Surviving Life (Theory and Practice)

2010 psychoanalyticka komedie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A bearded gentlemen meets a beautiful woman in a dream and tries to discover a way to dream more so that he can be with her.

I've waited and waited for this to be available for me to watch and finally gave up and watched it on Youtube. Worth the wait? Absolutely! New Svankmajer should 1) be more of a regular thing and 2) should be celebrated as a holiday. This one seems very cheaply done. There's stop-motion, a lot more than in the last feature film, and a lot of the animation is cut-out stuff similar to the hilarious soccer short called "Manly Games" in this collection. This is very funny, too, and although I reckon the imagery and surrealistic asides would befuddle a lot of people, I couldn't keep the smile off my face while watching this. Half of this takes place in the main character's subconscious, the perfect setting for a surrealist like Svankmajer, but the conscious world isn't without the surreal touches. The main character spends a lot of his waking hours being psychoanalyzed, again perfect fodder for Svankmajer. The inside of the noggin is, after all, where all of his movies take place, isn't it? The odd visuals--chicken-headed folk, animated meat, a gigantic tongue, rolling apples, eggs, bananas, extracted teeth, antlered men, faucet-headed people, watermelons, flowers sprouting from women's heads--are easier to digest in this, like Svankmajer is picking and choosing from The Rudimentary Guide to Interpreting Dream Symbols or something. The psychological issue at the heart of the whole thing's been used enough to become a cinematic cliché, but none of that makes this any less fun. If you like your avant-garde animated movies on the playful side, this is definitely for you.

Life of Pi

2012 best picture nominee

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

Plot: It's the exact same plot as Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain except instead of gay cowboys on a mountain, there's an Indian boy and a tiger on a lifeboat.

I made it through about 1/3 of the book several years ago before I remembered that I didn't like reading and stopped. When I heard that a movie was being made, I wondered if it was filmable. I saw previews and snippets during the Oscars, most backed with this faux-Enya music, and fully expected to hate the movie. I ended up really digging it although my date hated it. At one point, she said, "If that tiger starts talking, I'm done." And I think she rolled her eyes more during this than with any other movie. I could feel them rolling. The eye-rolling isn't entirely unfair. This little fantasy is filled with all kinds of little details that just don't seem right. Bananas, after all, really don't float. The man-shaped island, a silly rainbow, meerkats that stand around and watch a tiger devour them. A lot of this is just silly. Add in some obviously-CGI animals, and this is a little hard to take at times. Don't get me wrong. This is some of the best CGI that I've seen, and I'm amazed at what they do with these animals. You really get to the point while watching this where you can't tell what is real and what is created by a computer, and then you start doubting that any of it is real. Is Suraj Sharma, painfully sympathetic in the role as young Pi, a real person or was he made by some flabby guy with too-large glasses sitting in front of a computer monitor? What about the bulging eyes of Irrfan Khan, the guy who is also really good as the older Pi? Are they real? They kind of look like Large Marge's eyes. Ang Lee's visual effects wizards must have had a lot of fun creating these waves, tossing in some extra stars, rustling animal fur, piling meerkat on meerkat, maneuvering colorful fish just below the surface of the water. And as plastic as it all sometimes looks, it really is stunningly beautiful at times. I didn't care for a new-agey display where Pi looks into the depths of the ocean and sees a whale made out of different animals, a variety of ocean life, and eventually the sunken ship, but that might have been because of the aforementioned faux-Enya music more than anything else. For the most part, this is just gorgeous. Besides, the inability to tell what is a visual trick and what is really real matches the storytelling ambiguity, the uncertainty of the viewer in knowing what parts of Pi's story is real. The unlikely friendship--a one-sided one apparently--has a beauty that matches the visual beauty, and I almost wanted to cry while older Pi was describing his feelings but Jen's audible eye-rolling ruined it. This is fluffily philosophical and not all that dense although that gives it enough space for the viewer to have the freedom to let the thing develop a bit in his or her own mind. And although there's definitely an adventure/survival story element during the majority of the movie, there's also a lot of playfulness and humor as well. Good stuff.

Is There Sex After Death?

1971 sex comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Dr. Rogers from the Bureau of Sexological Investigation roams about in the Sexmobile and interviews experts in sexual matters, talks to everyday people on the streets, and visits key sites to answer the titular question and others.

