Monsters University

2013 prequel

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 18/20; Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 17/20; Buster: 19/20)

Plot: Awkward and definitely non-scary Mike, since a field trip to Monsters, Inc. as a little fellow, has always dreamed of being a scarer. Sully's the son of a former all-star scarer. They meet in college and with the former working as hard as he can to make up for a lack of natural talent while the latter gets by solely on his, they don't initially get along. In fact, their disagreement escalates to the point where an accident gets them thrown out of the scaring program. They have to join a fraternity of oddballs in order to enter a scaring contest and get back in the program. Then, the whole movie sort of borrows the plot of Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise only without Curtis Armstrong.

Look at all those potential toys on the movie poster up there! At least they're almost all new faces. With the exception of the two main monsters and Randall, Pixar fought the urge to force a bunch of characters from the first movie into this thing. A lot of them make appearances, but they're on the periphery or maybe the periphery of the periphery. Waternoose, for example, is only seen briefly in a picture, and the details changed about him were funny. Roz and Ratzenberger's Abominable Snowman might be a little forced, but they not in the thing long enough to be any more than a gag. I went into this experience with low expectations. I wasn't thrilled about a sequel (well, prequel) to Monsters, Inc. anyway, and after the abysmal Cars 2 and the mediocre Brave, I just didn't have high hopes for this one even though the possibilities in this Monsters world really do seem endless, a well that I'm sure the Disney people wouldn't mind dipping into again and again with a television series or a bunch of sequels. This isn't upper-echelon Pixar exactly, but it looks like they're heading in the right direction. For me, a prequel should really deepen your understanding of the characters, allow the characters that you already feel like you know and love to develop and grow. This story does that with Sully and Mike very well, and it makes the friendship we see in the first movie something a little more special. Randall's developed as well, albeit more generically, and Buscemi does a great job taking a little edge off the voice since his character is way less confident and malicious and a lot, well, dorkier. Goodman and Crystal are good, too, and so is Helen Mirren as a new character--the sort-of villainous Dead Hardscrabble. Love how that character moves, and the sound effect added to her walking. The animation is a lot better than what we saw in the first movie, especially with the backgrounds and setting details. The first movie pretty much takes place in one setting, and it looks plastic at times and after a while is a little redundant. The ancient buildings and the foliage on the Monsters University campus allow for a lot more texture variety. There's almost nothing spectacular about the setting details in that first movie. Here, the backgrounds are really lovely, the Pixar people building on the photo-realistic details we're getting in CGI cartoons these days. The story itself won't blow away anybody who has seen any number of underdog stories on film, but there was a nifty unexpected twist at the end and the morals of the story--stuff about friendship and teamwork--are great and, like the best Pixar stuff, filled with heart. The new characters are mostly welcome additions, and some of them are really funny. The movie's a lot of fun, at least when you're watching it for a first time, and there are a couple scenes that are even exciting without being as goofy (or as long) as that door sequence from the first movie. A dramatic scene near the end of the movie is very well done. Oh, and there's one shot of Mike and Sully sitting beside a lake under a full moon that people will want made into a poster. Beautiful.

Here's my updated list of my favorite Pixar movies, something that I could more than likely change depending on my mood:

1) Toy Story (bonus for being the first/sentimental reasons)
2) Up
3) Finding Nemo
4) Ratatouille
5) Toy Story 3
6) The Incredibles
7) Wall-E
8) A Bug's Life 
9) Monsters, Inc.
10) Monsters University
11) Cars
12) Toy Story 2
13) Brave
14) Cars 2

I'm not really confident in that ranking. 1-6 could all shuffle a bit. 7-12 could shuffle. I'm really unsure where to put Wall-E. I'm confident that 13 and 14 are in the right place though. Regardless, it's still a remarkable resume from the Pixar people.

Oh, the short, a cutesy love story about umbrellas. It wasn't bad. I watched most of it thinking that it was really lazy. "This is just live action with some animated faces on the umbrellas," I thought. I'm still having trouble believing that it was all animated. They're just showing off. The story for this one was the sort of thing you'd see in a silent comedy, only with inanimate objects.

The Hunger Games

2012 movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Katniss Everdeen volunteers for the annual and titular fight to the death between 24 teenagers selected from 12 districts in a dystopian future where tripods have been banned.

This one suffers more from the director or cinematographer falling too much in love with the current shaky-cam trend than any movie I can think of right now. If you want to wiggle the camara a bit to help the audience understand the characters' perspectives when they're in a confusing and frightening situation, that makes sense. There are times--when Peter and Katniss are getting off the train at the Capitol, when the games actually start--where the shaky-cam makes perfect sense. But using shaky-cam during every other second of the movie--when Katniss is singing a lullaby to her sister, backstage during an interview--is just distracting, and I can't imagine anybody staying vomit-free while watching this on the big screen. I read this book and didn't enjoy it much, mostly because the first-person point of view kind of ruins any chance for real tension and the strong female protagonist is never forced to make any difficult decisions. I did like Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, but other than her character, only Woody Harrelson's Haymitch is the least bit interesting. I think this movie's biggest sin is that it's a movie that is about kids killing each other--something that Battle Royale does a lot better--and somehow still manages to be boring. Being forced to keep it at a PG-13 to allow the target audience into the theater doesn't help anything. You either dumb everything down and keep the camera aloof as you show teenagers being slaughtered or you dive right in and show some blood and guts. You can't really stay in the center, and that's precisely what this does. The camera shakes over to a dead competitor, but without any character development or any lingering shots of the fallen, it just isn't going to matter all that much. Not much style to the storytelling either, just the aforementioned overused shaky-cam and what seemed to be a choice to go music free for large chunks of the movie. It made the whole thing feel a little flat.

