Animals Are Beautiful People

1974 nature documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A look at life in an African desert.

Jamie Uys, director of The Gods Must Be Crazy, made this thing. Paddy O'Byrne narrates these animal antics, and there's a sense of humor that keeps this thing fresh and entertaining. That and the remarkable lives of these animals who have adapted to survive in a harsh climate in fascinating ways. There are a lot of beautiful things to see here, and at times, with the visuals put to a largely classical score, this out-Fantasias Fantasia. Of course, a lot of things in nature are beautiful only because they're kind of ugly and a lot of things in nature are beautiful because they're unusual. Both of those apply here. There are great lessons in this for actual people--not just animals who Paddy O'Byrne calls people. Watching the guide bird and honey badger's symbiotic relationship is amazing, showing the capabilities of species when they team up. Uys uses a lot of added sound effects, mostly for humor, and some very cheap visual effects, but this is mostly the result of filming animals for several years and then piecing it together in a narrative. And you get to see things you wouldn't otherwise get to see. I'd love to have the life of a the bird who spends 95% of his life just standing around like a stuffed bird. There's a scene where an ostrich chases a monkey followed by a guy acting like an ostrich. There are drunk animals, birds crapping out of tree slits, colorful worms, hiccupping worms in dancing seeds. I do feel sorry for the hyenas though. Paddy O'Byrne really trashes those guys. One of my favorite scenes had actual humans, bushmen teaching their children about animals by using pantomime. It was captivating, probably something I could have watched for an hour. This is one of the more entertaining nature documentaries that I've ever seen, and it manages to beat a trip to the zoo where you actually get to see some these guys up close.

Cane Toads: An Unnatural History

1988 documentary

Rating: 15/20 (Lance: 2/20)

Plot: In an effort to battle cane grubs that were ruining crops, the titular toads were brought in to Queensland. They didn't do much to get rid of the grubs, but they did reproduce like crazy and are now ubiquitous and, for a lot of Australians, annoying.

Lance earned himself a detention which, because I'm too lazy to turn in paperwork, ended up being in my room. I'd had this for about a week, and it was the third time I had a copy from Netflix. The other two discs were cracked. I had to watch it and get it in the mail, so I let Lance watch it during his detention. Since there is some pretty graphic cane toad sex, I probably shouldn't have. And this is now, believe it or not, the second time I've shown a video featuring necrophilia to eighth graders, so it's surprising that I still have a job. Toad necrophilia, and the kid only gives it a 2/20?

This starts like a typical documentary, but there's a lot of weirdness here. The interviewees have lines like they think they're in a  Christopher Guest movie, stuff about getting "those cane grubs by the balls." I liked a scientist who, right before he popped one of the toads poison sacs to demonstrate the cane toads' poison sacs, said, "You should wear glasses if you're going to engage in this kind of behavior." He also warns that "children being what they are will probably put them in their mouths and suck on them." Another odd character smokes the toad poison, claiming that it allows him to see the world through the eyes of the toad. Another guy imitates the toad's courting noises and claims, "I've had 'em try to mate with my foot." He also reminds us that cane toads can't fly and almost, I think, starts laughing. Speaking of their mating sounds, one guy really likes these toads, especially that sound. He's almost in tears while talking about these things. A reference to Lady Diana and Prince Charles and a gift of a toad-skin-bound book, a failed attempts at a statue, a staged sequence with a guy showering that is edited Psycho-esquely like a horror movie, another staged scene with "Edgar," a dead cat story, a stuttering guy talking about goldfish, and other oddness make this a fun little documentary about something that I actually have no interest in. Oh, and there's a scene where a cane toad eats a mouse that had me pumping my fist. The scene in my room was like this:

Me: Oh, yeah! He's going to get him!
Lance: [silence]
Me: He's going to get him! Come on! Come on!
Lance: [silence]
Me: Eat him! Come on--get him! Here it comes!
Lance: [silence]
Cane Toad: [Gets him]
Me: [Fist pump!] Yeah!
Lance: There's something wrong with you.

Frogs

1972 enviro-horror

Rating: 4/20

Plot: All this wheelchair-bound rich old guy wants to do is throw a party. The wildlife on his island is sick of people, however, and decides to get rid of them. Several people croak.

This is far from the movie about mutant frogs killing people that I thought it would be. No, this is more like just-regular frogs standing around watching other animals kill people. Would I lose all credibility as a movie blogger if I told you that I kind of expected this to be a hidden gem? I mean, it's got Sam Elliott in it, and surely he wouldn't be in a crappy movie called Frogs that isn't really even about frogs, right? The cast in this is terrible, almost bad enough to make it seem like they're all competing for some kind of Worst Actor of the Year award. Adam Roarke, as "Clint" (that's a name I almost always put in quotes unless I'm talking about Eastwood), doesn't even try, especially any time his character is on a boat. When he asked Sam Elliott near the beginning of the movie, "How are you at badminton?" I could have sworn he was high. But his performance might be topped by Ray Milland, a guy who's acting like he wants everybody to know that he's a master Thespian (note the capital T) even though he's in a movie about killer frogs. Want thrills? You're not finding them here. This one's about as suspenseful and/or horrifying as a trip through your average zoo's reptile room. Les Baxter's knob twiddling synth score doesn't help at all. The makers of Frogs didn't really need a famous name like Les Baxter to do the music for this. A baby or a drunk chimp could have handled the score for this one. Or a frog! The death scenes are really silly. In a preview of this movie, it shows a lady in quicksand, but the scene wasn't in the movie. I investigated and found out that they cut the quicksand scene because they deemed it too silly. That was too silly? The scene were the guy Plaxico-Burresses himself in the leg isn't too silly? The woman with the butterfly net turning blue seconds after a snake attack isn't too silly? The superimposed birds that are only slightly better than the special effects from Birdemic: Shock and Terror aren't too silly? The death by turtle and crab isn't too silly? I still don't know how a slow-moving turtle manages to kill a woman actually. I will say this: the last five minutes featuring a character and (finally!) a bunch of frogs is actually really good. Shots of stuffed animal heads, a frog-filled library, some amphibian record scratching. It's good, and so are the credits, silent except for a bunch of ominous croaking. Of course, croaking was omnipresent throughout the story.

If you're in the mood for a lame horror movie with an environmental message from the 70s, I'd recommend Day of the Animals before this one. That one's got Leslie Nielson's nipples in it.

127 Hours

2010 dumb guy movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Cocky thrill-seeker Aron Ralston goes on a little hiking adventure through some familiar canyons in Utah and finds himself trapped and completely alone after a freak accident that wedges his arm between a large boulder and a canyon wall. He spends a harrowing few days trying to figure a way out of the predicament and survive.

This could almost be a cell phone service provider commercial. After a few hours, Ralston could reach in his backpack and grab a phone only to find out that he doesn't get service way out in the middle of nowhere. Then, the guy with glasses could peek out from the top of the canyon and say, "What? No bars? Sucks to be you!" and then take off laughing hysterically.

Franco's performance is really good here, and I don't usually buy his characters in movies. I like him, but not so much as an actor. Here, he plays the lone-character-trapped-somewhere really well, and his initial panic and the ensuing mental breakdown is believable. This was certainly a pretty movie to look at, the camera taking in all these beautiful canyons, probably my favorite sort of movie landscape. The early parts of the movie with Franco running all over the place almost reminded me of a more hyperkinetic Gerry, that Casey Affleck movie where he and Matt Damon wander aimlessly and call each other Gerry. You ever see that one? I don't think anybody going into this will be surprised by the outcome. It seems like everything I read about this movie spoiled it within the first paragraph. It doesn't make the scene where 90% of him escapes his fate any less dramatic though. Franco's got an odd physicality with this role. He's stuck in one position, but he does a great job of somehow conveying a lot with body language and facial expressions anyway. I'm not sure I always like what director Danny Boyle's doing in this. It's that sort of modern direction that seems influenced by music videos and a lot of what Boyle does in this and his other movies just seems very plastic, but I do like the little camera and editing tricks that allows the audience to experience the mental anguish and breakdown that the character goes through. That includes one of my favorite movie moments of the year which involves Scooby Doo. All in all, this is a gripping hour and a half that, in the wrong hands, could have easily seemed like 127 hours. Better than I expected for sure.