Mansion of Madness

1973 horror movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A guy's sent to a mental institution to figure out what's going down there. What's going down is that the inmates have taken over the asylum. Shenanigans!

You would have trouble accusing this movie of at least not being interesting. Director Juan Lopez Moctezuma is one of Jodorowky's pals, and the source material is from the same Poe story that Svankmajer used in Lunacy. This movie's got chickens and chicken men, continuing in what I've decided is the Summer of the Chicken, and there are other surreal touches--mice in a cage, a man who apparently lives in a furnace, a hat and beard painted on a beard. Those details add dream color to the proceedings, keeping your eyes interesting even when the story seems to be going nowhere at all. The lovely ladies, occasionally sans clothing, do a fine job of that, too. Throw in some vegetables, perverse ventriloquism, Lady Godiva-esque horseback riding, simulated sex with a giant chunk of meat, this wacky music played during cheap-looking chase sequences, and a really sharp musical number at the crazed doctor's table. I don't know what else Moctezuma did, although it was apparently only five movies, but you can't say he had a lack of ideas. It'd be interesting to see what he would be capable of producing with a much bigger budget than he had for this, his first movie. Without it, he's still able to create a nice atmosphere although this isn't quite the horror movie that it's labeled as. It's one of those difficult-to-label movies actually.

Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon is an alternate title.

Black Narcissus

1947 nun movie

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

Plot: A group of nuns have trouble dealing with the fact that they, unlike some of their counterparts, are unable to fly. They move to the highest spot they can find to start a school and hospital for the locals. They try to get used to their new home, and one of them goes daffy!

This is a classic clash between religion and heathenism, and although the nuns go to this location to change its inhabitants, they're actually the ones who change. I think it's because they're people. I like movies with nuns even when Whoopi Goldberg or Nic Cage aren't involved. The nun who goes nutzoid is quite the hottie, like a 1940's Winona Ryder. And I'm allowed to lust after a movie nun. I've checked the Bible and couldn't find anything against that. I can definitely do it with this movie since this movie is all about sex. Well, it's partially about sex. It's as much about sex as Alien is. Michael Powell, who co-directed it with Emeric Pressburger, even claimed it was the most erotic movie he ever made. So much of the plot of this movie and its conflicts are underneath the surface, and I think that's what I like so much about it. My brother claims that there was an attempt to make the setting a main character and that it "ultimately doesn't work very well." I don't think that's the case. I think the setting is only one of the influences on the nuns' states of mind and their outcomes, and if anything non-human is the main character, it's something like faith or temptation. The setting is breathtaking though with lots of fantastic and vertigo-inducing shots, some lovely 1940's painted backdrops, and loads of color. I really liked the color in the indoor scenes, too. A couple local characters add some color, too. My brother and I both enjoyed the antics of an over-acting old woman whose name I can't find, but my favorite character was a medicine man without a single line but who kind of works as a foil for the nuns. We also both liked the costumes of David Farrar who spends most of the movie either strolling around with a pipe and too-short short pants or straddling a pony. He's got perfectly imperfect hair. Great movie, a very quiet one that has a lot of loudness underneath.

Check out that poster. "Fascinating adventure" might stretch things a little bit. But look at how ugly that thing is.

Even Dwarfs Started Small

1970 movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Inmates at some sort of institution run amok.

This was actually the first I knew of Werner Herzog because I was on a crazy quest to get my hands on bizarre movies as well as movies that had little people. I was instantly a fan. What choice did I have? It's a cast of little people! I'm not actually sure what the point of that is. Honestly, I'm not completely sure what the point of the entire movie is. I don't think Herzog's focus is broad, and I don't think he's filming anything satirical. Instead, I think this has more to do with individual psyche, a kind of duel between the part of a person that wants to go by the book and follow the rules and be normal and the part of the person that wants to raise hell and burst seams and piss fire. Herzog films this almost like it's a documentary. There are several times when the performers--all, I believe, non-professionals--will look at the camera and presumably at Herzog, sometimes like they believe they might be in danger. It gives this an odd kind of realism. At times, they do look like they're in danger, especially Gerhard Maerz who plays a character named Territory. I believe that's the little guy who was run over by a car at one point during the filming and caught fire in another scene. He's the real stuntman of the group--climbing out of a moving vehicle to the top, etc. Herzog put these little actors and actresses through some stressful situations, so stressful that he promised he would jump into a bunch of cacti following the filming. None of these actors went on to have film careers. In fact, almost all of them have only this movie in their filmography. Pepi Hermine played "The President" in this and also played the president in Downey's Putney Swope. Helmut Doring was also in Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and he's awesome in this, spending almost the entire movie laughing demonically. It's the kind of laugh that you'll hear long after the movie has ended, maybe in your dreams and maybe in somebody else's dreams. You really can't take your eyes off this guy. Doring is the tiniest of the bunch, and there's one scene where he spends about five minutes trying to get onto a bed. Of course, that's not the most interesting thing these characters do. They have a forced marriage ceremony, peruse dirty magazines, interrupt a blind duo's game, disrupt piglets' dinner, conduct an insect wedding, make a car drive in endless circles, destroy typewriters and rugs, start cockfights, have pointing contests with trees, and crucify a monkey. Other than that crucified monkey, there are other shocking and bleak moments involving animals. There's a one-legged chicken that Herzog's camera watches for a long time, a scene where some chickens play with a dead mouse, and a really disturbing scene with piglets suckling a dead mother. And the movie starts with a slow circular pan of the premises and then a shot of a chicken pecking at a dead friend. Herzog's always got great endings, and this one doesn't disappoint. In fact, it's one of my favorite movie endings ever--Helmut Doring laughing while watching a defecating camel. It's a shot which goes on way too long which, in my opinion, is just the right amount of time.