I don't think the odds are in favor of the sequel of this being any better. I haven't read that book though.

Yogi Bear

2010 family fun

Rating: 11/20 (Emma: 14/20; Abbey: 20/20; Buster: nr)

Plot: Yogi and Boo Boo have to help Ranger Smith save Jellystone Park on its 100th anniversary after the mayor decides to sell the land in order to help balance the budget.

Buster saw this dvd sitting around the day I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. I asked her, "Hey, Buster, do you want to watch a Kubrick movie with me?" and she said, "Yes!" a little too enthusiastically. She patiently watched the monkeys and some of the space stuff before asking me, "Daddy, where's the bear?" Apparently, she thought Stanley Kubrick directed Yogi Bear. Three-year-olds are so dumb!

This is one of those television show adaptations that doesn't include any evidence that a single creative mind was involved in the production. The thing's completely harmless and mildly fun, but it has absolutely no zip and feels uninspired, bland. The animated bears look pretty good although the conversations between the human characters and them don't seem natural at all, almost like Tom Cavanaugh, T.J. Miller, and Anna Faris aren't even sure if there will be bears talking to them in the finished film. "Alright, I'll run through these lines, but if you don't stick a CGI bear in this, I'm going to be pissed!" I really like Tom Cavanaugh because he starred in one of my favorite television shows of all time, and I wish the poor guy's career was going a little better. Unfortunately, he's awkward. Dan Aykroyd provides the voice of the titular goofball, and it's probably among the least annoying work of his career. And Yogi Bear, along with his sidekick, is an annoying character who I really don't want to spend an hour and a half with. Boo Boo is voiced by Justin Timberlake which probably explains why I was aroused while watching this thing. The story's weak and predictable, the humor is spotty, and the characters probably aren't as likable as anybody remembers them. This was maybe better than I thought it would be, but nobody is going to list it among Stanley Kubrick's best works.

Look at that promotional poster up there. That's my favorite thing ever. It might not automatically look like Yogi and his little pal doing it "bear style" to anybody who isn't a pervert, but the "Great things come in bears" tagline invites the image. Somebody had to have been fired over that one.

The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters

1965 children's entertainment insanity

Rating: 5/20

Plot: The titular gang races against a rival gang, fights a guy in a gorilla suit, cleans a starlet's home, and battles sinister aliens in a trio of adventures.

Look out! It's Ray Dennis Steckler, the creator of gems Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? This time, he takes a stab at kiddie entertainment, a trilogy of short films that are like The Little Rascals on mescaline. And with random monsters. In the first, they have a foot race against an antagonistic gang from another grove. They also encounter the same gorilla Rat Pfink and Boo Boo had to battle in that movie. I guess Steckler owned the suit. Or, more likely, the guy who plays Kogar the gorilla owns the suit. His name is Bob Burns, and during his sixty year career as an actor in almost 24 films, he's played Kogar the Gorilla, Gorilla Monster, or Tracey the Gorilla in eight of them. Not that he isn't versatile because he's also a mummy in one of these Lemon Grove things. And he's a "NY Stander" in Peter Jackson's King Kong movie. And he worked on special effects in the Lord of the Rings movies. This whole first adventure--crazy music, bad dubbing, cartoonish sound effects--makes for a maddening experience although it's both completely harmless and energetic enough to be watchable. There's even a Rat Pfink cameo. Oh, and Frankenstein is involved somehow. I should have probably typed "Spoiler Alert" before that though. Things pick up with a little sci-fi craziness with a sexy vampiresss and a grasshopper alien. When the latter talks, it's a beautiful thing. The former is also a beautiful thing, but I would never type that as to not invite accusations of objectification. I was totally objectifying her though. Steckler's in this himself as Gopher, the goofiest of the Lemon Grove Kids. He operates under his cool-guy moniker Cash Flagg here, and his finest moment is when he does a bunch of animal impressions. But his bad acting is overshadowed by his own daughter Laura as Tickles. Her acting almost makes it seem like she had decided at the age of five that she hated her daddy and wanted to ruin his career. Of course, she must have been a dumb five year old to not realize that her daddy didn't make very good movies in the first place. The sheer zaniness, a catchy musical number that probably took two minutes to write, and a bunch of cheap-looking monsters keeps this fun even when it's nowhere near good.

The Orphanage

2007 horror drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A woman moves back to the orphanage she grew up in order to re-open the place. Her son starts talking and playing games with invisible people and then goes missing. Oh, snap!

This reminded me of The Others, probably because of the children and the ghosts. This is a genuinely creepy movie. Even the opening credits with this neat torn wallpaper effect are creepy. So are some creepy dolls. Sound effects and a really good use of quiet succeeded in making me feel uneasy. Now, I'm not sure if I would have felt that uneasy if I popped this in without knowing it was a horror movie. I just expected a dead orphan to pop out and giggle at me or something, but it's not that type of movie. This one gets under your skin. There are a few memorable scenes including one where the mother plays a game, shot with a lone camera that pans across a room several times, that make this almost special. It's an interesting little story with a poignant but maybe sappy ending, and with the manufactured creepiness, it's worth watching for fans of the psychological horror genre. Or for people who like orphans maybe. This is the second kind-of horror movie from Spain where one of the most memorable images involves a character in a shoddily-created creepy mask. Timecrimes is the other.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

1971 kid flick

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20; Dylan: 14/20; Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: The reclusive and eccentric titular candy maker holds a contest to invite five annoying children for a tour of his titular factory and a lifetime supply of his scrumptious titular confectionery treats. The tour ends early for some of the children who have poor listening skills. Grandpa Joe gets gas.

