Races although nowhere near as entertaining or as funny. Marjoe Gortner makes an appearance, mostly in a helicopter as an announcer for the Megathon. I'm guessing there are also some Olympic athletes who were tricked into being in this as well as Isaac Hayes and Buzz Aldrin.

Buzz Aldrin trivia: Did you know that Buzz Aldrin was the first person to defecate on the moon? That's real trivium, readers. I'm not making that up.

I was confused by a bunch of references to bananas in this, but not as confused as I was with a song that popped up in the middle of this, something that made me wish the stunts would come back. I did mention that there were stunts in this, didn't I?

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

2012 history lesson

Rating: 8/20 (Jen: Did not finish)

Plot: Abraham Lincoln hunts vampires with an ax.

This movie was mostly really boring and the special effects were bad enough to make me wonder if any of this really happened. There's a climactic forty-five minute action sequence that takes place on a train that defies physics and every single other thing that can be defied, and the only reason it didn't seem like the silliest thing ever to me was because I had seen characters throwing horses at each other in an earlier scene. Timur Bekmambetov directed this. I know him from Night Watch, a movie with a look I hated so much that I had to fast-forward through most of it. This whole thing just looks greasy to me, and the guy who played the titular president--Benjamin Walker--didn't look Lincolny enough. I can't believe he won the Best Actor Academy Award for his work in this although I will admit one thing--dude can swing an ax.

Here's why this whole experience was worth it to me:

Me: Jen, do you want to watch a movie with me?
Jen: What movie?
Me: Lincoln.
Jen: Sure.

I was sneaky and made sure she didn't catch a glimpse of the menu screen, and there wasn't a title screen for this movie either. So it took my wife 11 minutes and 39 seconds to figure out that this wasn't the Academy Award nominated Lincoln and was "the one with vampires" instead. At one point, she said, "Abraham Lincoln didn't kill people!" I thought the whole thing was hilarious. She called it "mean" though.

Last laugh was on me because I watched the whole movie.

Magic Mike

2012 stripper movie

Rating: 8/20 (Jen: 8/20)

Plot: The titular stripper takes a young pup under his hunky wing and teaches him the profession. Adam's extracurricular activities threaten to get Mike in some trouble and ruin his chances of opening up a furniture-making business.

I completely forgot that I watched this movie with Jen a few weeks ago. She was in the mood for something with "bunches of male stripping," "barely a story at all," and "lots of Matthew McConaughey." I suggested this because I thought it would also have some magic, but unfortunately, there wasn't anything magical at all. This isn't too far from Showgirls in terms of quality. The biggest difference is that it's not unintentionally hilarious. What I'm wondering is what Steven Soderbergh is doing this for? Shouldn't he be hard at work on a sequel to Schizopolis or something? That's a rhetorical question, so please don't answer it. McConaughey is his usual charismatic self and gets to say, "Alright, alright, alright!" enough to satisfy fans of Matthew McConaughey saying, "Alright." And if you're a fan of naked men, this has more than enough of that, too. There were so many stripping scenes here, and although they were all well choreographed and the actors (not professional strippers?) did a fine job, they just felt extraneous halfway through the movie. What this doesn't have is enough of a plot to last for the nearly two hour length of the motion picture or characters that are the least bit interesting. I guess I was supposed to care for Channing Tatum's Magic Mike because he made furniture, but I just couldn't do it. Tatum's not a very good actor either although he seems to be getting a lot of work. For this, it's apparently that he was hired as the lead only because he's pretty. The worst acting in this and quite possibly in anything else is Cody Horn's as Tatum's sister. She must be a Scientologist or something because she showed absolutely no emotion whatsoever in this movie and read all of her lines like she was behind a table reading lines for other actors during auditions. She didn't seem like she wanted to be in the movie at all. I might not be the audience for this movie even though I am a big fan of Matthew McConaughey and male strippers, but I found this really really boring. This is the last time I let Jen pick a movie for a long time!