Bobby Fischer Against the World

2011 documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A look at the life and too-brief professional career of the titular chess player with a focus on his 1972 world championship match against Boris Spassky. [Spoiler Alert!] He loses his mind.

I think most people know the basics of the Bobby Fischer story, a story about a chess genius with a very troubled mind who wasn't very pleasant. People probably know all about the Cold War implications and how that 1972 match was a lot more than a series of games. And they might know what happened with Fischer following that match with Spassky in Iceland, how he alienated a lot of people, withdrew from society, made more than his fair share of racist comments, and seemed a little too happy about the terrorist attack on 9/11. This documentary on the guy isn't going to make anybody like him more, but it does deepen your understand about the guy as a human being, especially when describing his younger days growing up in New York with his mother and sister. This starts with an Albert Einstein quote that I hadn't heard:

"Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer."

And for the first part of the story, you get a portrait of a young artist at work, a picture colored with a ton of hard work and shaded with paranoia. Oh, and a little cockiness, cockiness that seems at odds with the real Bobby Fischer that we think we discover in this thing. The hard work aspect can be appreciated in the description of Fischer's athletic trainer (yes, this was a real thing) of the chess player working with a dynamometer and wanting to strengthen his grip so that "that little Russian" will be able to feel his handshake. And yes, ladies, there is a naked shot (from behind) of the chess master.

You know, I want to pause here to brag about my own chess abilities a little bit. I had a friend growing up named John, and like a lot of my friends, John had a father. His dad was a professor in the English department at Indiana State University, and I had a couple classes with him later on. John and I played chess, and I played a game with his dad once. It was a tight game that ended in a draw. The remarkable thing about that--and the thing that will more than likely impress my 4 1/2 readers--is that John's dad once played a game against Bobby Fischer, a game that also ended in a draw. Sure, that game was one of at least forty that Fischer was playing simultaneously as some exhibition of his prowess, but I don't think this changes the fact that I was just as good as Bobby Fischer.

But I digress. Back to the documentary. This is one of those documentaries where you know exactly how things end up but there still manages to be all this suspense in the little things. I've played over every game from the Fischer/Spassky match, some more than once, but I was still on the edge of my seat wondering if America was going to get Fischer to Iceland to even start the match. As a chess player, I almost wish there was more of an emphasis on the games and what happened even though that would have been frustrating for people who don't know or like the game. The match was described in a way to help you feel the psychological stuff that these players must have been going through. Of course, Fischer said famously, "I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves," but you can see how uneasy he is with everything that is happening around him during his stay in Iceland. And then Spassky spazzes out over chair and lights and radiation, and it just goes to show you how evil this board game can be. Fischer's story is one of the great "What if?" stories, and although it will likely make you ask the same sorts of questions, it will also help you understand his damaged mind and disagreeable personality a little more. I went in a little angry at the guy for his racist rants and wasted potential. By the end, I felt a little sorry for the guy. The details of his early life, a simple description (and some photographs) of how he enjoyed being around animals, and his last words were all touching. Those last words, although I find it almost impossible to believe: "Nothing is so healing as the human touch." Wow.

Silver Linings Playbook

2012 best picture nominee

Rating: 15/20 (Jennifer: 19/20)

Plot: Pat, a substitute teacher who spent a few months in a mental institution after beating up the man his wife was sleeping with, moves into his parents' attic. He tries to figure out a way to reconcile with his wife, a difficult task because of a restraining order. He meets a friend of a friend who happens to be a friend of a friend of his wife. She's got problems of her own, and the two figure out they're in a romantic comedy. Things progress from there.

Boy, was I wrong about this one. One, I assumed that I wouldn't like it, an odd prediction since it has Bradley Cooper in it. Two, I thought for sure it was setting up for a Shamalammadingdong-esque twist where protagonist Pat was just imagining all of these people. I'm still not entirely sure I want to believe that everything that happened in this movie actually occurred in the movie's reality. I want there to be something a little deeper with this story, I guess. The main character is bipolar, so I guess hallucinations or delusions wouldn't really have fit. Still, that cop who keeps popping up at just the right moments, Chris Tucker's character--the lone black man in Philadelphia, it seems--showing up inexplicably in all these places, all the pieces falling together so unnaturally. It's hard to take at face-value, isn't it? As pure rom-com cotton candy though, this is really pretty good. I really liked the performances. Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence play characters who really should be unlikable, but their performances here are a testament to how good looking they both are. I'm not sure I'd call what Lawrence did best-actress-award-worthy, but she's good and really easy to like and root for. And there are all these gratuitous shots of her posterior which the Academy Awards people must have enjoyed. Bradley Cooper might have been a little too wide-eyed at times, but he wears a trash bag better than anybody I know. De Niro and Jacki Weaver plays his parents, the latter more in the background but very funny when talking about her crabby snacks and homemades. De Niro's character is sneakily nuanced, his performance barely under control. He's good though. It's a great ensemble cast that really helps this thing swim, and the thing just was refreshingly entertaining despite the pain that some of the characters were suffering. It does kind of hit a point--the "parlay bet" scene--where things get a little too unbelievable, and after that, it all feels a little too much like a movie. Again, those pieces fall into place a little too neatly. You really almost expect that you're being set up for a devastating ending to this thing, at least for a handful of the characters. But they're all so likeable that the Hollywood endings slapped on this ends up being satisfying.

Or maybe the complete lack of a twist is the twist? That this so comfortably embraces its Hollywoodness should maybe be applauded.

Here's a twist--I'm giving movies Bradley Cooper bonus points from now on. In fact, I might do it retroactively. I'll have to find my A-Team write-up.

Simon Says

2006 crapfest

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Some college kids go camping in a remote location and are terrorized by two Crispin Glovers armed with pickaxes.

That's right, Crispin Glover fans. You get to double your pleasure with this one. And his dad, former Torgo award winner Bruce Glover, is in this, too. He stinks it up in a limited role, but not as much as his children, twins played by actual twins Chad and Chris Cunningham. It's got to be the worst acting by twins ever which isn't right because they're playing young versions of the greatest actor of all time. And speaking of Crispin, just imagine this for a moment: Crispin Glover playing a mentally-challenged character and his twin, both with accents that convince you they're both supposed to be mentally-challenged. Sometimes, especially when he's called a retard or crazy, he gets mad. His character stomps on a dog and then exclaims, "Puppy sleepy!" He delivers some of the worst puns you'll ever hear--"How about a hand sandwich?!"--and gets lines like "I like this game. Make you special present for my dream. Everybody want to play this game. Oh, I like this game" that make you wonder if it was all written that badly or if Glover was just butchering his lines and everybody went along with it because he was the only famous person in the movie. Oh, wait a second. On some covers of the dvd of this movie, it has Blake Lively's name right up there. This was before she was famous for whatever she's famous for, and she's really only in this movie for about 3 1/2 minutes. Still she's Blake Lively, somebody I've heard of! There are three other Livelys in this movie, too (possibly a Lively record) so one can only assume that somebody in the Lively family produced this.  But back to Crispin because he carries this kids-in-the-woods-with-a-killer cliche on his shoulders and turns it into a comic masterpiece. In fact, a conversation one of his characters has that ends with him yelling, "Sorry! I'm just a little tense here!" might be the most comical thing I've seen all year. Or maybe it's his prayer--"Oh, God. [Moaning] [More Moaning] Let's eat." Or his explanation of "the devil's cry." Or maybe the line "Now that's what I call a fatty!" which I can't believe hasn't become an Internet meme. Aside from Glover's decision to make this an uproarious comedy, this movie is a complete disaster. The dialogue's inane ("How a one-armed man counts his chain" might be the most pointless thing I've ever seen), the story and its characters have all the cliches that The Cabin in the Woods poked fun at, and the special effects are awful. There are flying pickaxes, an effect that not only looked completely stupid but didn't make any sense at all. That's almost topped a little later on by some fire effects. There's plenty of gruesome violence if that gets you off. And I was really confused with the twin thing. You ever watch a movie where there seems to be a twist, but you catch on so quickly that you wonder if there was even supposed to be a twist? That's kind of what happened there. I lost track of what was going on with the pair of twin Glovers, and at one point, I convinced myself there was a twist within a twist within another twist.

A well-timed Wilhelm scream makes me wonder if this whole thing is nothing but a joke. I wouldn't put it past William Dear, the director of Harry and the Hendersons.

Pi

1998 math movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A brilliant but paranoid mathematician is inspired to get a haircut after a Hasidic Jew and some stock market thugs bully him and try to steal his numbers.

You have to love a movie that gives you the same feeling you'd have if you were watching television and saw somebody standing outside your window and staring at you with bulging eyes. Like a modern update of Eraserhead but with a lot more numbers and a conflict you can taste a little better, Pi doesn't really show us anything that you'd see only in the realm of the subconscious but still manages to feel like a strange little third-person nightmare. Connecting the pieces is difficult, more so for a math illiterate, so you go with the greasy flow and feel this one. And it feels claustrophobic, troubling. Aronofsky comes out with directorial guns a'blazing, throwing tricky camera angles and other gimmicks at us to not only push his story along but to put us right inside Maximillian's scrambled head. There's just something so nerdy and poignant about the whole experience. I also loved Mark Margolis, probably because he reminded me of Patrick Magee from A Clockwork Orange. I wanted to learn how to play Go just so I could sit across the table and play with him, probably touch his knee accidentally on purpose. Aronofsky's usual themes of obsession and lives knocked out of balance by obsession are present here, and for a first feature, this seems very assured and confident albeit artsy-fartsy and difficult to completely connect with. Clint "Pop Will Eat Itself" Mansell's score perfectly compliments. A playfully nightmarish flick.

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK

2006 quirky love story

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Cha Young-Goon's family has a history of mental problems. She becomes convinced that she is a combat robot and has to be committed. The doctors desperately try to get her to eat something, but she just wants to lick batteries and watch her toes light up. She meets a masked kleptomaniac who steals her panties and tries to trick her into eating.

There's a pair of moments in this one that touched me like nothing I've seen in any other recent romantic comedy. I can't give specifics because I wouldn't want to spoil this for any of my 4 1/2 readers, but one of them involves a cork and the other involves a door. There's another scene with a yodeling Japanese guy that also nearly made me weep. As did the line "A cat is, above all, a furry animal," a bit of dialogue that probably is funnier in context. This has a free-flowing cuckoo vibe, and people will call it a Japanese One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a movie that some people refuse to even watch because it beat an inferior Jaws for Best Picture. The craziness is movie craziness with an asylum that wouldn't actual exist outside of the screen. You get characters with silly mental disorders probably used for comic purposes. They color the movie but don't really serve any real purpose, at least regarding the plot, until another kind of touching moment that takes place in a cafeteria. You get a guy who walks backwards, a woman who can only look at people in a mirror, and a variety of other characters humorously sick in their heads. I liked how this one was filmed, flamboyantly and with almost a French whimsy. It breezes on by, and although it's never really all that profound (it is, after all, a romantic comedy), it's a cute little story with some beautiful visuals. I might be in the minority here, but I prefer this one to Chan-wook Park's Oldboy.

Bunny and the Bull

2009 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Agoraphobic Stephen revisits a trip through Europe with pal Bunny by discovering artifacts from the holiday around his cluttered home. The flashbacks include visits to museums, a visit to a bed and breakfast with a stuffed bear, and the meeting of a Spanish waitress who tags along.

A road movie through a damaged subconscious. If you don't like quirkiness, have an aversion to British neo-Python absurdity, or just despise anything inventive, you can go ahead and stay away from this. Wackiness keeps the viewer from really feeling the characters. They're goofy sketches instead of fully-realized flesh 'n' blood folk, but that's probably my only real complaint. The characters are likable though. Visually, this is wild and a lot of fun, like a Michael Gondry daydream, and although I wonder if it's something that would be funny for very many people, it made me laugh a few times. The stream-of-conscious gags don't come quite as rapid-fire as in the Paul King television show The Mighty Boosh, but fans of that type of humor will have a head start here. It's not all whimsy, however, because there's this melancholic undercurrent throughout this poor guy Stephen's story, and although you don't really know how things will end up, you know there will be tragedy. What you'll remember about this is that set design though, a blend of cheap animation and live action. It never looks expensive, but it does look like a labor of love, and it's just so much fun watching the camera zoom into, around, and through some of these sets, taking the characters in all these unexpected places. I was a little stressed when I started this one, and it melted a lot of that right away. It was definitely hard not to smile while watching this one.

I Think We're Alone Now

2008 documentary

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A middle-aged autistic gentleman and a hermaphrodite have one thing in common--an infatuation for 1980's teen pop superstar Tiffany. And really, who wouldn't? This documentary explores their delusions and chronicles a meeting between the two.

I don't know. To me, this felt both exploitative and pointless. I can handle exploitative, and I can handle pointless. But I'm not sure I can handle both of those. I don't know what goal director Sean Donnelly had in giving us a glimpse into the lives of these two people. Maybe I'm just unsympathetic or something, but these two just made me feel uncomfortable and sad. We see the hermaphrodite showing off his running skills, a scene that almost convinced me that this was actually a mockumentary. Same with the scene involving the autistic guy's psychotronic helmet. This might have something to say about celebrity obsession or people with mental problems being like everybody else or something, but I completely missed it. I think I was too distracted.

Winnie the Pooh

2011 cartoon

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 13/20; Emma: 19/20; Abbey: 20/20; Sophie: too young to rate movies, especially ones this explicit)

Plot: Pooh wants honey, Eeyore's lost his tael, and Owl's got everybody convinced that a terrifying creature called a Backsoon has kidnapped Christopher Robin. It's just another afternoon in the bedroom of a terminally deranged young English boy. You just know that in a future sequel, Owl and Rabbit are going to convince him to start his classmates and/or parents. Actually, where are his parents in these movies? Somebody better check the freezer!

This is not your parents' Winnie the Pooh cartoon! No, in this one, Pooh Bear is disemboweled in what has to be the most horrifyingly grotesque scene this side of one of those Saw movies. Actually, this isn't a carbon copy of the older Disney Pooh material at all. It shares a love for childlike songs, endearingly simple and nostalgic animated backgrounds and characters, a wonderful playfulness, and sweet little stories. It actually does some things better than the original. It blends its stories, some from Milne's text and some created specially for this, really well, perfect for the no-attention-span of modern kiddos. The 2D animation doesn't look as flat as the characters weave in and out of their settings. And this is a whole lot funnier than the original with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. This new Pooh's got a wackier tone that is different from its predecessor while not disrespecting the previous stories or its source material. (It should be noted that my wife, a Pooh aficionado, did seem offended by a lot of the goings-on here.) I also really liked the voicework despite having to initially get used to the slightly-different-sounding character voices. Some guy named Jim Cummings, an actor with a resume packed with versatile voice acting roles, does both Pooh and Tigger. We recognized Bud Luckey, the depressed clown in Toy Story 3, as (of course) Eeyore. Luckey's more of an animator than an actor, but he could make a career out of voicing depressed characters. Checking imdb.com, it looks like he's got a handful of roles on the animated horizon--suicidal monkey, despondent puppet, moody Amish guy, heartbroken octopus. One of my favorite people, Craig Ferguson, is perfect as Owl, and John Cleese should win some kind of award for not making me miss Sebastian Cabot. I didn't care much for the songs in this one although there were some clever lyrics. Pooh's a briskly-paced barely hour-long breezy flick that's great for young children and funny enough for older ones. And it might help Disney make a buttload of money with children's clothes and stuffed animals, so everybody wins!

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

1977 mass murderer animated biopic

Rating: 16/20

Plot: All his neighbors said that he seemed so normal, but young Christopher Robin had more than his share of dark secrets. It all started with an unhealthy attachment to a stuffed bear which he called Pooh. Pooh was purchased with pants, but Christopher Robin, one afternoon when playtime got a little out of hand, removed and set them on fire along with his own. That should have served as the first warning for his parents. Classmates would laugh at Robin and his "silly old bear," and his elementary school teachers would say, "Christopher Robin, I've told you before to keep your Pooh out of here!" His peers would laugh and point, and eventually something inside of young Christopher snapped. He assembled a small army of deadly stuffed animals and embarked on a murderous rampage of revenge during which many of the classmates who ridiculed him would wind up eviscerated. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh chronicles his early life.

Disney does English kiddie lit really well, previously evidenced by their extremely erotic version of Mary Poppins. Now there's a movie that makes me horny just thinking about it. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh fails to make me horny (at least not anymore), but I still think it's an underrated Disney classic. It's obviously animated with a limited budget, but I think that adds to the charm. It's simple and extremely innocent, just like its source material. A.A. Milne's stories are great on their own, so Disney didn't really need to sprinkle too much of its magic all over this and overly complicate things (see the cgi Winnie the Pooh animated television series). The voice work is wonderful, especially Sterling Holloway as the titular bear and Paul Winchell as Tigger. After the feature, there was a little documentary where you get to see Winchell doing the Tigger voice. I'll admit that that footage DID make me a little horny. I really like how Tigger says rubber. "Their legs are made out of rubba!" Oh, and Ron Howard's brother Clint does the voice of Roo in this. I also like Sebastian Cabot's playful narration. The narrator and characters talk to one another which, even as a kid, I thought was kind of neat. This movie also frequently reminds the viewer that it's from a book, using turning animated pages and words cleverly. You get to see Pooh hopping on words or flying on a balloon from one page to the next. There's some music, simple childish music that kind of gets stuck in your head. I'm not sure how I feel about the Pink Huffalumps on Parade sequence that was straight out of drunk Dumbo's subconscious or the added gopher character who just seems extraneous. I asked Jen, "Why's that thing in this? He's not in the book." As if on cue, the character said, "I'm not in the book." I guess that's kind of funny.

Dang it. Why did I have to mention Mary Poppins? Now I won't be able to get anything done all day.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

1975 movie that should be on everybody's top-500 list

Rating: 20/20

Plot: McMurphy is lazy. Unfortunately, he's also a criminal and has to serve time in prison where they'll make him work. But he's got a plan--pretend to be insane so he can be transferred to a mental institution and serve out the remaining days of his sentence without having to work. He adds a little chaos to the gentle existence of the asylum, changing a few inmates' lives for better or worse. He also finds an enemy in the head nurse--Nurse Ratched.

I could have sworn that this came out in 1973.

First off, I'd like to point out that I don't see Nurse Ratched, stoically played by Oscar winner Louise Fletcher, as the real villain. She's a bit passive-aggressive maybe and gets on McMurphy's nerves, more as a symbol or maybe as a woman than through anything she actually does, but it's not like she's outrageously malicious or anything. McMurphy's biggest antagonist is himself, and each time I watch this, I see Nicholson's character as a failed Christ figure who, although he does do his part to save a soul in the end, ends up getting in the way of himself as he tries to do fulfill whatever mission he might have. He takes his "disciples" fishing, retiring to the bowels of the stolen ship in order to have sexual relations with a woman (don't think Jesus did that), and botches a few miracles. Jack's electric in this, really one of my favorite acting performances ever. I love the last moments of the big going-away party at the end when McMurphy sits and waits for Billy to finish doing his business. There's an extended shot of just Jack's face, and his expressions in that fifty seconds or so show loss, optimism, fear, indecision, happiness. Amazing stuff. But the ensemble cast around Nicholson is also great, portraying these crazies in a way that doesn't blow them up into comic figures (though there is plenty of comedy here) but creates these very human moments where you really feel the characters' pain. Observe that first therapy session--you have the circle of guys who can communicate, eventually fit in with society again, or whatever surrounded by all the lunatics who will never fit in again, the ones who stand in the background staring at nothing, hit a punching bag with a cane with a persistence that makes him almost a hero, or elegantly dances to the music in his head. I really like the expression on Harding's face when he realizes that nobody will help him with his problem. During that entire scene and probably all the conversations the "group" has, director Forman uses close-ups and distance shots perfectly. Danny DeVito (I'm counting him as a little person, by the way) is really good as Martini, William Redfield could easily have won something as Harding, Christopher Lloyd plays ornery and angry so well as Taber, and Brad Dourif and his Lyle Lovett-esque hair are heartbreakingly good as Billy and Billy's hair respectively. And Will Sampson is unforgettable as the Chief. I love that scene where he's striding across the court during that basketball game, the first time his character shows any personality whatsoever. He says so much for being a mute. I also like the nurse who is always with Nurse Ratched but whose only line is a lengthy scream near the end of the movie. When I saw this movie as a youngster, its themes of conformity and freedom resonated. I think it's captured best in the looks on the inmates' faces when Nurse Ratched asks, "Did Billy Bibbit leave the grounds of the hospital?"

Now, let's see why this isn't on Cory's top-500 movie list.

Marwencol

2010 outsider artist documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Mark Hogancamp was severely beaten outside a bar by a few thugs. He wakes from his coma brain-damaged and traumatized and instead of dealing with a complicated real world that he can't control, creates a World War II town called Marwencol with soldier action figures and Barbie dolls that he can. Elaborate stories of romance and adventure develop in Marwencol, and Hogancamp photographs it all. Eventually, his "art" is discovered, and Hogancamp gets to show off his world at a New York City art show.

If you enjoy outsider art or stories about outsider artists like me, Marwencol's definitely a movie you should check out. It's the lone film of director Jeff Malmberg (although I do see film editing for fine works of art like The Hottie and the Nottie is on his resume) and he does a fine job giving us Mark's story objectively. The more Hogancamp's character develops in Marwencol, the stranger he gets, but Malmberg passes no judgement and it's obvious that his subject trusts him and considers him a friend. And I think that's what makes this so good. Hogancamp lets Malmberg into his little world, and we get an intimate look at both the little world and at its creator. Details about the latter (how he walks his army figure's Jeep every day; his love interests; some odd little surprises near the end) are interesting, but this movie's got another layer when the plots and subplots in Marwencol are shared. A lot of those reflect how Hogancamp sees his reality and how he deals with the trauma and the loneliness he feels after the attack, but they're also cool little fictions, the sorts of stories that Tarantino could probably tell really well. A third layer deals with Hogancamp's introduction to the world as an artist, something I'm not sure he's entirely comfortable with or really even cares about. It raises those questions about the purity and purposes of art. There's no denying that he stills of his characters interacting in Marwencol are pretty awesome though. I'm really really glad that Hogancamp shared this world with Malmberg and that Malmberg shared it with us in this great little documentary, a fascinating glimpse at a troubled mind and the very positive way that those troubles are dealt with.

Hogancamp's pictures:

Mary and Max

2009 cartoon

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Lonely 8-year-old Australian Mary befriends lonely autistic Jewish New Yorker Max after randomly pointing to his name in a directory and writing him a letter. They have the Noblets and a love of chocolate in common, and apparently, that's enough. They're pen pals for twenty years.

So there's a glut of animated movies these days--the traditionally-animated, the computer-generated stuff, other styles like that disturbing rotoscope stuff used in The Waking Life and those commercials. My favorite, without a doubt, is claymation, and since Mary and Max is a beautiful example of that technique, you're probably going to wonder if there's some bias. Probably. However, I did watch this twice just to make sure. What I noticed the second time--there certainly is a lot of farting in this movie. So if you're a fan of both claymation and farting (I consider myself an aficionado of gassy emissions humor), you'll probably love this. It's more than just farting though. This is one of those types of animated flicks that captures humanity much better than actual actors can. Max tells us that humans are "complicated souls," and I just love how simply Adam Elliot's little movie describes the key to surviving in a really ugly world with some really ugly people--find somebody beautiful to cling to. The claymation is stunning and enhances the storytelling. The settings are stark, bringing the focus to the two characters. Mary's Australia is colorful but bleak, littered and scabbed and occasionally dangerous. Max's is bleaker because it's mostly without color, just splashes of red to interrupt the grays and darker grays. His New York is as grotesque as the big city in The Triplets of Belleville and humorously almost vacant. There's a homeless guy, a woman who zips by on a scooter a few times, and a punk rocker who reappears, but the New York streets are otherwise empty. Their worlds have ugly and mean in common, but their relationship, although borderline creepy/inappropriate, makes them livable. Mary and Max is insanely funny, filled with ideas that seem torn from Roald Dahl's notebooks and quirky Amelie-esque narration and tangents. Watching this a second time, I noticed a lot of funny little details. The movie is also very touching. There are holes in each of the characters' biographies, but you really get to know them in this intensely intimate way, and you feel their ups and downs deeply. I also appreciated the very realistic and touching portrayal of Aspergers. This is a beautiful looking and beautifully-constructed little movie that further supports my belief that 2009 was the best year for animated movies. As always, I've put almost no thought into that belief. I don't have to put much thought into whether I love this movie or not though.

My favorite scene has a mime in it.

One more 2009 animated feature to watch, the French A Town Called Panic that looks like it could be a religious experience.

Big River Man

2009 documentary

Rating: 17/20 (Dylan: 20/20)

Plot: Fifty-four year old Slovenian national hero Martin Strel has swum the Danube. He's swum the Yangtze. And he's swum the Mighty Mississippi. Now it's the Amazon's turn. This documentary covers his 66-day swim of the almost 33,000 mile river with the help of two bottles of wine a day and a funky mask. Along the way, he loses his mind and enters the 4th dimension.

I learned a lot about Slovenia from watching Big River Man. They enjoy horse burgers there. Horse burgers are a little like chicken burgers but made from horse. Slovenia itself is shaped like a chicken. Slovenia is the DUI capital of the world. There's a "Learn the English Language" recording that teaches Slovenians to say "I am a drug dealer." This is a documentary you'll watch and wonder if it's real or not. Strel seems fatter than life, and the film just seems too funny to be legitimate. In fact, Dylan and I stopped watching this to do a little research and found out that the guy is real and has completed these amazing swims. He's just got more than the average amount of crazy, the type of fellow that Werner Herzog wouldn't mind following around with a camera for a while. This documentary blends hilarity and adventure so well. You get the impression that Strel's navigator, a guy with no real training in navigation, and Strel himself are hamming it up a little for the camera as they gradually lose their minds, but there's something eerie as well as hilarious in the way the swimmer's mind is completely gone in the last stages of his Amazonian swim and in the time following the feat. I still have no idea what he was talking about when he claimed he had entered and was stuck in the fourth dimension, and there are great scenes where he fashions a goofy mask to protect the skin of his face from the sun, runs off with his navigator and is later found naked and unresponsive on a beach, smears mayonnaise on his head and tries to use jumper cables to electrocute parasites that have attempted to burrow into his skull. He also references an Amazonian penis fish that enters the body via the urethra. And when they do, according to Strel, "no more penis." This is an adventurous journey into dementia with some nice hippie environmental messages built in, and it's one of the most bitchin' documentaries I've seen in a long time.

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.

Idioterne (The Idiots)

1998 Von Trier joint

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Karen, a woman looking for answers and meaning in a life full of questions and futility, flees that life and joins a group of pretentious radicals calling themselves The Idiots. Led by the megalomaniacal Stoffer, they go out in public and "spazz," their term for acting like they are developmentally disabled. They make scenes in restaurants, during tours of insulation factories, at public pools, in the woods, and elsewhere. As they search for their "inner idiots," Karen tries to figure out what's going on and whether she belongs in the group or not.

First off, the self-important Lars Von Trier makes it very difficult to like his movies. He filmed this one as part of Dogme 95, an avant-garde filmmaking movement. And I expected to watch it and be reminded of a bowel movement. I don't want to spend too much time with this, but the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" includes the following rules, almost all of them strictly enforced for Idioterne:

1. On-location filming. No props.

2. No sound effects or music.

3. Hand-held camera.

4. Color but no special lighting.

5. No optical work and filters.

6. No "superficial action" (murders, weapons)

7. "Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden."

8. No genre.

9. Not widescreen.

10. No directorial credit.

Add to all of this pretentious artsy-fartsy nonsense the fact that this is a movie about people acting like they're mentally challenged, and I fully expected to kind of hate this movie. I really did. Instead, I unequivocally loved it. I honestly finished the movie and thought it was a real documentary about people who really did this. That's a testament to how great both the "story" and the acting is, the former not seeming written at all, natural and free-flowing, while the latter is the amongst the most realistic I have ever seen. At the center of this movie is Karen and her struggles although for most of the movie, she meanders around the edges of the group and has one of the least dynamic personalities of the idiots. But the action unspirals, the group's ideals are shattered, and we're left with Karen at the end, returning to her home and finishing the movie with an absolutely stunning moment that nearly made me cry. And that's strange because the majority of this movie is about as weird as anything I've ever seen. There are lots of funny Borat-like moments where the idiots interact with the unsuspecting public, but they're all moments that'll make you feel guilty while you laugh at them. That's probably Von Trier's jerky intent, making the audience uncomfortable, forcing us to leave our skin and dance around in our bones. The dogme rules don't exactly make this a comfortable experience either, and some shocking nudity and an even more shocking, and extremely graphic, orgy scene also force the audience far out of the comfort zone. Watching this without being affected in some way is impossible, and I think different people will grab different things from Idioterne. It's definitely not for everybody; in fact, I'm not sure it's for very many people at all, and a lot of people . For me, it's a shockingly original and amazing movie experience.

One Nation Under God

1993 gay documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Homosexuality was considered a mental disorder until 1974 when that was corrected by psychologists. A lot of ultra-conservative Christians didn't get the memo apparently. This documentary is about the religious right's attempts to cure homosexuality.

There's a rambling, sort of unfocused structure to this combined with an ending that gets far too preachy, but this is still a fascinating and fairly scary look into Christianity's attacks on gays. On the surface, it looks subjective enough, featuring interviews with both sides and no heavy-handed narration, although it's pretty clear where the makers stand on the issue. A lot of the spotlight is on Gary and Michael, two formerly cured gay men who worked as part of a gay-curing organization called Exodus International who later somehow uncured, probably because the devil got to them. There are other insightful interviews and a lot of neat footage showing the variety of angles taken to get rid of the homosexual desires. The cover alludes to A Clockwork Orange, and that's actually an accurate comparison. A psychologist telling a man to pleasure himself to a picture of whatever until the moment of climax when the picture could be substituted for that of a naked woman? Attempts to associate physical pain or sickness with images of scantilly-clad men? Giving butch lesbians makeovers to make them feel more feminine? Geez, Louise! Simultaneously funny, educational, and horrifying.

The Mad Monster

1942 mad scientist/monster movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: A wacky scientist, ticked off at the rest of the scientific community for scoffing at his ideas, finds a way to turn a mild-mannered, extremely dopey handyman into a bloodthirsty, sort of dopey wolf man.

I was thinking that George Zucco made a pretty good mad scientist, so I looked him up. He acted in 98 movies from '31 to '51. In 20 of those movies, he played a character named Dr. _____, an average of one doctor role per year. In a handful of others, he played a professor. He played 8 different doctors from 1941-43. That's almost three doctors a year! Anyway, his acting in The Mad Monster wasn't any good, but it was still probably the best thing about the movie. This is a frequently dull B-movie with a derivative plot and goofy dialogue. If you pay attention and generally enjoy this sort of thing, you might be entertained by some really poor lighting and some repetitious set use. The monster's inconsistent coiffure is also pretty fun. The monster itself is actually less entertaining than the dopey gardener alter-ego who is just unbelievably dumb. I mean, I can suspend disbelief and accept that a guy's been turned into a wolf man unleashed to do an evil mad scientist's bidding, but I couldn't believe a person could be as dumb as this gardener. Too bad Universal's The Wolf Man came out in 1941; otherwise, this could have been the definitive wolf man movie.