Prankster Alan Abel and his wife created this now-dated look at sexuality. It's funny forty-some years later, but after a while, it gets a little tedious. There are plenty of naked people, but if this makes any points at all, it makes them early. The wad is shot, so to speak, and then it keeps going. Abel himself plays the roving reporter and does it as a sort-of straight man. It's amazing that he keeps his composure while sitting so close to so many naked people or hearing an actor say, "For the vegetable, it was exquisite," or a "Professor of Dildography" talk about "millions of miles of unused orifice," or an x-rated magician ask, "Is that not your urine sample?" or an expert claiming that "you'd be up to your ass in dwarfs" if one of eight didn't die during sexual intercourse. In between all that, Abel takes us to a sex Olympics, a nudist colony where they sing "Dinah Won't You Blow Your Horn" and later dance in a way that makes nudity seem like a pretty terrible invention, a perverse art gallery, and a pornographic opera. Oh, and there's a brief penis puppet show. Robert Downey Sr. makes a pair of appearances, but he's nowhere as entertaining as Earle Doud who plays the x-rated magician or Marshall Efron who plays Vince Domino, the "master of filth and excretion" who talks about making a pornographic film with a goose and a donkey. This is nothing revolutionary, some bits fall completely flat, and it's not always even all that much fun, but it's an interesting enough little time capsule item nevertheless.

Ted

2012 comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Marky Mark refuses to grow up, spending all his free time smoking pot with his childhood friend--the titular teddy bear who was magically brought to life after the fairy from the Pinocchio story felt sorry for him because he was a loser and brought the stuffed animal to life. This puts a strain on his relationship with his girlfriend.

This is just a big game of "Let's see what crude things we can have a teddy bear do!" and I found it pretty annoying. I've never been a fan of The Family Guy, so I'm not really sure why I thought this might be funny. I guess it was knowing that there would be a teddy bear saying a lot of crude things and maybe, I predicted, having a sexual encounter with an adult female. I know, I'm not a genius for predicting that or anything. We all saw the previews, the perfect case where those could have just been repeated about thirty times to produce a similar result. I didn't anticipate the storyline being so predictable. And predictably lame. It's definitely too predictably pedestrian for a movie that features a talking teddy bear should be. I don't like Marky Mark anyway, and although I'll credit him with having a nice rapport with a CGI stuffed animal, I didn't like him here either. I also didn't like Mila Kunis's voice at all. I think she's supposed to be sexy or something. This is filled with gags that I am not going to remember in a year, and a lot of the targets it pushes around won't be around long enough for this to need to be seen in twenty years. It's nowhere near as funny as Gooby, another talking bear thing. In fact, I don't believe I laughed a single time. I laughed during Gooby just to try to keep myself sane.

This is about as well written as Ted, but I have an excuse: Rapid fire!

The Karate Kid

1984 classic

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Daniel moves to California, gets in a fight over a boom box, and is bullied by skeletons. His apartment's handyman, a mysterious Japanese man, decides to teach him karate for a chance to win a trophy and his dignity.

After watching this for the first time in far too long (Note: I'm thinking of making a monthly viewing mandatory.), the new one with the Fresh Prince's daughter pisses me off even more. This one is about perfect, its only flaw being that it was made in the 1980s and therefore has the feel of a movie from the 1980s. I was deathly ill when I watched this but still managed to scribble down some notes. Here they are:

1) Ah, the joy of push-starting your car with trumpet fanfare in the background.

2) What's going on with Freddy Fernandez's shirt? "Makin' bacon"? I totally want one of those, and I'm using it as an excuse to use my bestiality tag. With that shirt, it's obvious that this guy is too cool for Daniel.

3) That old lady from Jersey with a nose for her own? Is it just me or does this foreshadow America's current obsession with people from New Jersey? Does this note even make any sense?

4) Pat Morita turns around--it's another of those iconic movie moments that make an indelible impression on the mind.

5) Love the rapport between Miyagi and Daniel. Morita's broken Yoda English and Macchio's Jersey accent clash and compliment each other so perfectly in this movie.

6) I'm so glad Daniel wore his nicest jean shorts and muscle shirt to the beach party. No matter Elizabeth Shue wants him. It's love at first sight of those jean shorts and muscle shirt.

7) "You sure pick cool people to be friends with, Freddy. Where's you find this guy?" Yeah, I'd expect more from a guy with a "Makin' bacon" t-shirt, too. But c'mon, beach partiers. Didn't you see Daniel playing soccer earlier?

8) Macchio really knows how to rock a pair of sweat pants. Actually, the costume people for this should have been fired. Macchio's so good in this movie, and I can only assume that his character's fashion choices had everything to do with his career not really going anywhere after the Karate Kid movies. Camouflage pants with a plaid shirt? Who dreamed that one up?

9) Pain, fear, defeat. Those are things that don't exist in that dojo. Of course, that was before the Cobra Kai sensei heard that Joe Esposito song.

10) Ralph Macchio was in his late-40s when he starred in this, but he looks half the age of his "peers." That alone should have made the Academy consider him for Best Actor. Am I wrong?

11) "I hate this freakin' bike!" That scene should have sealed it.