Hop

2011 Easter movie

Rating: 8/20 (Emma: 14/20; Abbey: 20; Buster: 13/20; Jennifer: 13/20)

Plot: The Easter Bunny's son--the next-in-line Easter Bunny--goes to Hollywood to make it big as a drummer. A 20-something with no job prospects and no home but his parents basement befriends him, and they have a little adventure that is partially animated and mostly stupid.

The makers of this thing need to be crucified. I'll give them credit for mixing the animation with the live action really well. The movie looks pretty good. I can't remember the last time I got bored with the story of a movie though. Hating both of the central characters probably didn't help much either. The rabbit is voiced by Russell Brand which seemed to be the main reason Emma liked this movie. No, she's not a Russell Brand fan, but she really liked his voice in this. I thought he was kind of irritating, and I've never thought the Easter Bunny should have an English accent anyway. James Marsden overdid things, probably because he knew he'd be upstaged by a cartoon rabbit in post-production. This movie is predictable, bland, and too colorful. And that chicken! Hank Azaria should find better things to do with his time and talents. It's unlikely that I'm the audience for it, and my girls seemed to like it just fine, but I kind of hope it'll wind up forgotten since nobody will ever feel the urge to pop in an Easter movie around that holiday season like they do with Christmas movies. Speaking of Easter movies though: The Passion of the Christ has about three more laughs than this movie. If Mel Gibson would have had the foresight to add a cartoon bunny to that movie, who knows how much money he would have made. Actually, I'm not entirely sure why a movie hasn't been made about Jesus and a cartoon bunny. Wait, didn't The Last Temptation of Christ have a bunny?

Screwballs

1983 teen sex comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Four mischievous high school boys receive detentions, and the chaste Purity Busch is partially to blame. They challenge each other to get their revenge by deflowering her.

Purity Busch sounds like a Bond girl. I can't decide if something like this is completely harmful or harmless. It's possibly a prelude to a deluge of shit, a film that manages to be both way ahead of its time and way behind the times simultaneously. Supposed-teen girls are objectified, breasts are exposed, a giant hot dog is abused. But does it hurt anything? The whole thing beings with a giant hot dog gag before moving things to Taft and Adams High (naturally) where we're introduced to the central characters. And that high school seems like a pretty realistic look at 80's secondary education. You've got a girl playing with a yo-yo, another kid playing with an airplane, a guy wearing a gas mask inexplicably, food fights, make-out sessions on cafeteria tables, a lot of hula-hooping, cafeteria bicycle rides, and meat locker masturbation sessions. The latter, by the way, apparently would only get you a detention, by the way. That's the 1980s for you. Oh, wait. This is supposed to take place in the 1950s, I think, but you really wouldn't know it from looking at anything in the movie. Actually, I might just be confused about when this is supposed to take place. Who cares? Is anybody even reading this? Am I even writing it? Part of me wants to give this some bonus points for a scene featuring sex with a stuffed animal, a scene that puts me just one away from completing a sex-with-a-stuffed-animal trifecta. It also has a scene at a drive-in where the kids are having sex while The Wild Women of Wongo plays. I don't know how much of another movie you're allowed to use in a movie, but this must push it to the limit. I think about thirty minutes of this eighty-minute film is The Wild Women of Wongo actually. I also liked a bearded guy with a pipe, one of the strip club patrons. He gets his one second of fame here, but I couldn't find a name for him. And I was fond of all these extraneous animal sound effects. Really, it was just sound effects in general, I guess. Some sound effects guy really took this as his opportunity to shine. Then, there's the biology teacher named Anna Tommical played by Raven De La Croix, the star of such hits as The Double-D Avenger, The Breast Things in Life Are Free, and Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove. Here's here imdb.com picture, one apparently taken during her vacation to the inside of a kaleidoscope:

I do wonder what happened to all these kids. I'm too lazy to look them up to see if any of them had a notable post-Screwballs career. That, or I really don't want to spend any more time with this movie.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)

2011 sequel

Rating: 8/20 (Mark: 18/20; Amy: 13/20)

Plot: A sexy parking attendant with a disturbing obsession with The Human Centipede (First Sequence) decides to make his own human centipede out of people he's crowbarred in the head at the parking garage. All he needs is Ashlynn Yennie who played a character in the first movie. Luckily for Martin, she's got nothing else going on with her career.

