Santa with Muscles

1996 Christmas comedy

Rating: 3/20

Plot: A millionaire is chased by police after some wild driving while on his way to some paintball shenanigans. He hides out in a shopping mall and puts on a Santa Claus outfit to elude the po-po, but an accident knocks him out and gives him amnesia so that he actually believes he's Santa Claus. A shady character named Lenny tries to take advantage of them, and the duo try to save an orphanage from evil scientists.

I wanted to give this a try to see if there's a worse Christmas movie than Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzennegar's big F-U to Christmas. The best thing I can probably say about this one (and that one) is that it's not as offensive to Christmas as a Santa Claus who molests children would be. But it's closer than you'd think. I'm trying to decide who you'd have to consider dumber--screenwriters Jonathan Bond, Fred Mata, and Dorrie Krum Raymond who have a grand total of zero other writing credits to their names because they were more than likely blacklisted after this came out or the characters they create. The characters are all pretty stupid, so that's also closer than you might think. Now, if I had blog readers, one of them would argue with me that this is completely harmless. On the contrary, this movie is so dumb that watching it could give a person brain damage. Not only that, I think I now hate Christmas because of this movie. I also hate professional wrestling, magic crystals, orphans, bodybuilding supplements, paintball, SUV's, science, Mila Kunis, and puns. Oh, and Christmas. What? I already typed that? See, that's probably an effect of watching this movie. I would wonder if Hulk Hogan's terrible performance, one that is really one of the worst you'll ever see, was the result of him watching this movie, but I can't think of how that would be possible and my head hurts just thinking about it. He's so bad here when he's not beating up scientists, but in his defense, the script doesn't help him out much. There's one great scene after the bad guys are defeated (oh, c'mon--like you were A) going to watch this, B) get to this part of the movie, and C) not know how it was going to end) and the Hulkster says something about how one of the bad guys needs to go defrost himself and then laughs. It's a thing of beauty, ladies and gentlemen. I've not really experienced the magic that is Hulk Hogan outside his early wrestling career, another movie or two, and a terrible venture into rock 'n' roll that I happen to own on cassette.

That album, by the way, makes Randy "The Macho Man" Savage's rap music album seem as good as Abbey Road. Oh hell, who am I kidding? The Macho Man's rap album is gold anyway. But I digress. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember how I was going to follow the "I've not really experienced the magic that is Hulk Hogan" idea that I started above. I'm distracted by wondering if it's really fair to have one movie that has both Hulk Hogan and Clint Howard in it. This one does, and that just doesn't seem right to other movie makers. Can't you just imagine a film producer saying the following:

"What? Cabin Fever Entertainment, distributor of Silence of the Hams, is releasing a movie with Hulk Hogan and Clint Howard? And Hulk Hogan has hair? And Clint Howard is playing a cop? That's it, everybody. Wrap it up. We're giving up here."

I just read that the original author of this gem sued to have his name removed, supposedly because the story had been changed so much. But really, anybody who sees this is going to know the real reason.

This and Jingle All the Way double feature! I want to meet the man who can stomach that onslaught.

Hereafter

2010 old man movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A cute French journalist nearly dies, going so far that she even sees the light, but lives to write about it. A kid deals with life after his twin brother passes away. And Matt Damon, a guy with an extraordinary talent, tries his best to live a normal life. They're paths eventually connect.

But boy, do you have to wait a long time to get there! And "there" doesn't turn out to be very revealing or insightful or moving or really anything. Eastwood channels his inner-Shamalammadingdong and winds up with something that lacks a narrative flow and, more significantly, any real emotion. There's nothing really wrong with the performances (cute Cecile De France, even-cuter Matt Damon, the McLaren twins) or the way this is shot. It just doesn't add up to anything, nothing more than a squelchy fart from Eastwood's old man bathroom. Any bonus point that a surprisingly touching Richard Kind performance might have given this was wiped out instantly by Jay Mohr's presence. I could do without that guy.

