Speedy

1928 silent comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Ingeniously quick-thinking but sometimes ditzy Speedy has trouble holding down a job as his obsession with baseball frequently gets into the way of his duties. He still makes enough to take his gal to Coney Island. Meanwhile, a railroad company is trying to get rid of his girlfriend's father's horse-drawn trolley business, and Speedy is called upon to save the day.

Ok, I'm ready to admit that Harold Lloyd deserves to be mentioned in the same sentences as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. This is every bit as good (and honestly, probably better) than Safety Last!,and with the handful of other Harold Lloyd silent comedies I've seen this year, it's clear that he produced a body of work that is as consistently good as the other two. Speedy is fast-paced and a lot of fun even though it's a little choppy. It's really like two or three separate films. The first half spends a lot of time developing the characters and their relationships and has some very humorous, but subtle, sight gags and quiet comedy. The second half of the film deals with the conflict and is raucous and action-packed. There are street brawls and a chase scene that is absolutely amazing and as exciting as any chase scene I've seen in any more modern movie. Just the sheer amount of extras used for the second half of the film amazes me as tons of guys (one with a peg leg) engage in fisticuffs and hundreds of folks are forced to dodge an out-of-control trolley. The lengthy climactic chase scene is so thrilling and brilliantly photographed that I had to watch it twice. It was also neat to see 1920s New York with what seems to be miles and miles of streets and shots of Coney Island and its weird attractions. There's also a Babe Ruth cameo. This was Harold Lloyd's last silent movie, and the only 1920s movie I can remember where a character flips the bird.

Limelight

1952 talkie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Calvero, a washed-up theatrical clown, saves the life of fellow tenant Terry the ballerina following her suicide attempt. He helps nurse her back to health, teaches her to walk again (she couldn't psychologically), and gives her the confidence to dance. Meanwhile, he dreams of a triumphant return to the stage for one final bow. Terry mistakes her feelings for Calvero as romantic love, but the old clown knows better.

Well, I certainly expected to like this one more. Muddled by dialogue, philosophically hokey and dippily sentimental, this one just seems so talky and dated at times. Thing is, based on story and sentiment alone, this would have been a fantastic movie to end a career on for Chaplin, but he should have insisted on making it a silent movie. It could have been a beautiful farewell, and the melodrama would have been a lot easier to swallow. Chaplin won a belated Oscar for his score, but the music is actually a little too much at times. This is not to say that there aren't some good moments and some very well-written lines. "Life is wonderful if you're not afraid of it" is a terrific line. This is, by the way, the only feature film with both Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but the latter's role is very very small and you really wouldn't even know it was him unless you knew it was him.

Underground

1995 Emir Kusturica joint

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The story of Yugoslavia from the beginnings of World War II to the Cold War to the time when there's ain't no Yugoslavia no more. Marko and Blacky are underground weapons manufacturers, literally working subterraneanly. They also happen to be in love with the same actress. After the end of WWII, Marko fails to tell the inhabitants of his underground city that the war has ended, keeping them working hard on making guns and a tank while being completely cut off from the rest of the world.

I've had this movie on loan from the library (vhs) for over a year. The original due date was February 8, 2008. That's got to be a personal record. Like Kusturica's Black Cat, White Cat, this teeters on the edge of insanity and chaos, madcap and unhinged and unlike anything else out there. The social commentary is about as bleak as it can get (although the ending at least appears hopeful), but the surreal situations and slapstick lighten the load a lot. In fact, at almost three hours, this carnivalesque film is about as exciting as movies can get. I loved the off-kilter characters, and there's something that can be said for a movie that creates a guy like Marko who is doing some really evil things and still somehow manages to be hysterically funny. My favorite thing about the movie is maybe the soundtrack. It's hyperkinetic gypsy music but it's played by a band that just follows around the characters and relentlessly plays, most excitedly at the beginning while they follow Marko and Blacky's fleeing coach and during a wedding when they're crammed atop a wildly spinning pedestal. There's a density, and like a lot of movies that I wind up really really liking, I don't believe I've even scratched the surface after a first viewing. My complete lack of knowledge about Eastern European history probably doesn't help. Underground is powerful and entertaining stuff.