12) Daniel's charming, a guy who knows to smell his pits before approaching his girl.

13) Miyagi words of wisdom:

"If [tree picture] comes from inside you, always the right one."
"To make honey, bee need young flower, not old prune."
"Revenge--start by digging two grave."
"In Okinawa, belt mean no need rope to hold up pants."
"Walk on the left side, safe. Walk on the right side, safe. Walk in the middle, squash like grape."
"Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything."
"First learn stand; then learn fly."
"Trust the quality of what you know, not quantity."
"A license never replace eye, ear, and brain."

14) If there's a costume contest at the Halloween dance, the shower curtain wins. Yes, the matching skeletons are pretty bitchin', but that's like seven guys who all look the same. There's only one guy dressed up as a shower curtain. Can you imagine dressing as a shower and showing up to a party only to find somebody else dressed as a shower? That's a scenario that can only end in one way--murder/suicide.

15) Ok, so why does Daniel go to the Halloween dance incognito to avoid the bullies after successfully avoiding them at school and then pull that stunt with the water? That makes no sense whatsoever. He flees the scene; a kid dressed as Spiderman asks, "Hey, Johnny. What's up?"; and Daniel causes a car accident. That water stunt was no good, Daniel-san.

16) "Check out this chicken. He's wild." That's what happens when you let Ralph Macchio ad-lib.

17) Miyagi kicking ass! That foggy atmosphere. Throw in some Japanese flute.

18) Did you know that Mifune was very nearly Mr. Miyagi. Yes, it's hard to think of anybody else in that role, but think about that one for a while.

19) Hard to imagine anybody but Ralph Macchio in the titular role as well, even if it's a little black girl who happens to be the daughter of a rapper. Macchio's just so natural in this character, and the dialogue and the whole learning karate stuff just feels so right.

20) You have to love 1980's insults. "It must be take a worm for a walk week." "She must like fungus." "You're dead meat!" If I had a dollar every time I said "You're dead meat!" as a kid, I'd have something like fifty cents.

21) Why do they all pile in the front seat of the station wagon? A station wagon is the closest thing to a limousine without being a limousine. That's just my opinion, of course, but prove me wrong. Love how Daniel's mom says "Pop it!"

22) "Pop it!" That and the perfect timing with the "Hi, kids!" when she picks Daniel and Shue up from their date at the go-kart and bounce house place (Forty-year-old Macchio must feel ridiculous in that bounce house) make me wonder if Mother Larusso is a MILF or not.

23) Those training methods: Wax on/Wax off, sanding the floor, painting chores. This shit will be imitated forever but never duplicated. And that scene where Daniel discovers that he's been learning defense all along is such a beautiful moment. I'm not ashamed to admit that it brought on the tears, kind readers.

24) That clapping/healing thing. I once did that to my own testicles when, during a soccer game during recess, I was accidentally struck in the under-carriage. I did it for the rest of the day.

25) The crane. Oh, man. If you're my age and didn't imitate that over and over again in 1984-85, then you probably didn't have legs.

26) I really like the way Miyagi goes "Ut ut ut ut" to correct Daniel-san.

27) "Kindly do it yourself, Mr. Moto."

28) 1980's stereotyping of the rich: They play tennis, dance in country clubs, laugh at kids who had spaghetti dumped all over them.

29) Miyagi refers to his wife as a "damn good cane cutter." Is that a euphemism? Nevermind, I already know the answer to that.

30) That tear down inebriated Miyagi's cheek! Maybe it's just because I'm ill, but I can't handle the emotions in The Karate Kid. I remember being so bored with this scene as a kid though. The whole thing seemed pointless, but it all adds so much depth to that character. So touching.

31) Mr. Miyagi trash talk: "What's the matter? You some kind of girl or something?"

32) I'm torn up again during the birthday party. "Number 1 present" brings more tears. And this exchange:

"You're the best friend I ever had."
"You pretty ok, too."

33) Winner of the first match in open division: Rufus Snyder.

34) Oh, holy shit! Here it comes. If I could have stood up without vomiting, there's no way I would have stayed on the couch once Joe Esposito's "You're the Best. . .Around" came on. Greatest montage ever!

35) "Go get him, Johnny!" This really needed an "Attaboy, Luther!" instead. Somebody does manage to slip in a "Hey, Johnny, you're a cream puff" during a silent moment.

36) "Daniel Larusso's gonna fight? Daniel Larusso's gonna fight!" I don't care what you say--that is one of the most magical movie moments of all time.

37) "Get him a body bag! Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh!" And then "Daniel Larusso's gonna fight!" is immediately surpassed by one of the greatest lines in movie history. Rob Garrison should win some kind of lifetime achievement award for that.

38) Mr. Miyagi's face before the credits role. Somebody put that shot on a poster!

Fantasia

1940 cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Emma: 1/20; Abbey: 15/20; Buster: ?/20)

Plot: Classical music and colorful animation collide! Dinosaurs, sorcerers, demons, naked fairies, flowers, hippopotomi, and mushrooms dance around. Especially mushrooms!

This ranges from undeniably brilliant and impressive and unforgettable to dated and completely forgettable. I hadn't seen this in a while, and there was an entire segment that I had forgotten even existed. As a kid, I actually liked the stuff with the orchestra silhouetted against those different colors. The introductions and orchestral shenanigans get tiresome after a while though as this movie creeps into what seems like it's fourth or fifth hour. I really like the first abstract piece, and I think it's actually impossible for anybody not to enjoy the fish, flowers, bubbles, fairies, glistening webs, leaves, foliage, flakes, and mushrooms with movements that so perfectly compliment the Tchaikovsky. It drew a lot of "wows" from Buster which made me happy. Then, there's Mickey (he's the mouse on the poster up there) in another bit of whimsical storytelling and cartoon choreography. Then, it's kind of downhill. The big creation thing, after the tickling of the senses the other pieces offered, is just kind of blah, and the dinosaurs in there aren't animated very well. Well, maybe they are for a 1940's cartoon. The mythology thing has far too many fairy baby asses and plastic centaurs. The crocodile/ostrich/elephant/hippo ballet never really did it for me, an almost-fun and harmless little excursion more than anything else. And then there's the "Night on Bald Mountain" bit that ends this that is damn near a religious experience and one of the most daring things that Disney's ever thrown at us. As an adult, you just say, "Geez, this shit really isn't for kids." As a kid, I remember being terrified of all the creepy imagery with the flabby warted demons and skeletal figures floating into town. I also always wondered as a kid why there wasn't more Satan in movies. The winged demon on top of that mountain (the guy on the poster up there who isn't the mouse) really deserves to be in some "Best Disney Villain" list, doesn't he? And it all ends beautifully with Schubert and lightbulb-headed walkers, a scene that should make us all feel that the Star Wars franchise is in really good hands.

Pink Flamingos

1972 high art

Rating: I don't want to give this a rating.

Plot: Divine and her son Crackers live in a pink mobile home with Mama Edie and enjoy their notoriety as the filthiest people alive. That title is challenged, however, by the Marbles, a couple who kidnap women and sell babies to lesbians. Filth vs. filth action ensues.

For a movie I don't really enjoy, I sure have seen this enough times. I find it impossible to rate. It's a terrible movie and very much the "septic tank explosion" that the person compares it to on the poster there. It's revolting for the sake of revulsion with its dumptruck load of talking anuses, fecal matter, sex acts involving (and killing, reportedly) chickens, magic marker hair dye jobs, bad narration (Waters himself), egg men (Paul Swift who was in three other Waters' movies), drug references, arson, curse words, syringe violation, and transexuals. But something that succeeds in shocking and sickening this much almost deserves respect, right? Waters is either a very sick individual or a guy who had a perverse vision and with almost no budget succeeded in bringing that vision to life on drive-in screens. And if you dare look hard enough, there's a message beneath all this madness, and disturbingly prescient message at that. In a way, this foreshadows the extremes people will go to in order to have their Warholian fifteen minutes of fame and predating reality shows by about twenty-five years. Of course, reality shows don't go to these extremes. Nobody eats dog crap on reality shows. Or did they do that on Fear Factor? With its anti-style, in-your-face ineptitude, and belligerent distastefulness, this is unlikely to be a movie that very many people can sit down and enjoy. Still, it's a unique statement and an unforgettable piece of work.

Period Piece

2006 thing

Rating: 4/20

Plot: None.

I guess we'll put this in the mondo film or shockumentary genre although it's not a documentary. It's not exactly scripted either though, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm not sure who I should blame for this--Johnny Knoxville, Pink Flamingos, Tom Green, Harmony Korine? All of them. Maybe I should just blame Giuseppe Andrews, the "film's" "director" who, in a brief introduction to this, said, "Well, it's a hard film to synopsis." He also referred to it as a "grenade of wild images, dialogue, and sound" when he could have saved a lot of words and just said described it as "inane garbage." I probably should have heeded the warning at the beginning of the film--"Warning: This film contains senior citizen nudity and dead pigs." Or maybe the appearance of the guy on the cover four-and-a-half minutes into the movie, completely naked and simulating a sex act with an invisible woman should have had me reaching for my remote. This movie feels like somebody flinging feces at you, just shocking scene after shocking scene. It's got a very middle-schoolish "look at what I can say on your television" kind of humor. Or, more accurately, "Look at what I can get old people to say." You get people shooting up in a car wash; all kinds of scenes with people, including a guy in a coon skin cap, having sex with a teddy bear; clowns on stick horses; plays with stop-motion animated tater tots which, of course, evolve into tater tot pornography; smoking pigs; a puppet; a guy eating his own armpit hair; characters pantomiming the cutting and eating of flatulence with a plastic knife and fork. I don't mind experimental movies, and shocking things don't bother me. This is just 80 minutes of pointless nonsense, and 80 minutes which, by the way, seems a little longer than Gone with the Wind. I can't think of any reason why anybody reading this should see this movie. Well, unless you're into tater tots or naked old people. Or stuffed animal snuff films.

I do wonder if Campbells appreciated the (I assume) free product placement in a scene where a can of clam chowder was used to sodomize a teddy bear.

The Godmonster of Indian Flats

1973 monster sheep movie

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Mine fumes or something create a mutant sheep in a place that might be called Indian Flats but seems to be called Virginia City, an old mining town in the West. The godmonster is taken to the lab of the scientist you typically see in towns like this that movies like this take place in. Meanwhile, a businessman strolls into town wanting to purchase land for reasons that I didn't bother paying attention to, but some guy named Silverdale isn't selling. When the businessman refuses to leave town, Silverdale has to get his main thug, the town's sheriff, and the town's sheriff's sideburns involved. Later, the godmonster ruins a picnic.

This is the type of movie that will change your life. You just won't be the same after the closing credits of this one. There's all kinds of nonsense at the beginning with the guy I thought was going to be the main character. I think his name must have been Tito. We're told it's a "time full of banjo dust and starry-eyed broads looking for a good time," and Tito steps off a sheep truck in Reno, wins two-hundred bucks in a slot machine in a room that is at first completely empty but then almost full a few seconds later, and then ends up in a room with these people

where he is eventually beaten and robbed. I posted that picture only because I'm pretty sure that piano man is either Shane MacGowen or the crazy drugged piano player from Reefer Madness. Then, he's in his barn where there's a sheep attack that is sonically and visually the most bizarre thing I've had the pleasure of experiencing in a while. First, the guy's in a darkened barn while the sheep running at him are in daylight. Then there's the sheep noises, one which I swear is a a guy going "Baa! Baaa!" Eventually, I lost track of what was going on and just assumed the guy was being sheep-gang-raped which, I have to admit, is a movie first for me. Next morning--sheep mutant. But the main conflict of this movie is Silverdale and his cronies vs. the black guy who rolls into town looking to buy some property, and that conflict dominates the screenplay. In fact, the godmonster doesn't really do much of anything for about an hour. When filmmaker Fredric Hobbs finally unleashes the mutant sheep, the movie becomes magical. He lumbers around with his freak limbs--scaring girls trying to picnic; dancing with Tito's love interest in a scene that rivals the dance scenes from Pulp Fiction, Beauty and the Beast, or anything from Footloose; and blowing up gas stations. He's about as intimidating as John Merrick after a night of drinking. But it doesn't matter because although he's in the title of this thing, he's really nothing more than a distraction. This movie's really jumpy with some odd transitions where sounds or last pieces of dialogue bleed into next scenes. There were a few times when I just lost track of what was going on, and I suspect most of the characters did, too. One baffling scene features a fake dog funeral complete with a tiny dog coffin following a fake dog murder following a wacky parade. It put me in a stupor from which I still haven't recovered. The movie also contains the following brilliantly-written line: "I've been following you all the way from the glory hole." If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that. . .

This isn't really a trailer as advertised, but it does contain two great godmonster scenes.

http://youtu.be/SLTUV1RitPM

How to Train Your Dragon

2010 animated movie

Rating: 14/20 (Abbey: 20/20; Buster: ??/20)

Plot: An inventive but dorkish Viking, a boy who happens to be the son of the most famous and gifted dragon hunter on the island, wants to be a a dragon slayer himself. His name's Hiccup though, so it's unlikely. During a dragon raid, he manages to wound a Night Fury dragon, one of the scariest and most difficult to kill. They end up becoming first friends and later lovers causing Hiccup to question his people's hatred of the beasts.

I got bored with these characters, their story, and, strangest of all, the action sequences really quickly, but this one grew on me a little as it went. I never did like the main character, most likely because of his voice (Jay Baruchel), but Craig Ferguson almost made up for him. Astrid, the girl probably added in the script's second or third draft so that girls would have a reason to watch a movie about a bunch of boys and men fighting dragons, was arguably even more annoying. And I didn't like Toothless the dragon either. But for a movie with a bunch of characters I didn't care about or like, this wasn't that bad of a movie. That's mostly because of the animation which blows everything else I've seen from the Dreamworks people out of the water. The landscapes are terrific, the human characters are realistic without being overly realistic, and the textures of things like dragon skin, tables, clothing, fire, and the geography give this not only a realism but an artfulness. I really liked the look of the movie, just not the rest of it. Attempts to inject a little heart into this cartoon about dragons seemed really contrived, and even Buster rolled her eyes a few times. Yes, I did give this the customary Craig Ferguson bonus.

The Favour, the Watch, and the Very Big Fish

1991 comedy movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Louis takes photographs depicting Biblical scenes, and his boss is on him because he has yet to find a suitable Jesus. Meanwhile, he does a favor (sorry, favour) for an actor pal--orgasm voice work for a pornographic movie--and meets Sybil who he is smitten by. Her story leads him to meeting a piano player who looks a whole lot like Jesus. But this is just the beginning of Louis's problems.

Jeff Goldblum as Jesus? I'm in! This one's understated, very dry, and a little black, probably just like I like 'em. Goldblum is as funny as I've seen him, both as a piano player who doesn't look like Jesus at all (the faces he makes as he plays when his character is introduced are almost as entertaining as watching Chico play) and as the guy who not only looks like Jesus but starts wondering if he actually is Jesus. "My God! I'm so hungry!" got a nice laugh from me as did the "Don't touch me. Don't poke me" scene. And Goldblum's attack of a violinist was hilarious, a scene containing the second fork stabbing I've seen in a week. Hoskins is a bit of a straight man here, but he's a good one. The story is unpredictable and possibly a little too bizarre for most people with some scenes (I'm looking at you, healing-with-a-a-golf-ball scene) and a punchline that I don't think I liked very much. But the goat humping, the statue of a monkey strangling a woman (seriously, what is that?), and the beggar's sign ("IMA BLIDN") made up for the stuff in this that didn't work. This will have to hit the right people at the right time, but I'm really glad I watched it.

Screwball: The Ted Whitfield Story

2010 comedy

Rating: 6/20

Plot: During the 1994 baseball strike, professional wiffleball legend Ted Whitfield attempts to break the home run single single record of 122. Controversy surrounds him as cheating accusations arise.

This half-assed mockumentary, one that doesn't really follow its own rules and ends up being a half-mockumentary/half-straight-fiction, has a handful of interesting ideas mixed in with all the poop and penis jokes and cheap drug references. I thought having this coincide with the '94 strike and a lot of subtle references to McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds was kind of clever. The blue dinos, a performance-enhancing vitamin, and the diming the bat episode were almost funny. And it was fun hearing a pretty good Harry Caray impersonator. Unfortunately, this wears thin very quickly. It really should have been a nine-minute short on Youtube instead of a feature-length movie. Oh, well. At least I got to use my bestiality tag again. A movie about wiffleball does seem like a promising idea. And this one, though nowhere near a good movie, did inspire me to start up an adult wiffleball league once I recover from my foot injury surgery. Two-man teams, standard rules. So far, I've recruited one other guy, and I know my brother and brother-in-law will play. So I guess you could say that Screwball: The Ted Whitfield Story was an inspiration.

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 Devil's Sword

1984 Indonesian kung-fu craziness

Rating: 7/20

Plot: There's the titular sword, a crocodile nymphomaniacal goddess who enslaves the men of nearby villages, a guy who wears bedazzled diapers and a shiny headband who sometimes floats around on a rock, and a bunch of crocodile men. Mayhem!

I might have to check out more Indonesian kung-fu movies or at the very least some Barry Prima. I'm sure the guy's like the Indonesian Bruce Lee. Only better because he hasn't died yet. Hell, he probably never will. The story for this thing, by "MAN" according to the credits, isn't all that important. It's Indonesian poetry, with action hero Barry Prima who almost knows movie martial arts fighting guys dressed up as crocodiles. This has some of the most inept fight choreography you're ever likely to see, guys moving slowly like they're waiting for their next scripted lunge. If head-loppin'-off's your thing, this has several decapitation scenes. You also get guys sailing off at ridiculous heights after being sliced, sliced with a sword that isn't even the demon sword. And those silly crocodile men who sometimes, but not always, hop into action. Seriously, check this out:

There's one scene (if you're in to this sort of thing) where Barry Prima has sexual relations with a crocodile. Not a crocodile man, you pervert, but an actual crocodile. See:

You'll just have to take my word for it that it's even hotter when they're moving. Actually, that might be a crocodile man after all. I couldn't focus because I was freaking out! I think it was the synth-laden score, or maybe the funny feeling that the crocodile queen gave me during those hypnosis scenes. She was a hot little number, living in her underwater den where special effects look a whole lot like cheap magic tricks. The scene where she's on a spinning bed surrounded by a ring of fire is exactly how I imagined sex to be when I was nine. And there's a huge orgy scene near the end of this (it actually interrupts the big climactic action scene and brings everything to a grinding halt) that I'm sure was an inspiration for that goofy rave sex scene in that third Matrix movie. This has some other cool characters, too. A skeletal boat man was pretty rad. I was really digging the kung-fu stylings of this guy with a skinny neck (I think his name was Skinny Neck Guy) who waits around for a while before flipping into action and showing off this uniquely awkward style. But his demise is unfortunately very quick. The crew of evil warriors are cool, too, with their interesting weapons and their ability to burrow underground or fly around, but the preface to their big battle scene was so lengthy. At least they threw out some good Indonesian kung-fu trash talk: "You polluted bitch hound!" and "Dirty daughter of a whore!" were my favorites. The witch hag, an evil warrior whose weapon appeared to be a bundle of weeds, was neat. I don't want to give too much away, but you don't ever want to count her out, even when she's cut in half. Oh, I just gave too much away. I guess it won't hurt to show you this then, a hideous monster in a cave filled with all kinds of half-assed booby traps:


This is recommended for anybody who's ever wanted to see Barry Prima have sex with a crocodile. I realize that's a very specific fetish, but I'm sure you people are out there.

Cat People

1942 Meow Mix commercial

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A horny guy marries an immigrant who may or may not be a cat. Person. Cat person. He realizes soon after their wedding day that she has no interest in sleeping with him and decides to hook up with his secretary. The wife, already stressed out because she thinks she's a cat, finds out. Cat fight!

Jacques Tourneur's films are stylish but not overtly or extravagantly stylish. This is a quiet Tourneur movie like I Walked with a Zombie, meaning it doesn't have a big goofy demon like or Night of the Beast a big Robert Mitchum like Out of the Past. What it shares with those movies is Tourneur's good eye. The visuals don't pop, and there's nothing in this movie that you could describe as flashy, but I really like how shadows and light (especially shadows) are used to frame the titular Cat Person. The great-named Simone Simon plays her, and I liked her accent in her face, not necessarily in that order, in this. Like the direction, her performance is quiet, and she plays desperate very well. The dialogue's really good for a 1940's semi-horror film, too, but it's the simple style that really makes this a winner. It's a sneaky non-style where the director's making it look so easy, but this is stuffed with some terrific scenes--the pool scene, the pet shop scene, some shots at a museum and in the guy's office. Mysterious and quietly haunting.

Walker

1987 satirical biopic

Rating: 14/20

Plot: American adventure-seeker William Walker is sent to Nicaragua by Cornelius Vanderbilt to spread a little democracy with his ragtag army of misfits dubbed The Immortals. Soon after, he declares himself the president of the country and ticks everybody off.

Frustratingly uneven stuff here. Director Alex Cox has no shortage of intriguing ideas, and there are some moments in this that are visually impressive. Add Joe Strummer's eclectic score, and you've got something that looks and sounds really good. Ed Harris gives an (intentionally?) over-the-top performance as the title character. The blood's exaggerated, there are numerous (intentional!) anachronisms, the supporting performances are really hammy, and the black comedy is chaotic. There's also a narrator who inexplicably shifts from first to third person and back again. There's a lot I liked though. This has the best version of "Moonlight Sonata" I've ever heard, one that sounds like it was recorded on broken instruments. There's also some bestiality and cannibalism, and a great scene where a guy laughs at a bird. Oh, and Peter Boyle's got some bitchin' sideburns in this one. It's a fun little movie, probably the most bizarre historical movie I've seen. Those anachronisms--watching cars speed by carriages, characters reading Time magazine, and a helicopter descend on the proceedings--are humorous, but they also help nail down the point. But after an hour and a half of this, I felt like I'd been squirted with too much satirical venom from Cox's multi-colored plastic squirt gun. Or bludgeoned with a plastic squirt gun, especially with the contemporary footage used over the closing credits. It's a ballsy but messy film, one that I can like more than laud.

Leolo

1992 French movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Leo Lauzon's family is insane and dysfunctional. His grandfather attempts to kill him, and his siblings even have their own wing of an asylum. That's why he dreams his way out of his life, transforming himself through his writings into Leolo Lozone, the son of an Italian man who masturbated on a tomato that his mother later fell on top of. Yeah, I'm not sure about the science of that one either. He reaches adolescence and becomes sexually aware, discovering masturbation himself and fantasizing about an older neighbor named Bianca.

Forget the very solid performance by Maxime Collin as Leolo. And forget the lyrical and beautiful narration, the dreamy cinematography, and the couple Tom Waits songs used. I didn't need the literary script, the gradually episodic unfolding of this coming-of-age story. No, I was sold within the first ten minutes during a scene in which a guy enthusiastically ejaculates on some tomatoes. That scene could have lasted two hours and been enough for me. This movie has some really bizarre moments, perversely bizarre. But it succeeds because it allows you to connect to the characters no matter how strange their situations might be. This film consistently surprised me. It'll move along like a lullaby, leading the audience through a dream landscape, and then suddenly hit you with something funny, unexpected, and bizarre. I won't spoil, but there are scenes with meat, a grandfather, and a cat that are just wonderful. This reminded me at times of My Life as a Dog. I really didn't like the music that much, but I did start to wonder (too late unfortunately) whether or not each of the characters had his own music. That could explain why the soundtrack was so wildly uneven. There was gypsy music, throat singing, Tom Waits, silly French pop music, creepy ambient stuff. Like all good movies like this, this smoothly shifts from humorous to touching. This is a movie that I'll admit I didn't completely get this first time I watched it. Luckily, it's entertaining enough to eventually watch again.

A Winter Rates recommendation. And now I know where he got that "meat" idea.

Jackass Number Two

2006 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Morons pull pranks and perform stunts, mostly to entertain themselves, it seems.

You know you're in good shape when somebody says, "We have rectal bleeding," within the first ten minutes of the movie. Several chapters involving horse semen, malfunctioning rockets, launched shopping carts, fecal matter, the exposed testicles of the elderly, beer enemas, puking, bull attacks, flying wee men, pubic beards, and death-defying moments later, I had laughed quite a few times and even laughed until tears came once. I should probably feel a little guilty for liking this as much as I did, but I refuse. The mayhem is faster, funnier, and more dangerous than the stuff they did in the first movie (or on the television show, of course), and the beginning scene and ending musical number that bookend the body of this are really well executed. That closing musical number even pays tribute to Hollywood musicals and even Buster Keaton. I was reminded of Keaton quite a bit while watching Jackass Number Two actually. No, I've not yet found the movie in which Keaton's ass or testicles are displayed. With a lot of the stunts, you get exactly what you think you'll get (bike with a rocket being shot into a lake) but there are a lot of set-ups that take the stunt one unexpected step further, giving the audience a second unanticipated punchline. Does all of it work? No. Some of this is hard to watch and not really all that entertaining. But when this hits, it's home run after home run. Brilliant stuff! My favorite scene? Likely the extended terrorist bit near the end.

By the way, watching this made me realize what Tillie's Punctured Romance from 1914 was missing. If the kicking in Tillie's Puncture Romance would have been in the groin instead of directed at the backside, I think it would be considered one of the most influential and uproariously funny comedies of the early 20th century.

Birdy

1984 movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Childhood pals Birdy and Alfonzo deal with their difficult war experiences, the former losing his humanity as he becomes more and more avian in a mental institution while the latter struggles to hold on to his own sanity. Through flashback, their odd and possibly homoerotic relationship and feathery adventures are traced.

If you can only see one movie in which Matthew Modine shares an intimate moment with a bird, this should probably be it. Modine's really very good as Birdy. While there's not exactly a wide range of emotions with the character, he pulls off what must have been a tough role physically while understanding the quietude and naivete of the character. Nicholas Cage, on the other hand, is wildly unpredictable, predictable, I suppose, since he is America's worst actor. Peter Gabriel (this was his first soundtrack; the far superior work on The Last Temptation of Christ came later) sounds really dated. There are a lot of memorable scenes, including a bit of a jokey ending, and some other scenes that are shot beautifully, but as a whole, Birdy is a little uneven and a little too long. Although a lot of this crosses the line into dopey and oddly overly-sentimental territories, there are a lot of surprisingly touching and tender moments as well. Sandy Baron (the guy with the astronaut pen in the Seinfeld episodes) is great as Nicholas Cage's dad.

The Company of Wolves

1984 werewolf funk

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Angela Lansbury helps a teenage girl lose her innocence by telling her inappropriate stories about werewolf sex.

The goth kids might like this one. Neil Jordan's werewolf movie is a very English fractured fairy tale, dirty in a prim and proper way. It's got its share of frolicking. Bits of this gag you with its pretensions. From the start, it's very stylish, but it almost looks like it's an extraordinarily stylish televised movie instead of a theatrical release. The music is really awful, and the symbolism (animals in nearly every scene and more phallic symbols than necessary) is a little goofy. But there's still stuff to like in this. The dialogue is peppered with some subtle dark humor. It didn't make me howl or anything, but it did help this seem not-so-serious. Some of the setting imagery is really good, foggy swamps and gnarled things that look like they came straight outta Tim Burton's wet dreams. I never did decide whether I liked the special effects or not. I'll give credit for the interesting werewolf transformations. Lots of creativity there. The effects to make that happen don't look real at all, but they're still pretty cool.

Question: When did close-ups of doll heads become a horror movie cliche?