In the Line of Fire

1993 live-action Tom and Jerry cartoon if Jerry was an old man and Tom wanted to kill the president

Rating: 16/20 (Dylan: 12/20)

Plot: Secret Service agent Frank is getting old. It's been almost thirty years since he failed to save President Kennedy, and he probably should have been fired. I know it's not the same thing, but if a bunch of my students die while in my classroom (enough to equal one president), then I'd probably end up losing my job. It's all silly with Frank's situation anyway because everybody knows that Kennedy didn't really actually die, and he lived to see the broadcast of the fake moon landing while hiding out in Italy with Marilyn Monroe, Lee Harvey Oswald, and an alien thirty years before they started planning out the September 11th Twin Tower attacks with their crazy neighbor Osama. But I digress. This movie is all about some really smart nutcase who wants to kill the current president. Frank's too old for this shit, but he really has no choice.

So this maybe wasn't as good as I remembered. Rene Russo's character is distracting, but I guess the girls have to have something to watch in this movie, too. Assassination plots don't appeal to most females, but all gals enjoy watching an old guy putting the moves on some younger broad. Guys will dig the cat-and-mouse game between Eastwood and Malkovich. With the former, you get an intriguing good guy with a meaty background and a tired old pro's attitude that makes him unafraid to stick his middle finger up to bureaucrats who try to stand in his way. Some moments he's funny; others, he's just pissed off. This was the movie that made me a huge Malkovich fan. You got to love those villains who are smarter than everybody else, and it's great hearing him taunting his opponent and cracking-wise. This movie has some action--a short foot-chase, a longer rooftop chase, some shooting--but the real action takes place in the lines between the dialogue, and Eastwood and especially Malkovich are terrific and creating these suspenseful on-the-edge-of-your-seat chilling moments with nothing but conversation. You've got two actors who are at their best when their characters are pissed off, and there's enough going on in their characters' lives to give them plenty to be pissed off about. There's not really anything new in this movie, and I suppose you could point out more than a few cliched moments if you really wanted to. But if you just focus on those two characters and their riveting little chess match, it makes for an engrossing thriller.

Two questions I'll ask any of you have seen this movie: 1) Is Frank really a heroic character? 2) Was anybody else rooting for Malkovich to succeed?

Honkytonk Man

1982 tuberculosis public service announcement

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Red crashes onto his sister's dust-caked Oklahoma property, a Grand Ole Opry invitation in one hand and a bottle in the other. His 14-year-old nephew Whit looks up to him and is a much better driver, and his mother reluctantly allows him to accompany Red on his trip to Nashville. They misbehave along the way.

This movie's covered in a layer of dust, like all good Depression-era flicks should be. And it's filled with all sorts of dusty eccentrics, colorful character after colorful character. They're not entirely believable (neither is Clint's honkytonk man exactly), but they're entertaining enough, especially when they talk about panther piss, folks who've got money "ten miles up a mule's ass," and dogs shittin' peach pits. My favorite line's right at the beginning when Red tumbles out of the car he's just driven onto the Waggoneer farm and his sister drawls, "Is he dead?" This is one of those meandering, stream-of-conscious road movies, and it's also a pretty good buddy movie. The buddy is Eastwood's son, and their rapport naturally drives the picture. It's fun watching Eastwood and son steal chickens, rob poker players, drink, and visit whores. A subtitle for this could have been Honkytonk Men Gone Bad. There's an ease in the direction and writing that almost makes things look kind of lazy, and this is a story that's been done and done again and one that will undoubtedly be done again and again in the future (see: Crazy Heart). Like Bad Blake, I'm the songwriting and Eastwood's singing voice aren't totally convincing. The songs are OK and his voice is OK, but there's nothing that makes me think Red should have been a legend. This stands out most when Red, in the recording studio, becomes too sick to finish a song. Marty Robbins grabs the microphone and finishes for him, and completely blows him away. That's a nice moment actually. I did enjoy watching Clint tickle the ivories or pick his guitar though. Honkytonk Man's an example of a movie with a lot of good pieces, but sort of like the poster up there, it just doesn't seem complete.