I just now realized that this movie is older than me.

Here's a link I stumbled across that suggests Gene Wilder had a lot of influence on the iconic character created in this. It's a great read, not only because it adds a bit to the genius of Wilder's performance but because it shows how classy that guy is. My 4 1/2 readers know that I love Johnny Depp and don't mind Tim Burton, but when I heard that remake was going to be made, the first thing I said was, "No, that's not right. Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka." And I know that I made the outrageous claim that this movie contained the greatest acting performance of all time, but that was actually wrong. The greatest acting performance of all time belongs to Gene Wilder for his work in this movie. Look no further than the wildly grotesque boat ride which not only gives Gene a chance to show his chops but just might be the greatest scene that takes place on a boat in movie history. That song, by the way, has lyrics that are from Dahl's book. I love all of Wonka's sneaky literary allusions which are not in Dahl's book: "Where is fancy bred--in the heart or in the head?" from Shakespeare, "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams" from O'Shaughnessy, Oscar Wilde, Ogden Nash, John Keats. It's like a sweet-toothed lit. major's wet dream! Wilder's multi-lingual tour guiding, the deadpan humor, the curly hair, the somersault, the schizophrenic tone switcherooing, the dance moves, his sweet singing voice, the fluidity of his movement. It's all so brilliant, one of the most whimsically dark characters. As I've said many times, Wilder's most fun to watch when his character is angry, and I try to find as many opportunities as I can in life to imitate his "You get nothing!" near the end. I'm also going to start each school year by saying my classroom is where "all my dreams become realities and some of my realities become dreams" before weeping uncontrollably. Anyway, enough about Gene Wilder and his character. You don't need me to convince you that this is the greatest performance in the history of acting.

All the kids are good, even if they're good in really exaggerated ways. You hate them all, except for Charlie, and you're supposed to. Violet's gum chewing and annoying voice, Veruca's whining, Augustus's general shape, Teevee's know-it-all attitude. You don't mind when terrible things happen to these children because they're really awful young people. Their demises work as little object lessons, too, the dangers of not taking care of one's body, of being too prideful or just a little snotty or mean, of greed, of ennui. Those Oompa Loompas. They'll get you, like enforcers of the consequences of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I counted correctly, there were ten Oompa Loompas in the credits. One was in Labyrinth, one was in The Elephant Man and Time Bandits, one was in fourteen of seventeen episodes of The Prisoner and Magical Mystery Tour, one was in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, one not only played three different characters in A New Hope but was in Willow and two Harry Potter movies, one was an Ewok and acted in both Labyrinth and Willow and Time Bandits, one was not only in one of those C.S. Lewis movies but played a character called Dwarf--Eater of Cars in something called Born to Boogie and was also in Magical Mystery Tour, and one was only in this move. And one of them was named Pepe Poupee (I shit you not!) and was actually a woman (I still shit you not!)! What's it say that all the winners of Wonka's contest are Caucasians, by the way? Anything? And I was surprised to find that Peter Ostrum is another of those great one-and-dones and that he didn't have a single other acting credit. He's as perfect for Charlie as Wilder's perfect for Wonka, and I think a lot of that has to do with his hair. Like Wilder, I guess. The only gripe is that Ostrum's belching is wack. If you're about to be dismembered by a ceiling fan because a carbonated beverage is making you float and you can only save yourself by belching, you need to do it like a man. I'll mention one more performance that I like: David Battley as Charlie's teacher, Mr. Turkentine. I used to think that was Paul Benedict, but it's not. He's hilarious anyway, and one of the funniest lines in the movie that nobody would ever mention is his--the "Well, I can't figure out just two!" when he's teaching percentages. Oh, wait! I am going to mention one more character--Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark is in this movie! Not the actor, the character--the dude who whispers to the children after they win. Or maybe I'm just on drugs.

Speaking of drugs, what a wonderful world the makers of this create without the need of computer graphics or a lot of special effects. The big candy room? 1/3 of it was actually edible according to Gene Wilder. That river? Yep, actual chocolate. Those wacky machines with their funky moving parts. So much color and so much fun. I'll take this old school set design over what Tim Burton did any day.

This is the second musical my family and I have watched for our summer family movie nights. A lot of the songs are great, too--"The Candy Man," a Sammy Davis Jr. staple; "I've Got a Golden Ticket"; "Pure Imagination," another great Gene Wilder moment; all the Oompah Loompah songs. Now "Cheer Up, Charlie" is pointless and shitty, and although Veruca Salt's "I Want It Now" isn't a terrible song, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Why does one of the children get a song before leaving while the others don't? This would be a memorable movie without the songs, but the songs make it even more memorable.

One of my favorite children's movies that are really made for adults. It's not for adults, you say? Well, go ahead and check for yourself what a snozberry is then. Oh, it's just so hard to not love Roald Dahl.

Bonus point for Pepe Poupee.