Thank God this was in black and white. There was a lot of this that I just did not need to see in color--an unfortunate scene with a baby and a scene featuring lots of fecal matter. Well, pretty much all of the scenes. Actually, there was a lot of this that I didn't really need to see in black and white. It's true what they say--what has been seen cannot be unseen. The first movie was a piece of work itself, but it had a fun performance by Dieter Laser as the bad guy, a little bit of style, and some very dark humor. As you'd expect, this has a lot in common with that movie. There is a filthy style to this. The film's got this greasy look to it that fits. The centipede-maker, an obese loner named Martin, is played creepily by a guy named Laurence R. Harvey. His body shape, masturbatory method, weird eyes, bad hair, smile, and everything else--his physical performance really is a good one--builds this character you wouldn't want to meet in your dreams. The character's not played for giggles like Laser's guy in the first movie. There was almost no background on Dr. Heiter in the first movie, at least that I can remember. You just knew he wanted to hook three people together to make a pet centipede. Here, we get enough background about Martin to make him a little more human and a lot creepier. And this second installment of a series has some humor although it's very very sick humor. This movie completely fails, however, because it doesn't know when to stop. After a while, it's like somebody telling you the same joke over and over, each time repeating the punchline a little bit louder. You'd just want to cover your ears and tell that person to go away. You almost want to do the same here. Director Tom Six, likely in an effort to top the shock or raise the torture porn bar, just doesn't know when to stop. The best horror movies work because of the subtleties. Six grabs the back of your head by the hair and shoves your face in the horror, and he does it over and over again. I don't recall seeing a trailer for this movie, but I imagine the voiceover said, "Now with more nudity! More blood! More shit! More bondage! More screams! More graphic surgery scenes! And yes, Human Centipede fans--more centipede!" My brother, who loves these movies, covered up his eyes and refused to watch some parts of this. I'll give him credit though. He ate Hardee's food before this, knowing that he was going to watch this movie. It takes a real hero with a real hero's stomach to eat Hardee's food in the first place. I know veterans of WWII or the 9/11 firefighters are often referred to as heroes, but they've got nothing on my brother. I almost regurgitated Hardee's food, and I didn't even eat any of it. A movie that can make you vomit somebody else's food is some movie, and that's just the type of movie this is. The sequel's concept may have had potential, and I really did like Harvey's performance, almost in a way that makes me feel guilty. Unfortunately, this is a movie that almost begs its audience not to like it. I obliged.

If I give a "Best Beard" award this year, Bill Hutchens will likely win it. He played a perverse psychologist. Martin's mother was played by Vivien Bridson who might find herself with a Torgo at the end of the year. It was one delightfully batty performance. Technically, Harvey could win the Billy Curtis Award for little people because he is called a midget in this by two different characters. I'm not sure whether he's eligible or not and will have to dig up my rulebook. And despite my brother's promise that this movie has the "greatest masturbation scene ever," I don't think it beats the one in Borat's new movie.

By the way, if you were an actor or actress in this movie and played a part of the centipede, would you tell people? Would you put it on your resume?

Oh, and Hardee's representatives, you can thank me for the product placement with cash. I do not want coupons because your food, at least the last time I ate any of it over twenty years ago, is garbage.

Thor

2011 religious movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Odin's titular kid is too cocky and stirs up too much trouble, so he's sent from Asgard to earth where he falls in love with Natalie Portman and saves humanity from some bad guy from Asgard who is up to evil things that I never quite understand because I'm too bored to pay attention.

If I'm going to eventually watch The Avengers, apparently the greatest movie ever made, I have to do my homework and watch these other movies. I've got Hulk and Iron Man covered, so it's just this and Captain America. I'm not exactly a comic book or superhero expert, but when the most interesting character in the whole movie is "Pet Store Clerk" played by some guy named Isaac Kappy, you probably have a sucky superhero movie. Isaac Kappy's had a great start to a very promising career, by the way. No, he doesn't have his picture on imdb.com yet, but he does have three message board posts on his page and only one of them is his. He just hasn't had the right role yet because his work as "Pet Store Clerk" in this is fantastic. He's played Rowdy Prisoner, Stoner Dude, Geek, Buzter Pie (in Klown Kamp Massacre), and Hustler, but I'm willing to bet his best work is still to come. But back to Thor since this is his movie, unfortunately for him. This is the least fun I've had watching a superhero movie with the exception of Spiderman 3, but Spiderman 3 did at least have a great scene where James Franco is enjoying pie. It's all so stiff and lifeless and the scenes on Asgard taste a lot like the inside of a computer. So many grand swooping fake camera movements over shiny castles. Look at the scene where, accompanied by giant omnipresent predictable music, Thor and his peeps ride horses on a iridescent bridge after these big fake doors open. It just made me wish that I was watching a Western with real people riding real horses. Then, they go to a yellow-eyed guy who watches over the bridge. He turns out to be important, and if more people read this blog, some comic book nerd (Kent?) would tell me what his name was and make fun of me for not knowing it. I could stop all that from happening by just looking it up, but my eyes still hurt a little bit from all the Asgard glossiness. I really hated the action scenes in this. It didn't take long for me to be convinced that this whole movie was just part of a conspiracy to sell plastic hammers to children. But the action scenes confused me, especially the one where they loudly fight in the land of the ice people. There's a lot of swooshing and a lot of crumbling things, but it was mostly too dark for me to figure out exactly what was happening. Or maybe it was my television. I'm too lazy to Google "Guy with yellow eyes on the shiny gay bridge in Thor," so it's not hard to believe that I'd be too lazy to adjust the brightness on my television. Things improve slightly once Thor hits earth, and this part of the movie really could have worked as an entry in the whole stranger-in-a-strange-land genre if ("What realm is this?") it just didn't take itself so seriously. I did chortle when Thor smashed a glass in a diner. I might have enjoyed that part of the movie more, but I was confused about how a taser could take a superhero out, probably because I didn't watch this with a comic book nerd (Kent?) who would have explained it all to me. And what's with all the tilted camera angles in this? Was it the cinematographer's ingenious way of showing that Thor's world had become askew? Was it an homage to the comics? The dialogue in this is very awkward, and that might explain why the acting is almost universally bad (Pet Shop Clerks excepted), especially Natalie Portman who is quickly becoming a sort of pet peeve for me. She needs to stop before she loses all credibility. And speaking of credibility, why is Kenneth Branagh directing stuff like this? Did he run out of Shakespeare plays? Did somebody convince him that this was a Shakespeare play? Another question--isn't the whole Thor-as-a-Christ-figure thing a bit odd? Or is the whole father/son story (that's how Netflix categorized this for me, by the way) an archetype? Anyway, back to the movie. Eventually, Thor magically--and by that, I mean stupidly--gets his hammer back and fights a giant metal man in a tornado. And that's not even the big dumb climactic fight scene that all of these superhero movies seem to end with. No, that pits the sort-of good against the ambiguously evil in a special effects laden bunch of hurls and clashes that succeeded in making me wish I had gone to bed instead of watching this. And it was four in the afternoon!

This is fairly verbose, so let me simplify things for you: Watch this with a comic book nerd (Kent?), give your comic book nerd instructions to wake you up in time to see the scene in the pet store, fall asleep before the movie starts, watch Isaac Kappy's genius, and leave to buy an ice cream cone. You can thank me later.

Hobo with a Shotgun

2011 70's movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: The titular hobo arrives in a town I believe is named Fuck Town, a "satanic dystopia" if you believe the graffiti. He finds nothing but crime and corruption, sticks his probably filthy hobo nose where it doesn't belong, and ticks off the town's big wig and his dopey sons. Finally, he's pushed too far, gets his hands (probably filthy) on the titular shotgun, and takes the law into his own hands.

Oh boy. What am I getting myself into here? This seems to be a halfassed production rushed out there to take advantage of the 1970's grindhouse revival. It's about as subtle as a hammer to the groin. More than likely, there was a scene featuring a hammer to a groin in this mess somewhere. This is a movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all but that probably needed to. There are moments of manic bloody genius if you're looking for a gorefest as guys are decapitated with barbed-wire nooses, heads are smashed between bumper cars, arms are broken on video game joysticks, faces are slapped with socks full of coins, school children on buses are flame-throwered, chests are pierced with ice skates, and. . .well, you get the idea. But the storytelling, acting, and writing are so bad, even for this sort of thing. See, you can't start a movie with a group of really loud people decapitating and a record-breaking amount of dick jokes (seriously, tally up the number of dick references in the first ten minutes of this thing) and then transition to the protagonist staring at a lawn mower with some sad piano music. What am I supposed to feel there? Somebody's head just flew off and a bunch of people danced as his blood rained down on them, and now I'm supposed to appreciate the depth of our hobo protagonist? You're asking for too much, filmmakers. You're distracted and, if you're the type of sicko who appreciates this kind of over-the-top gratuitous movie violence, amused during the bloody action sequences that take up at least half of this movie, but when the movie slows down, you realize how bad it is. Just check out some of this crap:

Hobo, after being taken to his prostitute friend's house where he will be given a sweatshirt with a bear on it: "I see you have an empty picture frame here. Why don't you put a picture of your family in there, or a dog or a cat?" What happens to that picture frame made me laugh. Or this line from the hobo: "You seem like a smart and intelligent girl. You should be teaching, tell people about beautiful things and miracles." You also get to learn a lot about bears during this touching scene. Then, there's what might be the action one-liner of the year: "First, I have to wash this guy's asshole off my face." I'll credit Rutger Hauer with one thing--he grabs onto this character and gives it his all. I'm not sure if he's playing this character without irony at all or if he's on some kind of level that I can't even comprehend where he knows that I don't know how seriously he's taking this movie and is just toying with me. Or he understands that I'm going to wonder if he's just toying with me, drops hints in his performance that he might be toying with me, and ultimately plays it as straight as he can. All of those are possibilities, and I don't feel that I can appreciate the tragic beauty of the scene where the hobo is talking to a bunch of newborns without knowing which. Anyway, here's my favorite dialogue from the movie:

Prostitute: This isn't the only place grass grows?
Hobo: Are you serious?
Prostitute: Yes.

It's not my favorite moment though. That would be a pair of emergency room doctors trying to save a girl's life which might be the funniest thing I see all year. And wait a second. Now there are armored guys and an octopus thing? This movie's just too much for me to handle.

Rutger, contact me. I'd like to send you my screenplay for my grindhouse kung-fu revenge flick sequel to The Diary of Anne Frank.

Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy

1976 x-rated musical fantasy

Rating: 8/20

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

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

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

The Last Broadcast

1998 horror mockumentary

Rating: 8/20

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

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

Date Night

2010 comedy

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

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

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

Red State

2011 shoot-'em-upper

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Some dumb kids use the Internet to find a cougar willing to have sex with, but they end up abducted by a religious cult with a leader who wants to kill them because they're homosexuals.

I stopped following Kevin Smith on Twitter after watching this movie. Said to myself, "I just can't follow somebody who made this movie on Twitter." Yeah, I've seen worse movies, but this one seems to have an agenda which makes it even worse. This is a movie that thinks it's more intelligent than it is when the truth is that Kevin Smith really isn't a very good director and doesn't have much of a story to tell here anyway. You put your characters in a mildly horrifying situation (note: This isn't really a horror movie as promised on the poster up there. It's definitely more of an actioner.), go nowhere with it, and then have a scene where everybody is shooting at each other that takes up about half the movie. The biggest problem is that you don't really care about any of the characters. This is a movie that doesn't really have a good guy. It's bad vs. bad, and unless everybody gets it in the end, you're not going to be satisfied. Speaking of the ending, how ridiculous does this thing end? The cutesy little trick that Kevin Smith pulls here should cause him embarrassment. The lone good thing about this movie? The performance of the versatile Michael Parks as the preacher man. In the hands of another director, this character and performance could have been something. In Kevin Smith's hands? Not so much. Kevin Smith, you just lost yourself a Twitter follower. And I'm a guy who follows Neil Hamburger!

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Old School

2004 comedy

Rating 8/20

Plot: A triad of grown men, all unhappy in different deep-down way decide to form a fraternity to recapture some of their glory (hole) days. Hilarious!

The Cardinals advanced to the World Series. I teared up a bit, wandered outside the hotel, and graded some papers. Following the award presentations, beer drenching, and celebrations, Old School came on, and Gene wanted to watch it. Again, forgot my promise. I don't think I'd ever be in the mood to watch this movie, but I was in a good enough mood to let Gene have his way although not sans trousers like he suggested. I had time before the movie I was really excited about watching came on, and First, I can't believe this came out in 2003. For whatever reason, it seems like it's been around forever like plagues, evil-doers, people making bad decisions, and AIDS have. No, this movie is not as awful as AIDS, but it's also probably not as funny. Luke Wilson's as likable as any Wilson brother or any Baldwin brother, but he needs funny material if he's going to be funny. Look at him in those Wes Anderson movies and then watch this. He's the same guy with the same amount of talent, but he just doesn't work here. And Jack Bauer is going to be pissed when he watches this and finds out what you did to his daughter, Luke. Will Ferrell never works, probably because of that stupid face. I don't like Vince Vaughn's face either and his work in this isn't as funny as what he did in that Psycho remake. In fact, I don't think I really like anybody in this movie except for Patrick Cranshaw. All 8 points I'm giving this movie are for Patrick Cranshaw actually. And just when you don't think the cast can get any more unlikable, the producers of Old School throw Snoop Dogg and Andy Dick at you. Andy Dick! I imagine the type of people who would care about the characters in this movie or let out a laugh or two would probably also be the same type of people who laugh at Andy Dick's name.

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie # 19: Season of the Witch

2011 witch movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: While looking out his window at the many sights to see and the different people to be, Mr. Leitch decides that he has to pick out every stitch because a rabbit's running in the ditch. Oh, no! Must be the season of the witch! He looks over his shoulder, and summer cat is looking over its shoulder at him. It's strange.

A movie based on a Donovan song? Starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman? With the cute-as-a-button Claire Foy spending the majority of the movie in a cage? Sign me up!

Nicolas Cage rocks the long hair and pretty much makes that face that you see on the poster up there throughout the entire movie. He and co-star Ron Perlman, the latter who should be pissed since I didn't see a single poster with him on it although his character is equally important, both swing a mean sword, slicing off goon-monks' heads and watching the life poof out the top of them in CGI dust spirals. I'm also not going to complain about getting to see Ron Perlman headbutt Satan because that's pretty awesome. But their performances are really wooden in this completely stiff period horror film. Ron Perlman's also only got a single facial expression. They and the entire movie are flat, devoid of personality. You know what this movie is like? It's like one of those t-shirts you can buy at a gas station, one of those with a giant cougar against a backdrop of stormy skies or a pair of dolphins penetrating a wall of bitchin' fire. It looks like the best shirt ever until you actually put it on and realize you bought it a two sizes too small and that your nipples distort the cougar's face and the fabric gives you a rash. And then you're sitting on the curb after finding out that you're four dollars and thirty-five cents short of being able to afford a sandwich at your favorite sub sandwich chain and that's the exact amount you spent on the shirt. A little girl and her mother pass by and the little girl says, "Mom, look at that crying man's shirt," and you decide that you're going to take your own life. That's what this movie is like. Dopey dark special effects puttering around during action sequences with outcomes that I have no interest in. All with this really big music whenever anything happens, apparently because my eyes alone can't tell when something really big happens. I hate that. It's like the filmmakers think that I'm stupid. There is the aforementioned headbutting-the-devil scene and another scene where, if you use your imagination a little, kind of looks like Nicolas Cage having sex with Satan. But you have to ignore the fact that they're both being really stabby throughout the whole thing. I also dug those bird gas mask things. But now I'm working pretty hard to find anything to like about this movie. It's a pretty joyless experience.

Question [Spoiler Alert!]: How did the girl end up naked at the end? Did I miss something?

Gulliver's Travels

2010 comedy

Rating: 8/20 (Emma: 7/20; Abbey: dnf)

Plot: It's Jonathan Swift's classic piece of satire, filmed exactly as he intended it to be filmed. Jack Black, a mail room loser infatuated with the pretty girl on one of the upper floors, tells a few lies, plagiarizes a few lines, and winds up on a boat in the Bermuda Triangle to write a puff piece about his travels. He ends up shipwrecked and in the land of the diminutive Lilliputians. Oh, snap!

Wait a second! I was supposed to watch this in 3D, presumably because a three-dimensional Jack Black is going to be funnier than a boring old two-dimensional one. After a cute little animated opening which tricked me into thinking this would be better than I thought, we get Jack Black doing his Jack Black thang. Ad nauseum. You've got to give the guy a lot of credit--he tries really really hard. He takes material that isn't any good, hoists it upon his shoulders, and trounces across the screen in an attempt to carry it. His act's just gotten old though, and by the time his story in this reaches it's big musical conclusion, he's just become a giant parody of himself. The writers of this (you know, Jonathan Swift et. al.) fit the classic Jack Black pattern: make him really sad, then really loud, then repeat. After a preposterous set-up that is poorly written enough to take it completely out of reality, you get to the fantastical part of the story where some so-so special effects become the star. You get some really lame robot foreshadowing (How to build your own robot? Like that's gonna happen!) and the silliest product placement (a giant cola can) that you'll ever see. This also has to be the high point in Billy Connolly's career--being urinated upon by Jack Black. Connolly is the funniest thing about this movie, by the way, but his role is very small. Pun possibly intended. I liked Chris O'Dowd, too. He plays the villain and does a lot more with poor material than could have been reasonably expected. His character is the villain, but I'm not real sure how anybody's going to end up rooting for Gulliver in this. He lies, he's selfish, he's lazy. He commercializes Lilliput and gives bad advice to Jason Segel. When he's getting that wedgie from the robot (yep, that's the type of movie this is), you're almost rooting for the robot. Scratch that. You are rooting for the robot. At the end of this movie, the characters are trying to introduce a catch word "Boosh!" which I think might be a Cat in the Hat influence. Let me end this with a couple-few positives: 1) The stunt coordinator's name is Stink Fisher. 2) Anybody with a giant Amanda Peet fetish is likely to be satisfied. 3) There are some Lilliputian reenactments of Star Wars and Titanic (the funniest scene from Titanic where Rose tells Jack she'll never let him go and then immediately lets him go) that are kind of cute.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Get Him to the Greek

2010 crude comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Aldous Snow--a rock 'n' roller recovering from a bad break-up, a critically-lambasted album, and a drug habit--needs help getting to a music venue for a big show. The titular him and the titular Greek for those of you keeping score at home. The boring Jonah Hill, an up-and-coming record label intern, is sent to retrieve him. Apparently, a of lot college kids are entertained by this sort of thing.

I think I get the appeal of Russell Brand, but he bothers me. It just doesn't seem like he has to try at all in order to make the funny happen. Jonah Hill? I don't get this kid. Why's he famous? This movie was more loud and crude than funny. It's one of those cases where they search around for that line and then try to see how many times they can cross it instead of worrying about being clever. I did like Puff Daddy though. There's something I never thought I'd type.

Have you seen this one, Barry?

Liquid Sky

1982 low-budget sci-fi flick

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Some aliens you can't see come to earth in search of drugs, disturbing some nice lesbians in the process.

I don't like the color of the 1980s. There are a lot of cult movies that I really like, and there are some that I really hate. I failed to connect with Liquid Sky at all, saw it as a barely-moving and pretentious bunch of silliness. Cardboard cutouts of the actors in this would have probably shown more emotion although I will say this--those cats can dance! Ah! That's what this reminds me of--Breakin' as directed by Derek Jarman but with lesbians, an irritating electronic score, and a complete lack of breakdancing. This probably fair since he had nothing since he had nothing to do with any of this, but I'm going to go ahead and blame David Bowie for this one. Or my brother. It's the exact type of movie I would have tried my best to love as a teenager, but it bored me to technicolor tears as a middle-aged man.