Buster Keaton Saturday: "The Goat"

1921 Buster Keaton short

Rating: n/a (Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: It's a case of mistaken identity as Buster, thinking he's wanted for murder, must run from cops and from ambitious men who want to collect a little reward money.

Hilarious short with some undeniably classic scenes. The action's quick, really packed tightly into this 30 minute short, and there are lots of clever sight gags. Keaton's physical genius is on display. Any time you get to spend a Saturday night with your family watching Buster Keaton being chased is time well spent. I haven't seen a lot of Keaton shorts and therefore have nothing to compare "The Goat" to, but this seemed like a strong one. My kids laughed, and that's really all that matters to me. The next Buster Keaton Saturday can't come soon enough. Heck, I might make every single day a Buster Keaton Saturday! It's my calendar, so I can do anything I want. I dare you to stop me, you sons of bitches.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

2007 family film

Rating: 11/20 (Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 19/20; Dylan: Missed 1st 20 minutes and stubbornly refused to rate)

Plot: Approaching 250 years of age and on his last pair of shoes, the title proprietor of a magical toy store is ready to leave the earth. He's passing his legacy to the store's manager, Natalie Portman. But will the departure of Magorium cause the store to lose its wonder? Can a little kid who collects hats and a workaholic accountant help save the store?

There are things I really wanted to like about this. Lots of potential. Unfortunately, it ended up looking like a strangely half-assed production, extremely predictable and trite. I'm most offended by the terrible puns and schmaltz, but there are also some special effects that were just embarrassing. The movie also jars you with whimsical but pointless dopiness butted up against forced poignancy and reflective bits of dialogue. The scene that typifies the movie? Natalie Portman's character laughs at Dustin Hoffman's character as he dances on bubble wrap for approximately twenty minutes. I'm not sure if I'm exaggerating or not, but exaggerating doesn't seem like something I ordinarily do. After that twenty minutes, different music starts up and they have a conversation about death. Then it's time for another scene, probably something involving a monkey, a giant ball, or something that is funny because it's moving around in a way that it shouldn't move around in. There's also a lack of character development that actually distorts the movie's central themes. Natalie Portman's character and the little kid don't grow; the accountant's character changes far too abruptly. I actually was optimistic about this one but it's another one of those films that is not as good as its opening credits. It really reminds me of Jumanji or, especially, the sort-of sequel Space Jumanji, and that is not even close to a good thing.

Shaolin Soccer

2001 kung-fu sports spectacular

Rating: 14/20 (Abbey: 20/20; Emma: 15/20; Dylan: 14/20)

Plot: A promising soccer superstar (Goldenleg) forced into early retirement and a kung-fu master who wants to bring kung-fu philosophies and discipline to the masses unite to form a soccer team. The latter gathers his brothers together and talks them into trying to reclaim their skills for use on the soccer field. They seem headed for a tournament victory. But, oh snap! Awaiting them in the finals of the soccer tournament is the fittingly-named Team Evil owned by none other than the man who ended Goldenleg's career. I think the owner's name is probably Mr. Evil, and his team will do anything to keep their record free of defeats. There's also a romantic subplot somewhere in this.

This is a lot of fun with tons of so-wrong-they're-nearly-right bonkers special effects and ridiculously silly plot developments. And we're once again reminded that things are cooler if fire is somehow involved. Watching the ragtag bunch of chubby or just plain dopey-looking kung-fu masters come to life and exhibit their skills is a treat despite the ultra-goofy goings-on. It's definitely original, especially if you overlook the mostly predictable plot line, and bonus points were given for the appearance of their semi-finals opponents (a bunch of women with handlebar mustaches) and the music number that was thrown in. As a full-blown spoof of American sports/action movies, this really would have smacked hard. Goofy fun.

Could this be the return of Kung-Furiday? One can only hope.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

1964 romantic comedy

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Following the funeral of Ivan's father (a tree falls on him), he meets and skinny-dips with the daughter of a family with which his family is feuding. Later, she drowns. Oh, snap! He tries his best to live a normal life and winds up marrying another woman, but can't fall out of love with Marichka, the childhood sweetheart who haunts his dreams. So, he mopes around a lot and grumbles about having to share his vodka. His wife begins practicing sorcery in an attempt to change her husband's heart, and her actions lead to a weird pagan love triangle and a drunken fight with axes. Oh, double snap!

But the plot doesn't matter. It's all about the visuals! This has been sitting around the house for a while now, and I've been afraid it would bore me. I'm glad I finally felt in the mood enough for it because it's amazing and far from boring. Seeing the rituals and daily goings-on of these Carpatian folk makes for an odd enough experience, but the experience is doubly disorienting with the visual flare of director Sergie Paradjanov, a person I've never heard of. The camera (lots of times handheld) whirls, dives, loses focus, absorbs colors, slashes, swims, swoons, floats, jerks, and dances in electrifying ways that I've never seen before. There's so much visual creativity here used to make the beautiful into something even more majestic. Loved the surreal camera angles; really, almost every single shot in the movie was artistic and strange and just about perfect. Lots of religious imagery, colors and tones, and nature stuff, no doubt symbolic in ways that I'm too dopey to even understand, add to the depth of the story and gives it a perplexing grip. This is one of those films--like The Wicker Man, Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, The Story of the Weeping Camel, and the first Inuit movie The Fast Runner (the latter which I didn't like)--that creates an otherworldliness that just bewilders. This is one of the best movies I've seen all year that nearly everybody I know would really hate.

Waxworks

1924 silent film

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A writer is hired by the owner of a wax museum to pen stories inspired his wax figures. The writer immediately gets to work, imagining himself and the owner's daughter (with whom he is quite smitten) in the fantasies he creates for a sultan, Ivan the Terrible, and a Jack the Ripper rip-off.

This is worth seeing if only for the cool expressionist sets that seem right out of Doc Caligari's cabinet. Angular and striking, a lot of the backgrounds look like they could belong in museums on their own. Color is also used well in this black and white movie, and there's some interesting multiple exposure experimentation going on in the dreamy Jack the Snipper sequence. The stories-within-the-stories themselves aren't anything to get overly excited about. Honestly, I wasn't even sure what was going on in the one with Ivan the Terrible. But this is an interesting little film that makes me want to see more of Paul Leni's work.

Me, sporting my new handlebar beard:

The Baron of Arizona

1. 1950 historical drama

Rating: 11/20

Plot: James Addison Reavis concocts a complexly intricate hoax to swindle the government and the inhabitants of the Arizona territory. After traveling abroad, eating his own horse, and manipulating monks, gypsies, and orphan girls, he's able to at least temporarily convince everybody that he has rightful claim to the entire chunk of property. This understandably makes some people angry.

More Vincent Price, this time in a more subdued role. This is one of those cases where the story is really cool but the movie doesn't work very well. It's Simon Fuller's second movie, and apparently he's still learning the trade. It's pretty blah direction with much awkwardness, a flashback structure which doesn't work and then seems to be forgotten, and that typical 40's/50's-era Hollywood music that makes everything seem more majestic than it actually is. There's clumsy voiceover narration used during the first half of the movie. With the complete lack of style and some cardboard acting, it almost makes everything else look like reenactments for a documentary. Boring reenactments. This almost begs for a remake, probably with Tom Hanks in the lead. Maybe Russell Crowe. That or they could cast Will Smith as the Baron and add a wacky CGI lynch mob and have him quote Bob Marley. That would probably work.

Future Hollywood ideas man:

The Great Mouse Detective

1986 Disney cartoon

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

Plot: Directly beneath Sherlock Holmes' pad, Basil the Great Mouse Detective resides. A little girl comes to him for assistance following the kidnapping of her toymaker father, Hiram Flaversham. Basil is reluctant to help despite the insistence of Olivia and Dr. Dawson, another mouse she met on the way. However, when he hears that his archenemy Ratigan is behind the scheme, he's ready to jump into the case. With the help of Dr. Dawson, they uncover Ratigan's scheme to overthrow the queen and take over the throne.

Despite the happy-looking Disney animals on the poster there, this one is pretty dark. There's violence and drinking and sexuality and fisticuffs in a shady nightclub. There's also a really good villain (voiced by Vincent Price) with a scary peg-legged sidekick bat. The good guy is actually easy enough to like too; he's got his faults and is not a one-dimensional hero. The film's got nice texture and tones with the animation used to depict the shadiest parts of London's underground. Action, suspense, character depth, mystery! Good Disney animation.

Here I am completely understanding why Disney would make sequels to The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Fox and the Hound, and Cinderella but not understanding why Basil doesn't at least get some straight-to-video follow-ups:

3:10 to Yuma

2007 western remake

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A one-legged-veteran-turned-struggling-farmer-barely-succeeding-in-keeping-his-family-alive volunteers to help escort a dangerous criminal and leader of the Bad Nasty Boiz to a train that will take him to prison and his inevitable execution. Following closely behind are the aforementioned heartless Bad Nasty Boiz, more than one of them flamboyant and all of them great shots. The dangerous criminal, Ben Wade, plays mind games with farmer Dan Evans when he's not too busy killing off the others escorting him.

This manages to end in an interesting way--it's obvious what happens with all of the characters, but in some way it's still an interdeterminate ending. Old-school western is very good if not great. The biggest problem with 3:10 to Yuma (and I realize that this is the silliest problem to have with a movie) is that it is too much like a movie. I liked the performances. I liked the characters even if there was nothing new and they fit molds. I liked the action even though a lot of it was implausible. I liked the sets and beautiful scenery. And I liked the story. But I wasn't sucked in enough; I was completely aware that what I was watching was a Hollywood creation. Things were too slick, too glossy, and the resolution was probably a bit too tidy. I also could have done without the guy's son even though that would have changed the story considerably.

Romans 3:10: "There is no one righteous, not even one."

The exception to the above Bible verse:

Safety Last!

1923 romantic comedy


Rating: 17/20


Plot: Harold Lloyd, played by an actor named Harold Lloyd, moves to the big city to try to climb to the top of the proverbial ladder and make it big or whatever they do in America. He leaves his sweetheart behind with the promise that he will some day have enough money to marry her so that the neighbors will no longer accuse them of "shacking up like sex-crazed spawn of Beelzebub himself!" That's how people talked back then. He struggles with a job where he spends his day cutting cloth. His girlfriend arrives, Lloyd successfully lies to her (the foundation of any good relationship) about having a much better job, and through a completely unlikely series of events, he is forced to climb a thirteen-story building for 10,000 dollars. That'll buy not only a wedding, but an awful lot of stupid looking hats, Harold Lloyd!

Note: I wonder if I should give a bonus point for punctuation in movie titles.


The story is a little hokey, but this had a lot of fun silent movie visual gags. There was also some dated stuff that just didn't work. A policeman having "kick me" written on his back and then kicked in the butt? C'mon! It's a tidy little story that ends exactly like you think it will (with Harold Lloyd plummeting to his death and his lover, so devastated, taking her own life moments later), and the acting is pretty solid for early 20's stuff, but the real greatness is in the last half hour in which Lloyd scales those thirteen stories. I can't even imagine how exciting this would have been in 1923 or how it raised the bar on movies with stunts, and the tension and thrills still work eighty-four years later. I don't want to know how it was done. I imagine tricks were used, but I couldn't detect anything askew and I know he actually climbed a building. The photography is great, and I think I actually laughed two and a half times although one of those times was because the front of my pants looked funny.


Somebody should remake Safety Last! with the main character trying to climb to the top of my hair:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

1975 British comedy

Rating: 16/20 (Dylan: 12/20--laughed a lot but he wanted more plot coherence and a better ending)

Plot: King Arthur is riding around (sans horse) with hopes of recruiting valiant knights to sit as part of his round table in Camelot. He finds Lancelot, Galahad, Robin, and some other knights of varying degrees of bravery. After deciding not to go to Camelot after all ("It's a silly place."), they are directed by a cartoon deity to find the holy grail. Along the way, they meet black knights, pyromaniac sorcerers, a castle of siren-esque castle of beautiful women, bridges of death, snooty Frenchmen, and fluffy killer beasts.

This holds up so well as screwball period comedy, dada goofballery, and nutty absurdism. There are classic scenes (and admittedly a few that fall flat on their faces) and classic lines, stuff that college kids like to quote to each other while playing Halo or doing the drugs or whatever it is college kids do these days. There's also some quality low-budget set pieces that foreshadow Gilliam's later work, and some quality acting with the Monty Python chameleons playing multiple roles very well. Removing the problems with this movie (Dylan's problems with plot development and an ending he really hated) would take away almost all the appeal, by the way. There was a time, by the way, when I wanted to slap people who liked this movie, but I've gotten over it.

This is what I look like when I laugh:

Leningrad Cowboys Go America

1989 Finnish comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The Leningrad Cowboys are a Finnish polka band who, after failing to impress a talent scout in their native land, take his advice to tour America with their shady manager. America, as it is pointed out, will listen to anything. With their frozen bassist brother atop their newly-purchased used automobile, they travel from New York to New Orleans to a wedding date in Mexico, passing by the trashiest parts of the good ole U.S.A. and playing in the dumpiest dives.

Funny bits here, but it all wears thin. They've got funny haircuts, funny music, funny lines, etc., but the Blues Brothers meets Stroszek comedy is a little flat. It's unfortunately too much like a Saturday Night Live sketch stretched into an 80-minute comedy. Jim Jarmusch cameos as a used car salesman, and the style of the film is a little like his. Mini-scenes, lots of silence. Humorous moments, my favorite being the "Is that necessary?" response of their manager after the owner of a club they want to play at asks to hear their music first. I really expected this to be better than it was and the music to be a little worse than it was. Their rendition of "Bad to the Bone" rocked pretty hard.

Note: Apparently, this is followed by sequels--Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (?), Leningrad Cowboys Go Space, Leningrad Cowboys Meet the Brave Little Toaster.

Me, lamenting the fact that I have worse (but less ridiculous) hair than the Leningrad Cowboys:

Kill, Baby. . .Kill!

1966 Italian horror film

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Inspector Kruger is in a cursed village investigating some mysterious deaths--women impaled, that sort of thing. He calls a doctor to perform an autopsy on the latest fishy death. Kruger dies, somebody else dies, another person dies, somebody else is threatened, and another person dies. A creepy little girl wanders around and touches people's windows. She just wants somebody to play catch with, and gets mad enough to kill, baby, kill when she can't find anybody. A bell rings by itself! Scary music plays very loudly. Fog comes on little cat feet. Kill, baby, kill!

This atmospheric, stylish no-budget horror film is genuinely spine-tingling stuff. Call it horror noir, reminiscent in mood of The Wicker Man. The new one, of course, with Nicholas Cage. Sure, the plot is a little goofy (although the slowly unfolding mystery is interesting), and the acting and soundtrack are pretty over the top, but it's all easily forgiven with scenes authentically creepy and stylishly artistic. Really, every single shot seems perfect--fog moves in at the exact right moments, characters situate themselves perfectly against backdrops that look like sets from 1920's German horror films, angles become disorienting and then more disorienting. Creative cheap special effects and cinematography make an uncomfortable mood. This is the first movie I've seen from director Mario Bava. It's hypnotic and beautiful stuff, and I can't wait to see more. Honestly, I'd never heard of him before, but I can see a direct influence on the work of Tim Burton or maybe even David Lynch. My only real gripe--annoying little girl laughter that I think took away some of that mood and just made things a bit too silly.

Note: This movie is also known as Curse of the Dead, Curse of the Living Dead, Don't Walk in the Park, and Operation Fear. All of those titles are just as bad (the last three make just as much sense) as Kill, Baby, Kill or, as it is also known, Kill, Baby. . .Kill!

Here I am:

Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter

1972 Mexican wrestler vs. monster(s) action flick

Rating: 20/20

Plot: El Santo, as usual in the middle of an important wrestling tournament, runs into trouble as Dr. Frankenstein's daughter, a chip off the old genius block, decides she needs his blood to make herself immortal. The serum she's been using on herself and her cronies, it seems, lacks durability. Aside from that concoction, she's also turned a man into a fiercely powerful half-man/half-gorilla and created a monster from seven different dead guys just like her dear old dad. She kidnaps Santo's shrieking redheaded girlfriend (Santo, in my opinion, could do a little better), and Santo and his girlfriend's sister run off to rescue. Will Santo defeat the monsters and make it back in time for the finals of his wrestling tournament? If you don't know the answer, you've never seen a Santo movie!

I made a rule a long time ago that any movie featuring Santo can get no less than a 20. This one doesn't have his cohort The Blue Demon in it, and it isn't quite as campy as the other Santo movies I've seen, but it's still entertaining goof. There are enough plot twists to nearly make it incoherent, so that's a definite bonus. Love the music in these, and the Santo against five bad guy action sequences are entertaining. One great scene features the hypnotized girlfriend of Santo approaching her boyfriend to gouge out his eyes after being directed by Ms. Dr. Frankenstein to do so. The eyepatched bad guy, who is supposed to be watching the proceedings, explains that it brings back the memory of him losing his own eye and is giving him goosebumps. The scenes with the monsters are hilariously stupid. Dylan (he refused to watch this, saying "You already made me watch two of these.") said, "Santo sure does get choked a lot," after turning to watch one scene. It's my dream to make a rock opera based on Santo.

Here I am, remembering my own (too short) career as a Mexican wrestler:

The Terror of Tiny Town

1938 midget musical western extravaganza

Rating: 6/20 (But as you know, I apply bonus points for certain features--puppets, nudity, Klaus Kinski, etc. This one got all kinds of bonus points for having handlebar mustaches and midgets. With the bonus points, I'd actually have to give this a 34/20. That is, if I counted it all up correctly.)

Dylan's rating: 12/20

Plot: Bat Haines, a midget villain, is wreaking midget havoc as he plots to take over the midget town called Tiny Town. In midget cahoots with the midget sheriff, he attempts to take advantage of a midget feud between two midget families. It's sort of like a Hatfield and McCoy thing. But a midget version. Meanwhile, the lovely Nancy Preston arrives in town to stay with her midget uncle. The hero, one Buck Lawson (a midget) shares a midget picnic with her shortly after saving her from certain midget death by stopping her out-of-control midget stagecoach. The midget uncle and Buck's midget father gets all up in his midget grill (sort of like a Romeo and Juliet thing...but a midget version) and the midget Bat Haines gets a chance to put his midget plan in action.

The plot, sets, acting, dialogue, action scenes, musical numbers, and almost every other aspect of this movie is typical of really bad, B-Westerns. The only difference is that the film's cast is made up entirely of midgets. And maybe some children. It was hard to tell. The only other movie I've seen with a cast of all little people is Even Dwarfs Started Small which, for my money, is a superior all-midget movie. Most of this one is straight-shootin' although there are some really terrible puns and some sight gags (two midgets playing a bass, midgets walking under saloon doors, Dylan's favorite scene involving a midget chasing around a duck). It's worth the investment just to see the midgets riding Shetland ponies around and for the midget fisticuffs during the edge-of-your-seat climax. Trust me. Movie magic!

Note: The title credits called the cast "Jed Buell's midgets". I wondered if this guy traveled around with a midget entourage. Picture that in your head for a moment. Pretty intimidating stuff.