Oprah Movie Club Pick for April: The Muppets

2011 Muppet movie that can't be called The Muppet Movie because there already is a movie called that

Rating: 15/20 (Emma: 18/20; Abbey: 19/20)

Plot: The aptly-named Tex Richman is about to buy the land upon which sits the former Muppet studios because he wants to drill for oil there. When Gary, his girlfriend Mary, and his little felt brother Walter find out while vacationing in Hollywood, they find Kermit to let him know and help him reunite the Muppets for a telethon to raise money to save the studio. Those curmudgeons who always sat in the balcony crack wise.

I have to get this out of the way before I type anything else--I've always loved the Muppets and probably always will. I love them unapologetically and unconditionally. If Scooter bounced over to me and hit me squarely in the groin with a baseball bat, I would grimace and fall down writhing in pain and ask, "Scooter, what was that for?" but it wouldn't keep me from loving the Muppets. I think it's the texture of their "skin" that I like so much. And it looked great in this movie--you could see the felt, and all the colors of these colorful characters, especially when they filled the screen with their movements all at once, just hit my nostalgic sweet spot and made the child within me giggle. I don't want to go on and on about the material Muppets are made of; I'm not a pervert or anything.

This really is a movie that's all about nostalgia. I can't imagine a fan of the brilliant television show or the other movies hating this despite some flaws. It's true to the original stuff and, at least I think, the overall vision of Jim Henson. There's some self-referential stuff peppered in the script and a fan favorite song playing over the closing credits. All of the characters show up except for that John Denver Muppet, and the new character, though possibly guilty of being a little on the bland side, is just too likable not to like a little bit. Really, I wanted to give Walter a noogie. Not that I'm a pervert or anything. It was great seeing all the characters in something a little more traditionally Muppety than the parodies they've appeared in more recently. The start of their big show with their theme song nearly jerked tears from me!

The humor's also slap-happy meta-, and Muppet-esque, and although Muppet-esque humor probably isn't for everybody, I laughed more during this than I've laughed at anything for a long time. I laughed like a little boy, too. I laughed at Muppet teeth, a robot offering Tab and New Coke, Swedish Chef subtitles (and that "Say hello to my little friend" reference was so funny), a human replacement for Animal in Fozzie's Moopet band (Dave Grohl, the first of two Nirvana references), Punch Teacher, Tex's unlikely and surprising burst into a rap song, hip-hop Fozzie's "Wakka Wakka," and the barbershop quartet version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" which was about the best thing I've ever heard in a movie and my new second movie scene that takes place in a barbershop. That's right, Chaplin still has the top spot.

This is a Muppet musical, and I actually enjoyed the songs. There was one nice nod to a song from an earlier movie (I won't give it away, but it has to do with rainbows and connecting) that was beautifully done, sonically and visually. The duet about being a "Muppet Man" or a "Manly Muppet" managed to be both touching and hilarious.

Jason Segal and Amy Adams were both potentially bothersome, but they were fine here. I enjoyed Segal especially with this wide-eyed "Holy cow! I'm in a freakin' Muppet movie!" look that he had throughout this thing. You expect and at times put up with all the cameos, just like you kind of have to wade through a few terrible jokes to get to the really funny parts. The story was ok but predictable, but there were an awful lot of side plots. So many stories! This also almost overflows with themes, and although a lot of those themes really connect, it almost seems too ambitious at times.

Still, I'm not complaining about anything I saw here, and I was enormously entertained by this. And I am thrilled that this Muppet comeback wasn't completely screwed up.

Attack the Block

2011 hip-hoppin' sci-fi

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A group of thugs battle fuzzy aliens.

I didn't like any of the characters in this. And I know what you're thinking--oh, snap! Shane-movies is a racist movie blog! But check yo'self, fool. I didn't not (double negative is fine here because the movie characters wouldn't mind--a new shane-movies rule) like the characters because they're black inner-city kids. I just don't like people from England. And "English" isn't a race, so it's cool. These kids were really unlikable heroes, not just in an anti-hero way either. I guess I like my anti heroes to be working alone. This crew's rude and criminal, and I hated the way they talk. I can't say I have any experience in the bowels of South London, and I suppose people really might talk like this, but I can't imagine people actually talking like this. I don't have a problem with slang and in fact proved beyond a reasonable doubt how hip I am when I typed "Check yo'self, fool" up there, but this dialogue's about 85% slang (actual statistic) and really irritating. I was rooting for the alien monsters, partially because they're fuzzy since it's difficult to root against creatures that are fuzzy and partially because they were mute. They were loud though. A lot of this movie is just special effects and noise, and once the action of this gets started--pretty early in the proceedings--it doesn't let up much at all. When it does, things are clumsy. When you don't care for the unlikable characters, you don't really have any interest in seeing them develop or grow. Not that they do a whole lot or anything. That's not the type of movie Attack of Block is. It's not the type of movie that I'll really remember either. And for a movie that is mostly fuzzy aliens fighting inner-city kids, that's probably a really bad thing.

Note: I was going to give this an 11/20 but decided to start calling this "the Goonies of my generation" and immediately changed the rating to The Goonie.

I'm Gonna Explode

2008 Mexican movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Roman makes a joke that only Maru laughs at, so they decide to run away from home. Well, sort of. They run to the roof and camp out, sneaking down when the adults are away to snag some food.

Like Roman and Maru for the bulk of this story, this movie goes nowhere. The kids are likable-enough misfits, and there are a few cute moments that are almost funny--the Harold-[and Maude] -esque talent show performance, the camp-out right above the parents' noses. But I'm Gonna Explode is too almosty. Like a reality show with shakier camera work, this goes through a lot of the minutia without really being interesting, revealing, funny, dramatic, or really anything else. Roman and Maru are almost eccentric enough to be interesting, but they barely stand out in their own story. This is Bonnie and Clyde without any character, stuttering story lines, and with a lot less misbehaving. Well, they do it at one point. I guess religious folks would say that's worse than robbing banks or killing people, right? I just wish this one had a destination instead of just meandering and plodding in that almost intriguing way. Maybe it needed to explode?

Bad Ronald

1974 weird kid movie

Rating: 4/20

Plot: The titular high school outcast accidentally kills a girl. His protective mother decides that his best bet is to hide in a secret room in the center of the house. Unfortunately, mother dies, leaving Ronald to take care of himself. Oh, snap! It's just like The Diary of Anne Frank except with more psychotic behavior and a funny old lady with a funny old hat instead of the Gestapo.

There's a fatal flaw in this movie. Well, probably a few fatal flaws. Ronald is hiding out in a bathroom turned into a secret hiding room. Ostensibly, he uses the toilet. Wouldn't flushing the toilet give him away? And how do these people not know that the layout of this house just doesn't make sense? Seems like they'd know there was a big bunch of wasted space right in the middle. The Brady family must be the dumbest people on earth.

This is a fairly entertaining bad made-for-television movie that apparently a lot of people have fond memories of. There's an awful child actress (Angela Hoffman) who we get to see murdered. There's also an awful old lady actress who might have given my favorite performance of the year, an almost entirely silent role as a nosy neighbor with an audacious hat. It takes a special talent to act this badly without getting any lines. Linda Watkins is her name, and this was her last acting job before she passed away a couple years later, possibly of shame. I should also mention the real estate guy who reminded me of that high-talker on that Seinfeld episode. Or maybe Winnie the Pooh. The guy playing the title character, the great Scott Jacoby, actually did play Peter in a version of The Diary of Anne Frank. His performance is bad, but even Henry Winkler would look like a terrible actor when given lines like this gem after he kills the little girl: "My God! Why aren't you fooling?" I'm pretty sure Jacoby performed his own stunts in this movie, and the bicycle accident that eventually leads to manslaughter might be the best stunt I've ever seen. There's also a great scene where Jacoby eats an apple using only the side of his mouth. I've never seen an apple being eaten that way before, but I'll never not eat an apple like that again. Seriously, it's pretty awesome. You know what else is pretty awesome? The mother buying Ronald a tool kit for his birthday. Of course, the plot requires a tool kit later on, but this kid just doesn't look like the type who would have any idea what to do with a tool kit. Something else I love about this movie: Several times, the soundtrack is nothing more than a person whistling. Badly. It's faint and bad enough that I wondered if it was accidental, like the sound guy was cleaning up and didn't realize that he was recording himself or something. I did think the scene where Ronald's hiding spot is discovered was really well done. The rest of the movie? Not so well done. It's still a bit of fun though.

Not to be confused with Bad Boy Bubby.

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #6: Matchstick Men

2003 crime dramedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Frank and Roy (Is there some significance to that name combination? I'm too lazy to look it up.) are partners in con (OK, I did look it up. Roy Allen and Frank Wright made root beer. Allen & Wright Root Beer. A&W. There you go.), the older Roy a mentor to his younger partner. Roy's got some psychological problems, however. He's agoraphobic, has numerous tics, and is obsessive-compulsive, especially with cleanliness. It hasn't gotten in the way of him being a successful con man though. But Roy's life is turned upside-down when he finds out that he has a teenage daughter, a girl who a psychologist has helped him contact.

What a fun movie! And what a great freak-out performance by Shane-movies hero Nicolas Cage. By the way, has anybody else noticed that I have his name spelled wrong in the blog label? I've known about that for a while and could have fixed it, but it would take away time that I have for researching the history of root beer. Cage's performance in this is wild and wonderful though. The panic grunts and yelps, the tics, the way he yells "Pygmies!" whenever he feels that he's losing control, the contortions. And Matchstick Men might have my favorite Nicolas Cage line ever, a line that is delivered in a way that only Nicolas Cage could deliver it. Responding to a guy in a pharmacy who asks him if he's ever heard of lines, Roy replies, "Have you ever been taken to the sidewalk and beaten until you PISSED BLOOD?!" It's something you have to rewind and watch at least twelve times. He has another great Nicolas Cage moment when he freaks out about an ashtray and another when he is picking out a suit to wear. The ubiquitous Sam Rockwell and Alison "I'm not Ellen Page" Lohman are both great. I really like that Sam Rockwell every single time I see him. And amazingly, Lohman pulls off fourteen-year-old when she's only five years younger than me. Hans Zimmer provides a playful score with some Frank Sinatra cuts mixed in. This isn't a typical Ridley Scott movie, but I like a lot of what is going on with the direction and general storytelling. At times, to help the audience get into the mind of the protagonist, you get a Nic Cage cam with some jerky camera movements, animated Sam Rockwells, and close-ups or extended shots of the minutia that his character focuses on. As a character study, it's got some genuinely touching moments, and as a con man drama, it's consistently surprising and a lot of fun.

Oh, and guess what song it uses? If you guessed "Beyond the Freakin' Sea," you are correct.

Battle Royale

2000 cult classic

Rating: 15/20 (Mark: 18/20)

Plot: Forty-two students are transported to an island, given a random weapon (firearms, paper fans, nunchucks, tasers, etc.), and instructed to kill each other off. Their old teacher, "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, is there, too. I think there's something like this in the "No Child Left Behind" act.

My favorite thing about this movie: I busied my brain trying to guess how a pair of binoculars and/or a pan lid were going to come into play, and then nothing ever materialized. Battle Royale gets some points for effort. People who don't like it will tag it with a violence porn label. People who do like it will talk about it as a satire of the Japanese educational system and how society demands that children compete against their peers. And maybe I'm just desensitized to this sort of thing, but I didn't think it was all that violent. And I didn't think the satire--muddled and missing a few pieces--added up to much. There are a ton of characters in this, but the ratio of interesting characters to uninteresting ones is a problem. I liked the teacher (and Kitano [Zatoichi in the 2004 version of the blind swordsman movie]is always pretty awesome) and the crazy girl (Chiaki Kuriyama--Gogo in Kill Bill Volume One) and maybe the mean kid who doesn't get any lines. The others, including the rest of the forty-two children, aren't really memorable. I'm not sure I'm willing to sacrifice the quantity and variety of violent acts by limiting the amount of characters, but there sure were a lot of characters to keep track of in this. And, as you can probably guess, they all looked almost exactly the same, which made any subplots or connections between the characters kind of confusing. I did like that this movie wasn't afraid to show not only all those scenes of Japanese pop idols dying tragic deaths but also showing it all with a healthy dose of black humor. The action's paced well, and I liked how this explored the varying psychologies of children put in traumatic situations. This definitely lost a point because of the sickeningly melodramatic score. I have no problems watching a kid with an ax sticking out of his head stumble around on a television screen. However, I have no tolerance for bad film music.

The Little Mermaid

1989 Disney cartoon

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 18/20; Abbey: 19/20; Sophie: ?/20)

Plot: Spoiled, whiny, horny teenage mermaid Ariel has an obsession with the human world, especially after saving the life of a hunky but otherwise nondescript prince, a guy who could very well be the same prince who's in all the other Disney prince and princess movies. And frankly, that makes him a womanizer. Boy, don't try to front. I-I know just-just what you are-are-are. Lollipop, must mistake me--you're the sucker to think I would be a victim not another. But I digress. Ariel's mad at her dad, the king of the ocean, and against the wishes of her Jiminy Lobster, she gets some bippity-boppity-boo help from a maleficent but extremely hot sea witch. She's given temporary legs and has three days to get a smooch from the nondescript prince or the sea witch gets to turn her into a withered piece of poop with eyes. The catch? She doesn't get to use her voice! Oh, snap!

I believe this is regarded as a Disney modern classic, but it's really pretty. . .what's the word? Meeee-diiiii-ocre. It's the Disney people going through the motions. The animation is. . .what's the word? Reeeeeeally flaaaaaat. A possible exception might be the "Under the Sea" sequence, but that musical number really should have been a lot better than it was. I'm not sure there's a single lovable character in this. In fact, they're all kind of. . .how do you say it? Annoyyyyying stock cardboard cut-ooooooouuuuuuts. Ariel is just a cute little bundle of irresponsibility and a really dangerous role-model for little girls. Like most folk tales, the ending of this would have been more satisfying if Ariel was punished for her stupidity. A final scene with Ursula pointing and laughing and the lobster saying, "I tried to warn her, King Triton, but she just wouldn't listen to me, probably because I'm a lobster!" with Ariel turned into a really sorrowful piece of poop with eyes would have been perfect. Ariel was irritating, and I definitely liked the character more after they decided to shut her up for about a half hour. Also irritating: all the sex in this one. I believe this is the movie where Disney animators gave one of the human characters an erection. That's disturbing if you notice it, but the thinly-veiled references to sex are especially bothersome. This is really a movie about the sexual awakening of a young girl. Phallic sharks attack her, and it's hard to ignore the subtext there. Then she falls in love with Prince Handsome. Why? Well, she sees him, first from far off and then up close. It's all physical with Ariel. I can't remember if the line "I want to jump his bones, Scuttle" is actually in the movie or not, but it might as well have been. She loses her fins, gets herself a vagina (not sure if mermaids have those), and longs for sexy time with her man. There's some weird sexual tension going on with Ursula and Triton, too, and I'm not sure what that's all about. I'm sure if a Little Mermaid prequel was ever made (No, Disney people, I am not asking for this!), you'd find out that Triton and Ursula used to be an item back in fish college or something. Ursula is one of Disney's lamer baddies, by the way, but she does get the best song in the movie. Ariel's "What's the Word?" song makes me sick to my stomach. I've not thought about this from a feminist perspective, but it seems they'd have a problem with one of the movie's messages--women should just shut up and be there to look pretty. It's really a shame that the great Buddy Hackett ended his movie career voicing Scuttle, actually in the sequel to this, a movie that I can almost guarantee will never be on this blog.

Saucy!