Escape from Alcatraz

1979 prison escape movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Only three people escaped from the notorious Alcatraz prison. It was all at the same time, and apparently one of them was Clint Eastwood. This is their story.

Good flick. Clint is Clint, with that familiar mysterious aura and squinting. His presence is almost distracting in this movie, and as much as I like Clint Eastwood, this could have possibly been a better movie with an unknown. I did think the casting of Patrick McGoohan (ironically, the Prisoner) was perfect. There are few moments in this that are cliches or that will become cliches during the next decade (as well as some Shawshankian touches), but there are more moments that are off and keep things irregular and interesting. The first scene in the cafeteria could almost be classified as Lynchian. Noodle-slurping thugs, match stunts, a guy called Litmus because his face turns red/blue when he's hot/cold, a dude talking to his pet mouse. It manages to remain thickly suspenseful even though you know from the beginning whether or not they make it. And it's also just slow enough to appeal to the thinking man, those who want the escape plot to unfold gradually and not miss a single meticulous detail. Good music, too. As always, more shower scenes would have been great. I'm not sure I saw enough ass.

Anybody know any good female prison escape movies?

Dirty Harry

1971 action movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: If there's any type of person the misanthropic title cop hates more than anybody else, it's hippies. And San Francisco is currently being tormented by a maniacal one who is sniping random folks from rooftops and promising that he'll continue his bad behavior until the city forks over 100,000 dollars. And he does it all while giggling which ticks off Dirty Harry even more. So, Dirty Harry grows his hair really tall and goes after him, breaking more than a few rules along the way. His struggles with counting make the task even more difficult.

A lot of this movie is too dark. Was that just a problem with the dvd version I saw? I suppose this is the movie that a lot of people have been trying to copy for a few decades now. The story's actually a little weak, and the villain is a little campy (I prefer Malcovich in In the Line of Fire), but there's a coolness working here and combined with some good writing, real characterization, and exciting action scenes, this will likely remain a dated but timeless classic shoot 'em up flick.

Flags of Our Fathers

2006 war movie

Rating: 14/20 (Dylan: 12/20)

Plot: So what we're left with is our memories. Swirling stars above a city of stone, silver buses and snapping fingers. I fondled a girl and rapped for nickels outside a smorgasbord while you watched a dying man desperately attempting to win you a stuffed seal from a claw machine. Just how baggy did I wear my pants back then? And did I ever tell you that I never actually wrote that rap song, the one about Dave Winfield, the one you told me was clever but were likely far too smart to actually think that? It doesn't matter. The stuffed seal didn't care, so why should anybody else? All those dead people, that black wall, and the teasing of a rainbow umbrella lifted toward a glum sky. What was I doing, and why was I doing it? That's what I'd like to know.

Dylan didn't like the structure of this one (he did say that he liked the movie), but the bouncing between the war scenes on Iwo Jima and the travels of the three surviving flag raisers worked well. The movie is too long and at times seems redundant, and the last twenty minutes or so is bogged down by some narration which almost makes it seem like an entirely different movie. I like the messages at the heart of this movie, and Eastwood does a good enough job of portraying the harshness of war as well as the harshness of post-war realistically. But I was bored far too often with the safe direction and the Hollywoodiness of it all. We'll watch Letters from Iwo Jima soon enough, I suppose.

High Plains Drifter

1973 weird western

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A mysterious stranger rides into tiny Lago, a town with a checkered past of shadows and whip cracks. He kills a couple three roughies, rapes a woman, and agrees to help the townspeople by protecting them from three guys just released from prison who may have a reason to come and shoot up the place. But it comes at a price--anything the stranger wants. So he makes the midget the sheriff/mayor and paints the entire town red. Hell arrives.

Strange western. With Eastwood in his "Man with no Name" role and little person Billy Curtis, there's almost too much tough guy in this one. The plot is simple enough, but there are layers and a lot, I think, that is open to interpretation. (I have my own theories involving Angels of Death and purgatory.) My favorite tidbit about this is that Eastwood wrote to John Wayne about potentially working with him following the release of this movie. John Wayne apparently hated the violence in High Plains Drifter so much that he wrote a pretty nasty letter back saying he had no desire to work with him. Odd, because the violence doesn't seem especially graphic when compared to earlier Leone or Peckinpah movies. And it may just be my sick mind, but I thought this movie was more comedic than it was violent. I wonder if Wayne would have worked with Billy Curtis. Man, that would have been something.

For a Few Dollars More

1965 spaghetti western

Rating: 17/20 (Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The Man with No Name (not that man with no name but a different one) and Lee Van Cleef (not that Lee Van Cleef but a different one) are bounty hunters, wanted- poster chasers out for big paydays. When a very dangerous criminal and probable lunatic named Indio is busted out of prison by his gang, both bounty hunters decide to go after him.

How cool is Lee Van Cleef? And when you add a Clint Eastwood and a hunchbacked Klaus Kinski into the same movie, you've got an overwhelming amount of bad ass. This is arguably a cooler movie than The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and just as emotionally charged, but it probably isn't as poetic. Still, exquisitely directed with another Morricone over-the-top-but-still-about-perfect score. Abbey was a little confused about Van Cleef looking nearly the same but playing a different character. I was surprised at how she was able to follow this enough to enjoy it. She just loves seeing bad guys getting shot up, I guess. She claims that her favorite thing about the movies is the way they all talk.

Add these to my Christmas wishlist (with the Lone Wolf and Cub action figures in case you've forgotten):

The back of the head with no name:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

1966 spaghetti western

Rating: 18/20 (Abbey: 18/20)

Plot: Three men, the title characters, wander through deserts of historical inaccuracies in search of a bunch of gold. Resilient but ugly Tuco's got the general location and his once-sidekick-turned-enemy Mr. No-Name knows the specifics. The three gold-hungry tough guys match wits and gun-drawing prowess while brushing up against Confederate and Union armies busy fighting all those battles in the American Southwest. There's plenty of back-stabbing, but they also have some laughs along the way. And they make S'mores!

Abbey really liked the music. My one complaint--I would have liked to see more scenes involving characters with missing limbs. The guy with no legs who had to open the door with his head? That guy should get his own prequel. The guy with one arm who wants to join Tuco for a bubblebath? Him too. So many scenes in this are simply perfect. I've heard rumors that somebody wants to remake this? That could be about as wrong as it gets. That project should be abandoned immediately to concentrate on a follow-up--The Good, the Ugly, the Guy with No Legs, and the Guy with Only One Arm.

Half-coyote:

Unforgiven

1992 western

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Will Munny's killed a lot of folk--women, children, anything that walks or crawls--but hasn't shot at a man or drank alcohol for over ten years. Instead, he's tried his best to settle into farm life with a wife and two children. His wife dies and his struggles on the farm escalate at around the same time a young buck visits him with a proposition. The self-named Schofield Kid wants to partner up with Munny to hunt down a couple cowboys who cut up a prostitute. He initially declines but eventually, with old partner Ned, meets up with the kid to travel to Big Whisky. Little Bill, the sheriff in Big Whisky, isn't happy about the prostitutes' bounty and tries his best to rid his town of assassins.

Near-classic has great acting (Hackman being the most memorable although Richard Harris is also enjoyable), great characters, great dialogue, and great visuals. There isn't much wasted here. Well, I don't care for the prologue and epilogue bookends. Beautifully structured with cranky poetry, dusty existentialism, and bloody mysticism.

Summertime is here. Summer is the season of the western. Here I am watching the first of probably many: