The Natural History of the Chicken

2000 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Chickens.

This is from Mark Lewis, the guy responsible for Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, another entertaining and unusual documentary. This is chickens and it's a natural history. Really, it has a lot more to do with people and their relationships with chickens than chickens themselves, and it really couldn't be more entertaining. In fact, it might be "eggsactly what you're looking for" if you want something that will make you laugh and, if you're anything like me, just feel a whole lot better about the world in general. There's a lot of yodeling though. It sounds like the music in Raising Arizona which is from the throat of Pete Seeger if I'm remembering correctly. You get to see a woman in Maine with sixteen chickens, chickens she refers to as her "friends." Her story is one where she resuscitates her once-lost-but-now-found-frozen chicken with CPR. It's an odd enough story, but here it's portrayed with reenactments complete with dramatic music, and it's hilariously awesome. That's juxtaposed with shots of incubators and fattening facilities where week-old chicks are pushed along a conveyor belt and vaccinated roughly. You get a tale of a guy who likes roosters and the noise pollution that his neighbors complain about; a guy in overalls imitating chickens; a red-haired lady who blow-dries her Pavarotti-loving rooster that she refers to as her "soul mate," writes poetry about, and dresses in something she calls "panties;" a chicken whisperer; a guy named Elwynjohn who spins a yarn about a headless chicken named Mike that lived ("That's when I started thinking, 'Boy, I'd like to have that.'"); a guy's story about one of his chickens and a hawk (again reenacted, seemingly without special effects which is remarkable) that will more than likely make a believer out of you. What you'll believe in is beyond me, but you'll believe in something! Pretty awesome stuff, despite that "eggsactly" pun.

Oprah Movie Club Pick for June: Blue Velvet

1986 neo-noir thriller

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Jeffrey, home from college because his father is hospitalized after a stroke, finds a severed ear while throwing rocks at a trash can. He takes it to a detective, but he and the detective's daughter decide to do a little sleuthing on their own. They uncover a sinister world of kidnapping, sexual depravity, and Roy Orbison lip-synching routines. Soon, Jeffrey is up to his nipples in shadows.

It's been suggested that Jeffrey's story is a neo-noir exploration of the Oedipus Complex, that Dennis Hopper's Frank is an abusive father figure, and Rossellini's Dorothy represents the mother. (See Fetishism and Curiosity by Laura Mulvey--Chapter Nine is all about this and can be found [mostly] online.) It's an interesting idea, but I couldn't get through the entire chapter either because I'm too lazy or not smart enough or some combination of the two. For me, Blue Velvet is really straightforward, perhaps Lynch's easiest movie to digest. It's still Lynchian--sprinkled with his trademark dark quirkiness and horrifying outlook on sexuality and violence. Of course, according to imdb.com, there are also allusions to Lincoln's assassination, so maybe I'm not digging into this nearly enough. I don't buy the Lincoln stuff, however. A Lincoln Street? Frank's last name being Booth? Victim's shot through the head? Seems like a reach or two to me. Something else learned from the imdb.com trivia page: Lynch (during the filming) and later Rossellini both find the rape scene that Jeffrey watches from the closet funny. I find that extremely odd. I don't see any humor in that scene at all; in fact, I think it's one of the more horrifying moments in film. I've always thought Lynch and I had similar senses of humor.

Anyway, this is a movie about things that are submerged, things that either people don't know about because they're actually hidden or people just want to pretend to not know about. Or it's about mysteries and what happens when you're curious enough to start uncovering those mysteries--sociological mysteries as well as personal ones. "It's a strange world." Those words are said during several conversations between Kyle MacLachlan and the lovely Laura Dern's characters. Lynch never hides the strangeness in our world. In fact, he brings it to the focus in his movies, and that's one of the things that can make watching his movies a sometimes-uneasy experience. That submerged strangeness is shown metaphorically right at the beginning of Blue Velvet. There are shots of white picket fences, flowers, a guy watering his grass, and waving firemen to the saccharine crooning of "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton. Suddenly--a gun on the television and a hose caught in a bush, the latter which I just typed and wondered if it was meant to be as dirty as it looks in words. And then insects snarling subterraneanly. Above, things are just peachy, but just below the surface, there's all sorts of nastiness. Look at MacLachlan's goofy character. He's nothing but innocent at the beginning of this thing. Hell, he tries to impress a high school senior with a story about the kid with "the biggest tongue in the world" and something called "the chicken walk." We don't see any evidence that there's anything darker going on with his character until he is in the nightclub watching Rossellini's character for the first time. Then, you see the lust on his face in a brilliantly acted scene. Just eyes, and you see everything start to unravel. Or maybe you don't if you're watching this for the first time. I don't know. Of course, earlier in the story, Jeffrey is plotting to break into a women's house, but there's still a kind of childish naiveté with that whole scheme. No, the sinister nature--submerged evil goop--in Jeffrey will be uncovered a bit later in the proceedings. Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth is the personification of that evil in society and maybe in all of us. And what a performance that is! There's a physicality to his character even when he's not moving, and each curse word he utters--and those are numerous--seems to pack more meaning than when I curse at people when I'm driving. And "I'll fuck anything that moves!" is one of my favorite lines/deliveries of all time. Hopper's at the height of his unhinged powers here. The great Jack Nance is in there, too, introducing himself as Paul multiple times and asking Jeffrey, "Have you ever been to pussy heaven?" Oh, and Brad Dourif. I like all the performances in this movie. They're the typical performances David Lynch usually gets in his movies, performances always threatening to completely cross the line into soap opera performances. They're performances that--almost thankfully--remind you that you're just watching a movie.

Other stuff:

Knife seduction--Lynch would have had to call in a double or stunt man for me, first because my naked rump is disturbing and covered with a layer of hair and second because I would have gotten to excited, lunged at Rossellini, and been stabbed. It would have been a Brandon Lee end to my career.

Oil drill shadows spotlighted on a brick wall. This doesn't have much unusual imagery. There's a guy with a gas mask, a few random shots of candles, and, of course, the severed ear with ants crawling all over it. But Lynch deliberately uses a spotlight to throw the shadow of an oil drill on the wall. I guess it must be important. Digging? Sexual symbolism (i.e. being drilled)? Something else?

There are references to logs or logging, and the town's called Lumberton. It really made me miss the presence of the Log Lady.

Heineken product placement--the first time MacLachlan is drinking it, you could almost mistake the scene for a commercial. It's awkward.

A blind guy working in a hardware store--seems like throwaway stuff. Is there anything deeper with this character?

"I have your disease in me now." I'm not sure if that's hot or creepy.

"Yes, that's a human ear all right." For whatever reason, that makes me laugh. Either the detective doubted that Jeffrey knew what a human ear looked like or he didn't believe him.

There's a song that plays when MacLachlan and Dern's characters tell each other they love each other--"Mysteries of Love" apparently, lyrics about how "Sometimes the wind blows"--and it might be the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. And I can't figure out why anybody would play that at a party unless they were trying to clear the room. It's Julee Cruise singing to Angelo Badalamenti's music. Badalamenti's the piano player in this, by the way. I like a lot of what Badalamenti did here, especially during the title credits where the work could almost be mistake for something Bernard Herrmann did. But this "Mysteries of Love" song is the worst thing ever.

I could have done without Mike, Sandy's boyfriend. I guess something needed to happen so that Rossellini's can wander into the background completely naked, but that pretty great scene could have been completely terrific without that distracting little subplot that didn't need to be there.

Dern discusses her dreams, talking about how it was dark because there weren't any robins. Of course, Hopper refers to it being "dark" a couple different times, too. MacLachlan's response is a beautiful "You're a neat girl" to which she responds, "So are you." Just beautiful. Those crazy kids living in this messed-up world. I sure hope they make it.

Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

2006 horror comedy musical

Rating: 15/20 (Libby: 18/20; Fred: 17/20; Carrie: 19/20; Josh: didn't rate)

Plot: A fast-food chicken franchise builds on a Native American burial ground. Amidst protesters, those Indian souls take possession of the foodstuffs and eventually the workers and customers. Poultrygeist!

What a terrible punny title. The intention with our little bad movie club, obviously, is to watch a bad movie and make fun of it. Troma doesn't make unintentionally bad movies exactly. They understand their capabilities and the filmmakers are proud of what the disgusting and sometimes downright tasteless stuff they put on screen. And sometimes, as is the case here, they sneak in a movie that could actually be described as good. This accomplishes everything Lloyd Kaufman and his writers set out to do. Josh put it best: "Fun for the whole family: racism, sexism, fat people, geeks, lesbians, h[censored], [censored], handicaps [almost censored that one, too], white trash, rape, shit, vomit, and boobs." And, of course, a whole lot of cock. It's trashy, often looks stupid, and could possibly offend hippies, animal rights activists, Native Americans, liberals, black people, people with good diets, Middle Eastern peoples, women, and really anybody else. This pulls no punches, unapologetically and gloriously. And yes, there is the "choke the chicken" that you could have predicted before the movie even started. At the same time, there's some shrewd satire about our appetites as a society, both our literal appetites and our entertainment appetites, as well as some expected and bitter swipes at the (admittedly, fish-in-a-barrel-y) fast-food industry. The jokes are stuffed into this thing, and while a lot of them are terrible--some funny because they are terrible--a lot of this made me laugh the kinds of laughs that you almost hate yourself for. And did I mention that Poultrygeist is a musical? Because it is! With some standard musical choreography! The songs are good enough to sound like something from Rocky Horror and the lyrics are funny enough. The real fun begins when the mayhem does, and there are a few lengthy sequences where Kaufman and company are very obviously just seeing how many different ways they can think of for a zombie chicken to kill a human being. The violence is nearly orgasmic. Unfortunately for a lot of viewers, they'll miss out on the berserk zombie chicken mayhem because they'll turn the movie off during an extended scene where a bulbous man with gastrointestinal issues makes a mess of a bathroom. That's if they got past the creatively juvenile use of a Native American zombie finger in an opening scene featuring a guy with something other than an ax in his other hand. No, you don't want to know. This is a movie that surprises from its beginning to its end, and you might have as much fun watching it as it looks like the people who made it must have had. It's a real blast but definitely not for everybody. I wouldn't recommend it to my mother-in-law, for example.

Kung Fu Panda 2

2011 sequel

Rating: 14/20 (Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: The titular panda and his pals return to stop an evil peacock from using a modern explosive weapon to destroy kung-fu and take over the world.

I'd suspect that if you saw and liked the first of these movies, you would enjoy this one, too. It's really more of the same with a great use of colors, the same interesting if a bit underutilized characters, a few new additions including Gary Oldman as the villain, and a lot of action sequences. The fight scenes, if my memory's any good, are better than the ones in the first movie. The animators have these kung-fu fightin' animals clash in some very creative ways, and the screen's filled with all this complex movement. I really liked how the peacock fought, the animators--folks who have obviously seen their share of classic kung-fu flicks--cleverly using his tail feathers like one of those fighting fans. As with the first movie, there's a mix of animation styles, and the 2-D stuff used to give some backstory or for dream sequences is really neat. The music is very good, and even better is the use of sound effects. The humor doesn't work for me at all, and the attempt to inject a little emotional depth into the story of a goofy panda trying to save the world with his kung-fu skills feels forced although I wouldn't want any less of Seinfeld alum James Hong's voice. I threw up all over my lap with the "My son is alive" ending. I also had to penalize this a whole point for a "Skadoosh"that reminded me that I was just watching a sequel. By the way, I don't see how a third one of these could work even though the ending seems to set us all up for one with a shot of a lost panda village or something. A third movie might just be 90 minutes of Jack Black saying "Skadoosh" actually. Actually, now that I think about it, that could work. Throw in an interesting bad guy--I'm thinking an evil walrus--and you might have something.

You know what could also work? An animated Bruce Lee movie. Think about it. That would be bitchin'!

I just noticed that this is directed by a woman, Jennifer Yuh, who is also directing the third installment. There's a delicate flamboyance here that just might be the result of having a female at the helm. I hope that doesn't offend any of my female readers because I meant it as a compliment.

Fly Away Home

1996 bird movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: After Anna Paquin's mother dies in a car crash, she moves from New Zealand to Canada in order to live with a father she barely knows. He makes his own airplanes. Her new life is dull until she finds a bunch of goose eggs, watches them hatch, and becomes a mother goose. Almost immediately, she begins rapping about anthropomorphized eggs, women who live in footwear, and people putting fingers in (more than likely proverbial) pies. A problem develops when they realize the geese will need to fly south for the winter, something that birds apparently do. Anna and her father use his flying machines to help train the birds so that they can make the trip with them.

I couldn't watch this movie without thinking of Jeff Daniels, who despite his beard in this still manages to be Jeff Daniels, and a 23-or-so-year-old Anna Paquin having sexual relations while an audience of geese squawk. I think there should be a rule, even if it's just an unwritten rule, that once you've portrayed somebody's father in one film, you are not allowed to later film a sex scene with that same person, especially if you're going to sport a beard in that second movie. The Squid and the Whale is a better movie than this one although it has far less geese, and I hope watching this doesn't ruin that one for me.

I think this movie probably had a lot to do with the resurgence of "Yo' Mama" jokes during the mid-90's. It also should get an award for "Most Annoying Song in a Movie That Doesn't Have a Giant Boat in It"--"10,000 Miles"--which manages to be exactly twice as annoying as that one-hit wonder "5,000 Miles" from Benny and Joon. I don't remember that movie much, but I remember that Proclaimers song being in the movie approximately 5,000 times. "10,000 Miles" is only in this movie twice, bookending our goose story, but it managed to make me cringe the first time and nearly commit suicide the second. I did like Jeff Daniels in this movie even though I'm not sure his character should be winning any father-of-the-year awards. Putting your daughter in a situation where she has to watch you flying around in that contraption that probably should have broken both of your legs only a few months after Mom died while using her giant cell phone and driving? Geez, that's just not right, bearded Jeff Daniels! This movie could also be a whole lot shorter because I did find myself checking my watch more than a few times. And I don't own a watch, so I was really just glancing at my arm. I really liked the stuff with the geese though. A lot of the shots of the geese in the sky following that little aircraft around were really beautiful, and even better were all the scenes with the geese running. I would have paused the movie and gone outside to imitate them, but my surgeon has told me I'm not allowed to run or jump or--especially, he noted with a wagging finger--imitate a running goose. I also really liked a touching scene featuring geese hatching which was juxtaposed with a scene where Jeff Daniels' brother is watching wrestling that made me wonder if anybody would ever really watch wrestling like that. I can picture actor Terry Kinney asking director Carroll Ballard, "So what should I be doing in this scene?" and getting an answer similar to "Oh, just watch television and try to look natural." So naturally, he goes nuts. And nobody, likely even people who just watched this movie five minutes before reading this, have any idea what I'm talking about with this "watching wrestling" scene. Just trust me--it's wonderful. Anna Paquin shows us in this how children should act in movies. She's really good. Even better is the woman who says, "I ought to blow a hole in your liver!" This is a sweet little understated family drama with an underdeveloped environmental theme, thankfully underdeveloped since things could have easily gotten a little too preachy. It would have distracted from the greatness of the scene where Terry Kinney is watching wrestling.

Recommended by Cory, who will have to tell me if he remembers the scene with the wrestling.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

2010 masterpiece

Rating: 1/20

Plot: A young couple fall in love. Eagles inexplicably begin attacking; sometimes they explode. The couple fights for survival and learns about the importance of taking care of the environment.

James Nguyen directed this. The story goes that it took him four years to make this beast of a film, and he was understandably disappointed when Sundance rejected it. To promote the film, he decorated his van (probably the same one in this movie) with fake blood and birds and drove around blaring screaming and screeching sounds out of speakers. He got the idea for Birdemic: Shock and Terror from watching The Birds and An Inconvenient Truth.

This'll be the worst movie I see this year. It's The Room quality but with more action. You know, because of all the exploding birds. They don't show up right away though. Like Hitchcock, Nguyen gradually builds up the suspense. The first forty-five minutes involves the main characters hooking up, but about half of that time is used for scenes of the guy character driving around. There's even a lengthy scene where he leaves his house, gets gas, and then goes back home. That's it. Nothing else happens. He just gets gas. Another great scene that seemed utterly pointless involves a business meeting-turned-celebration where the actors stand around clapping for a very long time. I'm talking about an unnaturally long time.

Unlike Hitchcock, this movie's got this wild is-this-thing-on camera work and the worst sound problems you will ever experience while watching a movie. I don't think I'm wrong about that either. And the birds look like cartoons and don't mesh with the real stuff at all. It's the worst CGI that I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure your average ornithologist, when given very tiny magic markers, could have done a better job just drawing directly on the film. And, as I mentioned before, they sometimes explode when they collide with things. The juxtaposition between the romantic plot of the first half of this movie and the bird apocalypse of the second half is so jarring. There are a couple of scenes that might foreshadow a bird apocalypse, but for the most part, it's just wham-bam-thank-you-m'am! Bird attack! Add the most irritating sound effects ever, and you've got something pretty special. Just check it out for yourself:

Yeah, those are coat hangers that they're defending themselves with. But don't worry--the guy in the brown shirt's got a machine gun in his van, and believe me, he knows how to use it!

The lead actors are awful. Alan Bagh might as well have been made of plywood. His co-star, Whitney Moore, is cute as can be, and I nearly gave the movie an extra point just for her posterior. But the "supporting casts" (that's what it says in the credits) is what really makes this a magical experience. Moore's character's mother seems bad at first, but then there's an extended shot where she's giving a thumbs-up sign that made me change my mind. There are two child actors playing Susan and Tony, and they are truly awful, even compared to other bad child actors. But in this movie, they just fit right in. There's a hippie character whose lines are stolen from John Lennon songs (and An Inconvenient Truth) and he might get the line of the movie when he says, "Whoa! I hear a mountain lion!" Guy-in-Easy-E-Shirt and Lady-on-Bus-with-Colorful-Shirt are only on the screen for a few minutes, but they really shine. So good. And just when I think periphery character acting can't get even worse, our characters enter a gas station and meet the gas station employee. Oh, boy. There's also a great musical number called "Just Hanging Out" sung by somebody named Damien Carter.

There's another picture of a bird attack. I know I didn't set it up or anything, but neither did this movie. And I wanted to both shock and terrify you. I apologize if you wet yourself. Here's what happens to you after you get attacked by these birds, by the way:

The thing that makes this one even more special is that Nguyen's got an environmental message that he wants to hammer into our heads. It's clumsy hammering though, like he's using a giant inflatable hammer and trying to drive in a thumb tack. There are news snippets (fake ones) about polar bears dying, scenes where the main character is trying to have solar panels added to his house, conversations with an environmentalist/bird professor ("You certainly know a lot about birds." "I should. I'm an ornithologist."), and my personal favorite touch--a scene of serenity near the end of the movie where the characters eat seaweed on a beach, serenity that is interrupted by the little girl saying she wants a Happy Meal which apparently is the cue for the cartoon eagles to start attacking again. Nguyen must not like McDonalds.

I wonder how Nguyen feels about Zubaz, the best pants money can buy?

This movie is highly recommended to all lovers of bad movies. It really has to be seen to be believed.

The Giant Claw

1957 giant bird movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: A troublesome alien bird that is "as big as a battleship" is on the rampage, wrecking airplanes and destroying buildings. Electronics specialist Mitch MacAfee tries to figure out a way to stop it before the hand of the person operating the beak gets tired.

You might think that a movie that Fred F. Sears (that second F. probably stands for Fred, too) made only a year after Earth vs. the Flying Saucers wouldn't be so bad, but you'd be wrong. No, this is impressively inept filmmaking, a science fiction movie that would probably offend most scientist. Or maybe just confuse them. The bird is described as being made from antimatter, and I guess that makes sense. It all sounds really scientific, and we kind of have to believe the character because he's got a giant model of an atom. You've also got to appreciate when these 1950's B-movies explain what a UFO is to the audience. Maybe the acronym wasn't widely used back then? The story is dull, and the acting is bad. So dull and bad, that they must have felt like they needed to go a little crazy with the amount of bird scenes. In some movies, they save the monster and the big special effects for a little later in the film. With The Giant Claw, it does start out as a fuzzy blob during some initial scenes, but you still get to see the monster early on. Early and far too often, especially since the monster looks like this:

Now I know what you're thinking--that looks realistically terrifying! I'm actually thinking my mother must have seen this still from the film and that it's the reason she refuses to fly. The obvious-toy plane crash is as realistic as "obvious-toy plane crash" might make it sound. None of that's as terrifying as the police officer played by Robert Williams, a gravedigger in Hang 'Em High. He's a cop who can't keep his hands off his own belt buckle, and gets superb lines like this one: "If you see this big bird, it's a sign that you're gonna die [dramatic pause] real soon." Louis Merrill acts squares around the rest of the crash as "Pierre," a French character played by a man who is definitely not French and who's probably never heard the language spoken. Pierre's cool because he's got Eraserhead hair. That hair might be the best special effect in this entire film actually. It's definitely not the child's Play-doh globe at the beginning of this thing, an image followed by a film strip I think I might have seen in my 8th grade science class. But none of that's important, readers, because the giant antimatter bird is coming right at you in 2-D!

You really need to imagine that with the incredible sound effects, my favorite being the chomp-chomp sound that you can apparently hear whenever a bird "as big as a battleship" makes when eating a paratrooper. The Giant Claw is nearly entertaining for the duration. And hey, if you get bored, you can play a drinking game where you drink a shot every time you see a wire to help the bird move or the toy airplanes fly around. It all builds to a stunning climax during which the monster destroys New York City, including a scene where he's perched on the building doing his best King Kong impression. Or maybe he's impersonating that Korean ape from A*P*E. I wouldn't put it past him. Anyway, it's the most damage a puppet has caused since. . .well, I thought I had a joke there.

Ashik Kerib

1988 Paradjanov movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A poor minstrel falls in love with a rich gal and then wanders all over the place having various misadventures, most of them colorful.

It's lucky for us that the U.S. and Soviet Union stockpiled nuclear weapons during the Cold War because if we had decided to attack each other with color, it would have been hopeless. This is my fourth and likely final Sergei Paradjanov joint (that's what he called them), and like the other three, this is an unusual but wonderful experience. This is very obviously filmed on a tight budget, but Paradjanov overcomes that with his creative spirit and visual eye. Admittedly, I was frustrated early. It either took this story about this minstrel a while to gain momentum or I just needed to be warmed up a bit. My suggestion would be to try to find a Paradjanov short to use as foreplay before letting one of his features seduce you. This not only looks great; it sounds fantastic, too, with a soundtrack rich in Georgian folk music, the only kind of auditory daffiness that could fit a lot of this imagery. Observe: lots and lots of camels and guys with unibrows, beard thievery, a guy with fuzzy dice hanging from his crotch, birds and more birds, evil spirits arriving on ponies. Visual bliss if you ignore some of the most stilted acting you'll ever see and a story that didn't make a lot of sense. That acting. Yeesh. It was like a church group performance with even less of a budget. This movie might have the cheapest special effect I've ever seen, by the way--horse flight simulated with a close-up of a spinning globe. Oh, with a couple of dudes blowing shells in the only way shells can be blown into--gaily. My favorite scene features a guy sharpening knives while a guy spins a colorful umbrella behind him and to his right. It's a beautiful shot anyway, but then the camera pulls back and you have all these women undulating on the ground in the foreground pretending to be snakes. I think it's symbolic. Which reminds me--for a movie that is supposed to be a children's movie (I read), this is sure heavy on the symbolism. I don't think children can think this abstractly. And there's also a sex scene where some clowns toss a curtain over a man and a woman before the shell blowers do their shell-blowing thing and a guy starts throwing doves around. Yeah, that's exactly as spicy as it sounds. Ashik Kerib is more flawed than the other Paradjanov movies, more meandering and choppily incoherent, but if you're hip to the guy's cinematic voice, you'll be glad you popped this in. If I get married again, I'm having a Paradjanov-inspired wedding and reception, by the way.

The Birds

1963 fowl movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: This slut buys some love birds and makes the trek to Bodega Bay to hand-deliver them the guy she currently wants to sleep with. Suddenly, seagulls and crows begin to attack humans for no good reason. Oh, snap!

"Are the birds gonna eat us, Mommy?"

Again, Hitchcock does a lot of subtle things with the camera here that enhance the experiences and set this a few notches above your standard birds-attacking-people-for-no-good-reason movies. The Bodega Bay setting is often framed so perfectly, and there are a lot of interesting visual perspectives you're not used to seeing. I'm not sure if Hitchcock was trying to show you things from a bird's eye view or not, but it kept things naturally uneasy. I also like the decision to use no music at all in the movie, just those exaggerated, almost comic bird sound effects. I saw this one as a kid (I think at my dad's house) and some scenes just never leave the mind--the creepy school children song chanted while crows gather on the monkey bars, the shot of the dead farmer with his pecked-out eyes, the seagulls floating into the overhead shot of a fire in the middle of town, that horrifying Tippi-in-the-phone-booth scene. Speaking of Tippi, I'll still contend that the scene where she's attacked in the attic is the most erotic five minutes ever filmed. I also love the scene where a bird puppet attacks Rod Taylor's arm, and the Night of the Living Dead-esque drama that unfolds as the characters hide inside their boarded-up house. Another great Tippi shot: the quick cuts between a moving line of fire and Hedron's slightly-changed expressions as her eyes follow the flame's movement. And who wouldn't enjoy watching so much footage of birds attacking children? Seriously, what's better than that? Speaking of that, I could understand an argument that the special effects in this are dated, but I really love them. They're dated in a good way! This movie also has a great stunt when a guy pumping gas gets hit in the head with a bird and falls down. The final shot--the car driving off with the lower half of the screen covered in bird and the upper half a gray sky with sun rays slicing across--is also really beautiful. There's an interesting subtext that takes this out of B-movie realms with poor Mitch and the women in his life--the old flame, the feisty aggressive new fling, the oppressive mother, and the little sister (what an age difference!). It'd be fun to look at the birds as symbols or examine this movie from a feminist perspective, but I'll save those kinds of thoughts for the next Disney cartoon I watch.

[Too Much Information Alert!]: The first time I pleasured myself, it was while watching that birds-attacking-Tippi scene. That wasn't at my dad's house. He showed me that when I was three, too young to masturbate. Speaking of toddlers, I tricked Sophie into watching this with me by telling her it was Rio. She didn't seem to enjoy it very much.

Four Lions

2010 terrorist comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Four inept Jihadists in London go through terrorism training and plan for a headline-making suicide bombing.

Four Lions is the kind of movie that had to have been made on a dare.

"Hey, Chris Morris. I bet you can't make a comedy about suicide bombers."

"I could."

"Oh yeah? Well, I double-dog dare you to!"

This is darkly hilarious look at a topic that isn't really all that hilarious. And I'm sure that some folks accidentally stumbling into the theater to see this watched with mouths agape and were a little bit offended. The best kind of comedy offends sensibilities anyway, right? This movie is just stuffed with one liners and funny slapstick, and the payoff at the climax featuring the terrorists in mascot-type costumes makes me giggle just thinking about it. The dialogue's spoken with thick English thug accents and is filled with all this slang that made catching all the jokes problematic. I think that just means that I have to watch this again soon. I really liked the actors in this, especially the guy who played the leader. The lions' rapport was great, almost like they've been working on stage for years before filming like the Marx Brothers or something. I'm not sure how much of this was improvised, but it's got a little Spinal Tap feel, and although it's not quite that faux-documentary style, it's got a camera style that does make you feel like you're watching a true story unfolding naturally. Well, except it's really really silly. Funny stuff, and you should see it if you get the humor in acts of terrorism.

Day of the Animals

1977 public service announcement/horror movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Global warming has made all the animals on some mountain insanely violent which sucks for the group of hikers who happen to be on that very mountain. Leslie Nielson takes off his shirt.

That's right. If you've ever wanted to see Leslie Nielson without his shirt on and playing a straight role, this is the film for you, my friends. This is a politically important motion picture, by the way, because it's the only source from which Al Gore and his scientist friends gathered information for An Inconvenient Truth. And it's an entertaining B-horror movie. You know this is going to be a winner from the get-go with the creepy clinky clunky music and shots of menacing animals. I knew I was about to see more stock footage of animals than I'd maybe ever seen in any other movie and apparently get a warning about ozone layer depletion at the same time. Quickly, a pattern develops in this movie: hiking footage, close-up of a wild animal, hiking footage, close-up of a wild animal, hiking footage, close-up of a few birds, and son on. Yes, it's as boring as it sounds. There's one amazing, almost avant-garde shot that has both birds and people hiking on the screen at the same time. I really liked Roger Barnes as Ranger Tucker. Barnes looked and sounded familiar, so I looked him up, probably remembering him in some deep part of my mind because he was in both Pete's Dragon and High Plains Drifter. He's the type of actor who can pull off a line like "Gimme a piece of that apple pie and dump some ice cream on it" while still managing to sound like a bad ass. He also gets to be the only human in the best scene in Day of the Animals. Actually, what am I saying? It's probably the best scene in any movie ever! "The rats have gone crazy!" Indeed, Roger Barnes. Watch that scene in Ranger Tucker's kitchen and try not to have nightmares about rats jumping on your face. Speaking of nightmares, let's get back to Leslie Nielson without a shirt on. I'm not sure if it's losing his shirt or the whole global warming thing, but something turns his character completely crazy. That's when we get to see what an actor Nielson is. Watching an angry Nielson (sans shirt) hitting foliage with a big stick, tossing middle-aged women around and calling them bitches, yelling "you little cockroach!" at pre-teens. I guess the lesson is that Leslie Nielson is more animal than human. And during a climactic scene where Nielson fights a bear? Jen actually checked to see if I was erect at that point. Nielson's character also changed the Lord's Prayer forever, for me at least. "Our father who art in heaven, you made a jackass out of me for years!" C'mon. That is awesome! Jon Cedar plays Frank, poorly. His death scene is a classic, actually containing the words "Help me! Help me! I'm dying! Aaahhh!" Other great scenes involve a guy doing a W.C. Fields impression (just what the film needed actually), some nifty bird attack special effects, and a woman falling to her death which is likely the worst blue screen effect I've ever seen and probably will win my end-of-the-year special-ed effect award. Toward the end, it nearly turns into Night of the Living Dead with dogs. Dogs and a guy who looks a lot like Elton John. And yes, that's as awesome as it sounds. The whole thing ends with [Spoiler Alert] guys in metallic suits that look like they came straight from that Residents music video. It's all highly recommended if you're into crappy movies or, as I mentioned, have always wanted to see Leslie Nielson's glorious nipples.

And to answer your question--yes, I was erect!

Rio

2011 animated bird movie

Rating: 12/20 (Abbey: 1/20; Emma 1/20; Sophie: ?/20)

Plot: Jesse Eisenbird, a librarian's pet macaw, wants desperately to get laid, so he travels to the titular city of sin to find himself a feathered whore. He meets a hot little blue number named Jewel and winds up talon-cuffed to her after a kinky sex act gone wrong. Smugglers are after them, and flightless Eisenbird has to learn to adapt to a harsh new existence in the wild while trying to find his librarian friend.

During a mating sequence, the ornithologist naturally plays Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me" because "Lionel Richie works every time." Love that. I also liked the colorful and musically vibrant beginning sequence that opened this movie. Rio de Janeiro provides a lively backdrop to the goings-on in this cartoon from the makers of Ice Age. As seen in Ice Age, those animators know how to create moods with setting details. This covers pretty much everything you'd expect a movie taking place in Brazil to cover--soccer, slum life, colorful parades. Unfortunately, I had a difficult time liking this movie for very long despite my love for both birds and color. I enjoyed most of the voice talent, especially Jemaine Clement and (ahem) Jesse Eisenberg, but I had a tough time connecting with the characters. Especially the human ones. I didn't like how the CGI people looked in this movie, and the human characters all looked like they were overacting. There are also a lot of songs in this, extraneous songs that do nothing more than make the movie seem way too long. The movies got some jokes that the kiddies might enjoy, and a lot of action sequences that zip by very quickly (admittedly, ones that are animated really well), but I'm not sure there's much for adults to appreciate in this one. Watch Rango instead.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Psycho

1998 remake

Rating: 4/20 (Sam: 10/20)

Plot: Same as the first Psycho. But you should actually just do yourself a favor, Anne Heche, and see the original Psycho instead.

First off, I need somebody to explain to me why this exists. A shot-for-shot color (TV movie color) remake of a classic with an inferior cast? Who asked for this? Was it an experiment to see how you could put the same story and even identical imagery into the hands of a director who isn't nearly as good and end up with crap?

Had to watch it though, mostly because of the added fun of watching in there on the Urine Couch of the motel. Same reason I'd watch a Gus Van Sant remake of Vertigo if I had a job in a belfry, a Gus Van Sant remake of Lifeboat if I happened to be stranded on a raft with a Nazi, or a Gus Van Sant remake of Strangers on a Train if I operated a carousel at a cheap and filthy carnival. They're opportunities that you just can't pass up. Sam hung round for the duration, and Siskel got all pissy because he was in his seat.

The shot-for-shot remake idea is silly enough, but good ol' Gus didn't want to seem lazy and did add a few of his own personal touches, all extraneous and distracting. I did appreciate that the funky-looking falling-down-the-stairs-backwards scene was replicated with William H. Macy because that's just awesome Somebody should fall down the stairs like that in every movie. But the neon pink blood taking the place of Hitchcock's chocolate syrup? What's with that? The surreal random shots of naked people and sheep during Macy's death scene? Don't get me wrong--I can almost always be counted on the "pro" side when it comes to adding sheep to a movie, but I'm missing some symbolism or something here.

Here's some confusing trivia for you: Anne Heche, the Marion for this updated version, had never seen the original Psycho. OK, I can believe that. But the cinematographer, Christopher Doyle? I'm sorry, and maybe I'm being too hard on Mr. Doyle, but that just doesn't seem right. Think about it: a cinematographer who has never seen Hitchcock's Psycho? Isn't that something like being a roofer without ever having seen a roof or a baker without ever having tasted a cake? You don't have to answer that. It's a hypothetical question, and I'm right anyway.

Vince Vaughn? The only thing I can think of is that Vince Vaughn's uncle helped finance this movie.

You know what Gus Van Sant should do next? A shot-for-shot remake (in black and white) of The Cat in the Hat. Vince Vaughn can be in that. So can Anne Heche's nipples.

Seriously, didn't everybody involved in this have something better to do with his or her time? Gus could have made himself another gay movie. Anne Heche could have been doing some serious lesbianing. Vince Vaughn could have been training for a job as a roofer or a master baker. William H. Macy could have really been falling down a flight of stairs. Any project they decided to take on would have ended up being better than this--one of the most worthless motion pictures of all time.

Uncle Alfred does not approve one bit:

Psycho

1960 motel movie

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: The new highway's made the Bates Motel a little out-of-the-way, and Norman and his mother try to keep the business afloat. A gal who's just stolen a bunch of money finds her way to the little secluded motel, decides to take a quick shower, and ends up (spoiler alert!) losing all her chocolate syrup!

The IMDB trivia page for this one has a few fun nuggets. Randy ol' Alfred referred to Perkins as "Master Bates" throughout the production. And this is the first ever movie to show a flushing toilet. Oh, and Marion's white car (lots of black and white symbolism in this movie) is the Cleavers' car on Leave It to Beaver.

Well, Jennifer had not seen this movie. Not only that--she had no idea what happened in it. I was a little envious actually. I remember when my father showed me this when I was three. The iconic house, the quick edits during that so-complex shower scene, the shocking ending. I want to see all that for the first time, too! This rolls along like a B-movie directed by an auteur, and its brilliance is really in the chances that Uncle Alfred takes with the story and the breaking of movie conventions. Killing the lead actress off halfway through the movie? C'mon. You're just not supposed to do that. The psychotic mother/relationship that would make Oedipus cringe and Freud demand to be helped out of his underpants? No wonder Walt Disney refused to let Hitchcock film on Disney property because of this "disgusting movie"! Herrman's score is among the best, right up there with Jaws when you're talking about most recognizable and duplicated scores of all time. Unlike some of my favorite Hitchcock movies, this one doesn't get better each time you watch it. It's not without flaws, and without the surprises, it's just not as much fun. You unfortunately can't watch this for the first time more than once. But with its iconic imagery, that incredible score, one of the creepiest villains in movie history, almost overwhelming suspense, and a nipple that I might have only imagined, this is still something that you'll never forget.

Having said that, when I asked Jen for her rating, she at first said, "Psycho? I don't remember it."

Urine Cough AM Movie Club: Psycho 3

1986 sequel

Rating: 5/20

Plot: It's more silliness at the Bates Motel, a motel only slightly less spooky than the one I work at. Norman's apparently still out and about, hitting on nuns and attracting drifters. A nosey newspaper reporter comes along to find a story. Stuffed birds watch it all with their dead eyes.

I had no plans to watch this movie, but I thought it was cool to watch a movie about a motel while working at a motel and couldn't pass up the opportunity. I've wondered why the motel I work at hasn't been closed down. Same question needs to be asked about the Bates Motel, right? I've not seen the second movie, but I just couldn't take my eyes off this thing after all the nun craziness at the beginning, the arm-sewing insanity, the taxidermy, and the dancing boy. You get the iconic setting imagery, a few creepy moments, and a soundtrack with all kinds of nifty electronic sounds. You also get a shower scene and an attempt to replicate one of the original's goofier scenes--the falling-down-the-stairs scene. Perkins is particularly wooden, probably because he had to perform double duty playing is iconic character and directing this nonsense. Not sure who wrote this but he apparently had trouble figuring out if he wanted a comedy or a horror flick. It's a little bit of both as a lot of the scenes are played for giggles while other scenes that aren't supposed to be funny at all end up funny anyway. And I believe the line "You can twirl my baton" is in the movie somewhere. That's the only "note" I took on this movie, but a precursory Google search makes me wonder if it was actually in the movie at all. Maybe I was dreaming or maybe one of my motel's guests said that to me at one point. Nevertheless, Hitchcock wouldn't have allowed that line to be in his movie or in the real life of somebody watching one of his movies. Oh, and Jeff Fahey's in this movie! The guy's ubiquitous! I just checked and he's got eleven movies coming out this year alone. Eleven! That's more than the amount of lesson plans I'll write this school year. One more thing: this helps seal a work-in-progress theory I have about the posteriors of nuns. I don't feel like getting into that now though.

The Birdman of Alcatraz

1962 bestiality epic

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Robert Stroud, our hero, is serving a life sentence at Leavenworth prison for killing somebody. While there, he has problems getting along with the guards and other cons, spends some time in solitary, and then kills a guard who was going to report him for getting too aggressive earlier. He's sentenced to die, but his mommy whines until he gets the sentence reduced to life in solitary. One day, he finds a new friend, an injured canary. This new buddy gets him interested in ornithology. He gets some more birds, builds some cages, gets Telly Savalas interested in ornithology, and becomes an expert in the field.

This is a heavily-fictionalized account of the real Robert Stroud. "Loosely-based" probably a strong enough, and I'm sure Stroud's family appreciates having their relative's history rewritten like this. But that's not my main problem with the film. My main problems are that it manages to be both too long and have a story that's undercooked. Things are also pretty flat, and it's just too much of a movie. I liked Burt Lancaster in this version of Stroud. The character's development isn't 100% believable, but Lancaster's able to go from violently apathetic to delicately nurturing in a believable way. I enjoyed seeing Savalas with some hair, and I also thought Karl Malden was good as the warden in this one. The film is weakened by Thelma Ritter's annoying performance as Stroud's mother. I also liked a lot of the shots of Lancaster's life in prison. The black and white photography's crisp, and at times I wished it was a little grittier. The birds, specifically the training involved in getting them to do what they do, really steal the show. All the scenes with the birds are wonderful, from the simple moment when Lancaster gets his bird friend to fly to his finger for the first time to the more complicated multi-fowl shots later on. An extended scene showing the birth of a bird (or maybe some sort of alien being) is also cool. This is hampered a bit with far too much narration (part of what makes it too movie-ish), but my favorite scene might be when the narrator briefly shifts to second person to describe life in solitary confinement.

The Terror

1963 terrorble movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: French officer Andre Duvalier wanders lost on a beach. He spots cleavage and tries to chase it down. "Come back here, cleavage!" he screams. Then a bird attacks him. He eventually loses the woman and finds himself in an old lady's house with (Warning: Here comes some terror!) THE SAME BIRD THAT ATTACKED HIM. She tells him of a castle with the Baron So-and-So in it, and he decides to go there to look for the woman. Then, there's all kinds of terror. And then there's even more terror!

It's really not hard to believe that this was written and shot in just four days using the same set as the just-finished The Raven. Actually, it is hard to believe that this was written at all. It's almost completely incomprehensible, almost more the story of Jack Nicholson drowning in a gigantic cauldron of plotless sludge than anything else. It's also hard to believe that it took not only Roger Corman but four other directors (including Coppola and Bogdanovich) to complete this mess. But perhaps that's why it's the mess that it is. This lacks the atmosphere of the Poe movies, and although Nicholson is pretty good (and fun to watch as he's starting to discover his voice), Karloff looks bored and confused in his scenes. The shocking finale, involving a bunch of water and a character who slowly turns into what I believe is chocolate pudding, is a laugher, but it's not worth sitting through the rest of the boring seventy-some minutes to get to it. The lesson we can take from The Terror? I think it's that you have to write the movie before you shoot it.

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.

Masters of Russian Animation: Volume III

Animation from 1978, 1983, 1990, and 1979

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Shorts about rainbow blobs conversing with pipe smokers, injured ants trying to return home, cats befriending mice to the chagrin of babushkas, and children feeding apples to crows while bulls jump rope with little girls and Death taps brides on tender shoulders and asks, "May I cut in?"

Vladimir Tarasov's "Contact" shows us that hippiedom came to the Soviet Union kinda late. Some of the animation looks like it would fit right in with Yellow Submarine. It's a fun little short but nothing spectacular. Neither is "Travels of an Ant" although the insect voices, all done by director/animator Eduard Nazarov, are really cute. It's a nice little children's story. It's hard to believe that Alexander Guriev's "Cat and Company" comes from the 90's. Color schemes (purple birds flying over a yellow background?), style, and music makes it look like something straight out of the late 70's. It was a yucky cartoon. Finally, you get to the nearly 30 minute "Tale of Tales" (the original title "The Grey Wolf Will Come" didn't make it past the censors) which is unique and beautiful. There's a mix of animation styles (cut-outs, stop motion) and this gray and white texture that gives it a dreamy, sort of silent film quality that makes it really exciting visually. It's such a fragile-looking movie, almost like the images would start to crack if I stared too hard. I don't understand much of the symbolism (or narrative if there is one). If I had to guess, I'd say it contains a lot of allusions to Russian folk tales. Even without fully understanding what is going on, however, this is still a stimulating 30 minutes. The wolf is cute!

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

1958 adventure

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Oh, snap! A bald magician with a lust for lamps has turned Sinbad's average-sized girlfriend into a really tiny girlfriend. Sinbad must return to the mysterious island where the giant cyclops lives in order to get a piece of a two-headed bird's egg so that his girlfriend can once again return to normal size. It's adventurous!

Ok, so the story is really goofy. And the acting is about as bad as it gets. But once again, Harryhausen's ingenious effects are there to save the day. A horned cyclops with fuzzy legs, a breathing and tail-swinging dragon, a four-armed green woman, two-headed birds, another swashbuckling skeleton. What more could you want? The film climaxes with a fight between a cyclops and a dragon which, along with the dinosaurs fighting in Gwangli, makes it completely obvious that Harryhausen was just an imaginative little kid who made his playtime available for everybody else to watch. My biggest gripe about this, other than the acting which is truly horrific, is that the genie is played by a little kid when a midget could have easily been substituted. Right up there with Argonauts and maybe even more enjoyable as it has just as many monsters while not being as long.