Mongolian Ping Pong

2005 movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: In the Mongolian grasslands, young Bilike lives with his parents, older sister, and grandmother. He chills with his peeps, racing his horse against his friend's moped and occasionally playing some spirited rounds of grab-ass. One day, he finds a ping pong ball floating down the river. Only he doesn't know what a ping pong is, so the object fascinates him. He and his friend ask around. Is it a pearl, some sort of egg, something from heaven? When Dad, a guy obsessed with a carnival game that involves rolling tires to win prizes, finally gets the audio on the television working, Bilike finds out that his treasure is the national ball of China and decides it needs to be returned.

This is a charming little movie, kind of a cross between The Story of the Weeping Camel and The Gods Must Be Crazy. It's beautifully shot. The Mongolian steppe is almost as important as the characters or maybe even more important than the characters, and it's filmed in a way to make this family seem completely alienated from industrialized society. There are some great shots in this. Maybe it's just my current state of mind and my desire to be as far away from people as possible, but I would love to live in Middle-of-Nowhere, Mongolia with these folks. And I liked the story of how a simple object like this can get a child's imagination going. The pace is very slow, but instead of being dull, the space you're given helps you absorb the experiences of these children. The focus stays with the children, and it gives the story an innocence that I found refreshing. I'm not sure if any of the cast is a professional actor, but the only times things didn't seem authentic, almost documentary-authentic, were a few scenes where the children interacted with each other. The ending of this coming-of-age (sort of) story is a poignant one, the only movie I can think of that ends with a sound effect. I only grabbed this movie because I hadn't seen a Chinese movie in 2011, and I'm glad I picked this one.

Matilda

1996 movie

Rating: 9/20 (Jen: 12/20; Emma: 13/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Poor Matilda, a sweet intelligent little girl with cruel and dishonest parents. They don't want her to be imaginative, think for herself, or read books. Finally, she's allowed to go to school, but the principal of the school turns out to be even more cruel. Luckily for Matilda, she's got a wonderful and inspiring teacher. That and a special power!

My guess is that Danny DeVito was attempting to make the loudest, most irritating movie of all time. This is the type of movie that doesn't really have characters or much of a plot. It has overblown caricatures, more abrasive than comic, and some loosely connected situations for those caricatures to do stuff in. It's got the feel of one of those non-animated Disney family comedies from the 70's. You know, the ones with what was considered "comic mischief" back then, stuff with talking cats or kids who wake up with the ability to fly or something. This is based on a Roald Dahl story, generally a positive, but here, his usual macabre humor has been substituted for something mean and tacky.

And perhaps it's just me, but it was difficult for me to watch this because I couldn't stop picture the versatile Danny DeVito and wife Rhea Perlman doing it. Go ahead and close your eyes and picture that for a moment. Good for them being one of those rare Hollywood couples who can manage to stay together for so long though!

Roald Dahl seems to be Abbey's favorite author. She was reading this book which is why we ended up watching this. I'm glad she liked it.

Ivan's Childhood

1962 war movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Poor Ivan. Germans killed his parents. He attempts to avenge their deaths during World War II by acting as a Russian spy, taking advantage of his tiny frame to sneak around undetected and bring back important intelligence.

I told Jen that she had to watch this with me because I watched (survived) the painful Meet Me in St. Louis. She agreed, but she didn't last five minutes. Too bad because this is one terrific movie! I've got plans to watch all of Andrei Tarkovsky's movies this year and decided to start with this, his first. Although this maybe isn't as avant-garde as the other movies of his I've seen, there's still a lot of stunning stuff going on here, especially for a directorial debut. What you notice first is the cinematography. The black and white gives this a dreamy quality, and the locations (swamps with streaks of dark trees cutting across gray skies, dilapidated buildings devoured by war) are filmed so beautifully. Ivan's Childhood is also the type of movie that makes you think about lighting. Three or four dream sequences, including a startling bit with a truck full of apples that represents the most experimental part of the movie, give Ivan some backstory as well as bringing his character, in his current state, closer to you. The kid (Nikolay Burlyaev) is really good, a child performance that rivals Jake Lloyd's in The Phantom Menace. The ending is a real downer but just about perfect. It, along with a few other scenes, are so good that you almost have to pause the movie to pick your jaw off the floor. A real soul rocker!

Next Tarkovsky movie: The Mirror. If anybody's interested in simul-watching, let me know.

Harlow Hickenlooper: One Man, a Striped Jacket, a Straw Hat, Three Stooges, Hundreds of Pies, and Thousands of Adoring Fans

2008 documentary

Rating: n/r

Plot: A look at the life and work of Indianapolis independent children's entertainer Hal Fryar, better known as Harlow Hickenlooper. Includes lengthy stories from Fryar and a ton of old clips.

From what I can gather, a Hickenlooper fan named Steve Pyatte put this together and gave it to Fryar as a gift. It's not exactly a professional work, so I didn't feel like giving it a rating, but I'm sure glad I watched it as a Hoosier. I'm only marginally familiar with Hickenlooper, but it was great watching the 80-something year old Fryar talk about his work and his colleagues with such enthusiasm. Even though his stories were all over the place and at times almost like jokes that only he would get, the guy is so likable and excited that you want to listen to him for hours. From how he got his first television gig (a guy who played a cowboy character quit and at 6'2", Fryar fit in the costume) to working with William Shatner and Shari Lewis (both using the show as a platform to peddle their own work) to behind-the-scenes footage of his work with the Stooges in The Outlaws Is Coming! this is a wonderful look at a time and television genre that won't exist again. As Fryar says, without whining, kids living in a world where everything is automated just wouldn't appreciate this sort of thing. As an Indianapolis guy, I enjoyed seeing crackly footage of Fryar flying a kite at Brookside Park (I've disc golfed there) and walking through a haunted house at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. My favorite moment: Hal Fryar talking about how excited he was when he showed up on the set of the Three Stooges movie and seeing a chair with his name on the back of it.

As a bonus, there was some stuff about another local television personality named Sammy Terry who I remember very fondly. That guy was great! He showed terrible horror flicks and had a terrific creepy laugh.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

1953 children's musical

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Bart's piano teacher, Dr. Terwiliker, is evil. It was a common problem from children growing up in the otherwise worry-free 1950s. Dr. T's plans involve marrying Bart's mom and kidnapping 500 young boys to play a giant piano he's constructed. Hence, the 5,000 fingers. Bart gets help from a friendly plumber to defeat the nefarious Dr. T.

I guess this is the best Dr. Seuss adaptation I've seen. When your competition is the awful Grinch movie, the lifeless Horton movie, and the malodorous hatted cat movie, that's probably not saying much. I believe this is the only feature-length Theodore Geisel screenplay. In a lot of ways, it's typical 50s children film fare, something that unfortunately dates it a bit. Most troubling are the songs. They're mawkish and nauseating, and if the particular dvd player I was watching this on had a working remote control, I likely would have been forced to fast-forward through some of them. But there's a lot to like with Dr. T, too. The kid (Tommy Rettig) is pretty good, and the set design is inspired, a good non-animated realization of those typical Dr. Seuss worlds. And there's lots of set here, too. Dr. T's lair is an expansive one and there are lots of nooks, contours, and shapes for your eyes to wander over. The incidental music is also pretty good, and one music number featuring a motley crew of musicians playing Seussian instruments is really great. And like all great children's movies, this approaches a sticky but universal theme in an abstract way. In this case, the underlying themes seem to be about the insecurities and feelings that surface when your mother starts having sex with your pedophilic piano teacher.

The Butcher Boy

1997 misbehaving child movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Francie Brady tries to make the best of life despite having an insane ma and a violent, alcoholic da. At least he's got his BFF Joe. Francie and Joe, when not playing cowboys or chipping at ice in a fountain, spend their time harassing Mrs. Nugent and her son Phillip, a family guilty of nothing more than having a more normal life than Francie's got. Francie's beguiling charm and gift of gab gets him far, but it can't save him from all the tragedies that befall the Brady family and threaten to tear Francie and Joe apart.

Brutally comic and whimsically tragic, The Butcher Boy is a strangely familiar film, one that apparently inspires me to write in oxymorons. It's well written, quotable even, but you've got to make sure you watch with the captions since the Irishness makes this very nearly a foreign language film. Eamonn Owens (Eamonn? Seriously?) plays Francie, and he plays 'm well, a performance that makes you feel really guilty for rooting for or rooting against the character. Right now, I'm having a tough time coming up with a better child acting job, and he's just such a great character. Sinead O'Conner's also in this movie, playing a cursing Virgin Mary. That right there is worth a bonus point. And Stephen Rea as the dad is also very good. There are some strange moments in this, surreal ventures into Francie's gradually weakening mind that involve aliens, atomic bombs, and pigs, and there are some shocking bits of ultraviolence that will likely turn off some viewers. A lot of dark territory is covered here--alcoholism, abuse, suicide, pedophilia--but the darkness is submerged beneath a layer of marshmallow humor, something else that might offend a lot of viewers. This was the second time I saw this movie, and it's just as fresh, daring, riveting, and surprising as it was when I watched it years ago.

Orphan

2009 piece of shit

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Kate and husband John decide to adopt a highly intelligent and artistic nine-year-old Russian orphan. Kate, a recovering alcoholic, is trying to get over nearly accidentally killing one of her two biological children and a miscarriage. Things are going swimmingly until Esther, the family's new addition, begins misbehaving. She forms an attachment to John but has trouble getting along with her new mom who wonders if she might be evil. Bad stuff happens. And there's nothing more horrifying, ladies and gentlemen, than when bad stuff happens in a bad movie.

This is a Macaulay Culkin away from being The Good Son. There's also a bit of The Omen in here. In fact, the whole thing is derivative, entirely predictable in its unpredictability, and offensively bad filmmaking. You know that horror movie cliche where the filmmaker dicks around with you, letting you follow a character who is anxious or nervous and then suddenly jabbing you with a shockingly loud musical note or a noise and causing you to jump because the character has seen something scary before revealing that the only scary thing in the room is something innocent like a kitty or a child with a lollipop? If you like that, you'll love Orphan because that's a trick the director uses about ninety times. It's actually almost the entire movie. You also get some really terrible child acting, including a title character who can't remember if she's Russian or not, and several plot points that just don't make any sense whatsoever. Seriously, some of the decisions these characters make are just bewildering. There's a big big twist in this movie. Really, there had to be a big big twist because without a big big twist, nobody would care to sit through this one. But the big big twist is so stupid, crossing the line from "shocking" into "What the hell?" and forcing me, whether fair or not, to really want to kick M. Night Shyamalan right in the head. It was offensive more than anything else, an attempt to trick a reaction out of people. And that's the biggest problem with Orphan--it substitutes good storytelling, realistic character development, and genuine horror and suspense for manipulative movie cliches and lazy trickery and dickery. Trickery, dickery, dock. I really hate this movie, and I hope it's my least enjoyable movie watching experience of the year.