Note: It seems that almost all of the cast of The Terror of Tiny Town were Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz which came out the following year. At least one midget had a fairly distinguished career. Billy Curtis, who played the hero, acted in over 90 television shows and movies. According to Wizard lore, Judy Garland made reference to the Munchkins as "little drunks," partially because Curtis wouldn't stop flirting with her. I don't know for sure (and neither are around to verify or discredit), but I bet he hit that.

Here's a chronological list of Billy's cinema and television credits: The Hero, Hercules the Midget, Munchkin, Midget, Midget, Midget Judge, Papoose, Bodyguard (in Hellzapoppin'), Midget, Melinda the Chimp, Major the Midget, Midget driver, Eddie a Midget, Midget in Wings, Newsboy, Vaudeville Midget, Midget, Midget, "Baby" Joe (midget), Midget musician, Dugan, Man, Midget Barker, Little Man, Captain Rudolph del Nemo, Mighty Mite, Billy Curtis (midget), Little Man, Makuba (Jungle Jim in Pygmy Island), Midget in Deli, Mole-Man, Midget in Agent's Office, The Laughing Badman, Gino, Clown, Slim (Midget Carinival Employee), Tut, Big Executive, Circus Midget Clown, Damu, One of Hermine's Midgets, Midget at county fair, Midget (The Incredible Shrinking Man), Harry Earles (Midget Actor), Super Pup/Bark Bent, Harry, Charlie McCarthy, Captain Borcher, Martian, Colonel Petite, Mascot, Monk Carter, Danny, Newsboy, Big Mike the bartender, Midget, The Man from Flush, Midget (The Monkees), Augie, Spaceman #3 (The Beverly Hillbillies), Gypsy, El Lobo-Ito, Jack O'Lantern (Bewitched), Small copper-skinned ambassador (Star Trek), Child Ape (Planet of the Apes), Edmund B. Ratner, Johnson, Lucy and Ma Parker (?), Toy cowboy, Arizona (Gunsmoke), Mordecai (High Plains Drifter), Slick Bender, Toulouse, Secret Service Man, Charlie P., Roger Robot (Laverne and Shirley), Menchkin, General Voomak, Little Person, Barnaby, Jack, Elf 2, Teddy's Voice, Reverend Lynch, and Creature. It should also be noted that Billy Curtis was the only person who ever played McDonalds' Mayor McCheese. They got rid of the character after Curtis's death in 1989. I'm thinking very seriously of trying to see as many movies with Billy Curtis in them as I possible can.

Here I am (regular-sized person):

Monsieur Verdoux

1947 black comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Following economic depression, the charming title character loses the bank job held for 30 years. Forced to find a way to support his invalid wife and young son, Verdoux starts a new business--find wealthy women, persuade them to put their finances in a vulnerable position, and then kill them. He travels via train, juggling his actual family and his numerous financial possibilities, and tries to outwit captors.

Written by Charlie Chaplin based on an idea given to him by admirer Orson Welles, this is a pretty tightly structured dramatic comedy. There are some old timey slapstick moments (rarely involving Chaplin himself and mostly involving the family of one murdered woman), but for the most part, this has the feel of something a lot more modern. The plot is similar to Kind Hearts and Coronets, possibly a superior film, but fractured in that the murderer has to drift back and forth between those he's interested in killing. The characters grow a little bit instead of just popping into the movie as props to be killed. There's not a laugh-out-loud moment in this. Instead, the humor depends on dramatic irony where a large part of the dialogue between characters takes on double and even triple meanings. Initially, I suspected Verdoux's character would suffer from being too flat, but there was room for growth, and it's brilliant how it's easy to feel both hatred and empathy for the man. I believe this is the first Chaplin movie in which he isn't the Little Tramp, and he made it pretty easy to forget that it was him in the first place. My wife didn't know when I asked her. Aside from two spots when he sort of winks at the audience through that fourth wall, there's not much Little Tramp in this at all, and his performance as the title character is really good. I also liked the photography, in particular a shot involving a staircase and another involving a door, a hallway, and a window and another involving a greenhouse. There were also a few extended scenes that managed to maintain both humor and suspense. The only gripe I have is a little preachiness at the end with an attempt to thematically tie in Chaplin's ideas (pacifism mostly, but also some really pessimistic ideas about politics and humanity including possibly his opinions on dropping the twin big ones on those poor Japanese women and children). Seemed a tacked-on stretch to make Monsieur Verdoux too much of a symbol, and the lack of subtlety was unnerving. Chaplin, by the way, was booted out of the country for his views in the early 50's, and Monsieur Verdoux flopped majestically.

Look! I watched this movie with an unpleasant stain on the front of me!

The Three Musketeers

1973 Comedy Adventure directed by Richard Lester

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A bunch of flamboyantly homosexual men grow mustaches, arm themselves with feathers and swords, and throw some kind of wild flamboyantly homosexual party where they break things and say things that may or may not have been witty in 1973. There is a flamboyantly homosexual terrorist attack involving a wagon and half a donkey. The attack, apparently at least indirectly the result of Raquel Welch's cleavage, ultimately results in all seven of the musketeers losing their boots and being forced to dance across the marble in their bare feet. They steal a computer and use it to download short fuzzy clips of Raquel Welch blowing up balloons, and the little one says to the big one, "Hey! How did your sword get in my scabbard? Eh oh!" a fair question that the big one responds to with nothing but twenty-four minutes of uninterrupted giggling. Then...flamboyantly gay swashbuckling! They pause, pile on a pair of horses (also downloaded from the Internet via an illegal horse-sharing site), and return to a castle to finish their flamboyantly homosexual party. The night and the movie end with the musketeers shaving each other.

Here I am laughing uproariously while enjoying the swashbuckling:

Meet the Robinsons

Animated, Family, Children
Rating: 11/20 (bonus point for handlebar mustache)
Plot: An orphaned kid inventor travels to the future and tries to save the world from the misguided deeds of a man with a handlebar mustache and a talking bowler.

Meet the Robinsons is a colorful film that is fun for the eyes, and these computer people are getting better at making cartoon people look more like real people. The movie is burbling with creativity, and there are all kinds of nifty structures and gadgets to see in the Dr. Seussian future--tubal and bubbly transportation, singing frogs, trampolines built into the ground, sausage cannons, etc. There's enough going on visually to maybe require multiple viewings and definitely keep a child entertained. And I'm sort of a sucker for handlebar mustaches and will always support the use of evil hats in movies.

But you see all those characters up there in the picture? Yeah, there are a lot of them. The main one (Chester or Wally or something) is in the middle with the spiked hair and the glasses. I can't remember the other characters' names either. Even though this was a computer-animated, and therefore more 3D-ish cartoonary, the characters were frustratingly two-dimensional. This, like the Dreamworks movies, tried so hard to out-Pixar Pixar, and end up with something that just looks like the product of people who have tried too hard. There's no heart and soul here. The story is really predictable and tidy and full of holes. The characters don't become real, and there's no reason to care about any of them--even Chester or Wally or something. We find out just as much about the octopus (he's a butler) as we do the guy in the back with a pizza (he delivers pizzas) and, sadly, almost as much as we do about the main character. And although there's an attempt to tie everything in thematically, and even a link to a quote from Walt Disney, it just seems forced. I can picture the writers in a room saying, "Well, Finding Nemo and Toy Story had clear morals...we better squeeze some kind of lesson into this!" The quirk machine was turned up to 11 which leaves a finished product that feels more like a rough draft, a series of gags and slapstick that never really adds up to something coherent. Weirdness was substituted for humor and good storytelling, and I just couldn't latch on.

Wife's rating: 13/20; ; Dylan's rating: 11/20; Emma's rating: 15/20; Abbey's rating: 18/20

Here's the top half of my head enjoying Meet the Robinsons: