Monsters University

2013 prequel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is It?

2005 movie

Rating: n/r (Mark: n/r)

Plot: A snail murderer wrestles with himself.

According to the credits, "This film has not advocated the assassination of Steven Spielberg in any way."

My brother and I made the trip to Bloomington to see Crispin Glover again. He showed us slideshow versions of eight of his novels, showed this first movie of the "It" trilogy, and then verbosely sort-of answered some questions. He had a beard this time.

I love this man. I really do. I have a feeling that people think I'm just joking around when I go on and on about him, but I think he's a borderline genius and one of the most interesting of Hollywood people. Having said that, his performance in this is about the worst part of the movie. He and his hair (or possibly wig) are distracting, and being distracting in a movie like this is an impressive feat. So what kind of movie is this? It's oddball avant-garde, cheap but fanciful and full of ideas, and a lot of people are going to find it downright offensive. It takes place, from what I can tell, on at least three levels of consciousness, years before Leo and his special effects team did it in Inception. The cast is made up mostly of unintelligible actors who have Down's Syndrome. There are references to Shirley Temple and Nazis, sometimes at the same time. There are cheap puppet shows. One character, the one who tells us that he's Michael Jackson, is in blackface. One scene right after Crispin Glover's character--either Dueling Demi-God Auteur or The Young Inner Psyche and Id since he plays both--floats in with what has to be one of the best special effects I've ever seen features a Cabbage Patch Kid, the playing of a song that uses the no-no n-word and is mostly about how black people smell, and a naked black woman in a monkey mask manually pleasuring Steven C. Stewart, the guy with severe Cerebral Palsy who wrote and starred in the second film of the "It" trilogy. Yep, that's the kind of movie this is, and if you're not in the right place mentally to see any of that, you should stay away. As I've mentioned many times on this blog, I like my avant-garde or experimental films best when they're a little goofy or at least humorous, and I did find parts of this really funny although I stifled laughter because I didn't know how the woman sitting next to me felt about the whole thing. I mean, I already came in with the guy who had smelly hair, so I already had one strike against me.

I can't pretend to know exactly what this is (pun, I guess, intended) or what Glover is wanting to say, but it's a movie that sticks with you and makes you think which is one of the director's intended goals. It's far from a perfect movie and, in fact, appears to have been filmed in Crispin Glover's backyard or basement, but at the same time, it is unique and almost pretty special. My brother and I are refusing to rate the thing because we're a couple sissies. I neglected to ask everybody else in the theater.

By the way, this is now easily at the top of my list of "Best Shirley Temple Movies" right ahead of The Littlest Rebel.

Django Unchained

2012 spaghetti blaxploitation flick

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: A dentist-turned-bounty-hunter buys the titular slave in order to hunt down some white guys. Django does such a good job, that the bounty hunter decides to work with him throughout the winter and then agrees to help him locate his wife Broomhilda. That leads to lots and lots of violence.

Tarantino blends genres effortlessly and gloriously. Here, you get historical drama mixed with Italian Western with a pinch or three of blaxploitation, and I'm really not sure there's ever been another director who could put all that together so well. Being part-spaghetti, you might expect meandering with some bits drawn out enough to try most people's patience. Of course, Tarantino does that anyway. This does meander and go a few places that I might--upon further viewings--wish it didn't. From my theater experience--rare enough that I often have to curb my enthusiasm--I can tell you that I enjoyed every single minute of this bloated near-masterpiece. The movie looks beautiful, individual shots that you could probably show somebody and trick them into thinking they came from a Leone movie. A Wild West town drowning in mud, a few plantations, lots of good interior shots with what might be accurate period details. I'm not sure where any of this was filmed, but it was all great to look at. And with Tarantino, you expect certain excesses--blood, cursing, the n-word, and dialogue. This doesn't disappoint there if you're type of person who would be disappointed by a lack of those. The dialogue's rich and often funny, and the violence is quite possibly even more ridiculous than the House of Blue Leaves sequence in Kill Bill. It was definitely more shocking for me to see all that red, and I really wasn't aware that guns in 1858 were capable of making people explode. It felt weird to let out a little chuckle during one out-of-control shootout scene when an already-shot-to-death villain gets shot in the crotch again. Tarantino's boldness with inserting humor in all this violence and in a topic that there's really nothing at all funny about definitely helps this stand out, gives it that unique feel that makes Tarantino's movies so rewarding and special. It's all those minor touches. That wobbling tooth-on-a-spring makes me laugh just thinking about it. (Note: It's an LOL, not a real laugh.) And there's a scene featuring the Klan (or some sort of Klan prototype--I don't know their history) that might surpass the one in O Brother, Where Art Thou? as my favorite KKK movie scene ever. That's difficult to pull off even if Jonah Hill isn't involved. There are all kinds of funny asides that make me want to see this again. The characters' interactions are often troubling, of course but they sometimes manage to be both humorous and troubling at the same time. The actors portraying these characters at times make them seem like caricatures, but they do a terrific job making them semi-realistic, completely entertaining, and most importantly just fucking cool. Jamie Foxx gives a perfectly quiet performance as the hero, but he's not helped by how completely awesome Christoph Waltz is as Dr. Schultz. This guy's one of my new favorite movie heroes ever, and although a lot of it is how the character is written, a lot of it has to do with Waltz. I think it's because he kind of sounds like Werner Herzog. DiCaprio's good enough as the villain although he might be a bit too pretty. Prettiest villain in any spaghetti Western probably. There is a really intense scene that Leo pulls off really well, however. Tarantino-regular Samuel L. is also great in a much-different role. He's very funny here. And there are loads of filthy ruffians and rough-faced thugs that look like they came straight off the set of a late-60's Italian western, all craggy and with skin that looks well lived in. Also typical of a Tarantino movie--you're going to notice the music. You do here, too, and I loved hearing a lot of borrowed Morricone. I'm not sure if I loved hearing the modern hip hop or the Johnny Cash. It just didn't feel in place here. Still, it's a minor complaint. It's early January, and I doubt that I'm going to see a new movie that is this consistently entertaining.

For all you spaghetti-philes, Franco Nero does make a cute little appearance. You probably would have guessed that though.

The Dictator

2012 comedy

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

Plot: Jennifer, who is not even pregnant, craved movie theater popcorn. I wanted a banana milkshake. We checked to see what was playing at the dollar theater in Greenwood, Indiana, and found something that at least one of us wanted to see. When we first started dating in Knoxville, Tennessee, we drove to the dollar theater all the time, and it didn't even matter what was playing. We saw Last of the Mohicans, a movie that I didn't even like, twice. We saw Cliffhanger, Dennis the Menace, Son-in-Law with Pauly Shore, and Under Siege 2 without seeing the first one. The popcorn was awful, the floor was sticky, and my attempts to make out with my wife were thwarted. It was just like old times!

This is more Ali G Indahouse than Borat or Bruno, but I thought it was very very funny. It's scripted, an actual movie, but it still has that Cohen flavor and is best when, like in the best parts of those more improvised comedies, he pushes buttons and hits you hard with the satire. And Cohen's not the type of comedian who is afraid of pushing buttons, and he luckily has the type of director in Larry Charles who's not afraid to push buttons along with him. There are more than a few moments in this one where you will almost not believe that he went there, my favorites being a scene that takes place in a helicopter that isn't actually even that well written but still works so beautifully and a masturbation sequence that ingeniously incorporates a scene from Forrest Gump that made me laugh a little more loudly that I prefer to laugh in public. The film's plot isn't all that interesting and it's a bit more derivative than I want to see from Cohen. The love story with Anna Faris is a necessary evil, I suppose. The versatile Ben Kingsley's good, and so is Jason Mantzoukas as Nuclear Nadal. Megan Fox, Edward Norton, John C. Reilly, the ubiquitous Kevin Corrigan, shane-movies favorite Chris Elliott, and Gary Shandling also have Muppet-style cameos. Another thing I liked about this were some of the set details which gave this, on top of the slapstick and oft-crude dialogue humor, a little more of a visual element. With each passing appearance, I'm more and more convinced that Cohen is a comedic genius. The writing, the delivery, the flexibility with the characters, the impeccable comic timing. He's just about the best at what he does, and I'll eagerly await his next movie. This movie, by the way, was not one that I had high hopes for, but I'm sort of glad Jen had a hankering for disgusting popcorn.

Brave

2012 Pixar princess movie

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 16/20; Dylan: 11/20; Emma: 13/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Merida is a Scottish princess who, according to custom, has to be married off to a dude from one of the other three clans. She doesn't want that at all, probably because, like Entertainment Weekly has suggested, she's gay. She defies her parents and then runs into a witch who helps her in about the same way the monkey's paw helped the people in the short story "The Monkey's Paw". Oh, snap! See where free-thinking gets you, girls?

This isn't upper-echelon Pixar, but it does further prove their genius. I mean, who else is going to see Carrot Top and think, "Yep! There's the next Disney princess!"? I like Merida and she's voiced well by Kelly Macdonald who really pulls off a nice fake Scottish accent here. But with free-thinking gal Mulan and, to a lesser extent, Rapunzel, she doesn't feel all that fresh. The animation for Merida's hair is almost worth the price of admission alone. OK, I don't know why I typed that because it's not true. Movies are fucking expensive. The animation, with the exception of some of the humans who look a little rubbery compared to the settings, is top notch. They've taken the realism gauntlet thrown down by How to Train Your Dragon and nailed it. Their Scotland, kind of a storybook Scotland, is lovely, and the forest setting and castle interiors have an astonishing amount of detail and texture. I like how that horse looked, too. And I like that Pixar has created their own fairy tale here. That's not a bad direction for them to take. It really is a good movie, but it just never grabbed me, doesn't have that special bit of whatever that makes other Pixar features so magical. It feels on the surface like an original, but it's really made up of parts from the same store that other contemporary storytellers frequent. So it succeeds in being just like a whole bunch of other princess movies. There was a surprising lack of humor. The three red-haired demon twins thrown into the proceedings for little more than comic effect did very little for me. The witch was probably the funniest character, but she didn't exactly seem original--part Edna Mole/part Mama Odie maybe. The bulk of this has a too-serious tone, and the bears were too scary. And speaking of bears, isn't Disney having characters turn into bears a little too soon after Brother Bear? Plus, there's all this magic and floating blue fuzzy things which, for whatever reason, made me think of Disney's Atlantis even though there weren't any blue fuzzy things to be seen in that movie. Still, that's never a good thing. And all the magic is bound to irritate Christians. Of course, Christians are already going to be pissed when they take their little girls to see this only to have them see a gigantic lesbian on the screen which, of course, is going to turn them into little gay kids themselves. It was good hearing Craig Ferguson, one of my favorite people, and it's always nice to hear Billy Connolly, but their appearances were a little obvious. And I completely missed John Ratzenberger although he is in this apparently. I couldn't find the Pizza Planet truck anywhere in medieval Scotland either. Again, this is a very well done original fairy tale; it just didn't have enough personality. And without that, it's sadly the first Pixar movie I've seen in a theater that I'm not really in a hurry to see a second time.

For the record: As nutty as I am with my theories regarding Pixar movies (ahem, Up),I don't think Merida is gay. I am glad that I got to throw a few lesbians into this write-up though because that will surely attract some Googlers. It's safe for you to click on those links, by the way, because they're just articles written about how Merida might be gay. It won't take you to any not-safe-for-work hot lesbian action or anything.

Moonrise Kingdom

2012 Wes Anderson movie

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

Plot: The troubled daughter of attorneys and an outcast scout run away from home and camp respectively in order to have a romantic adventure. Scout Master Ward, a handful of scouts, the Bishop parents, and the island's law enforcement search for the couple.

Wes Anderson's movies, maybe this one more than any of the others, are like Precious Moments figurines made for hipsters. If you don't like his movies--especially The Life Aquatic--you aren't going to like this one either. And if you do, you're likely to be a fan of this one. A lot of new faces to the Wes Anderson world--lovely Edward Norton, Bruce Willis with a little hair, Frances McDormand. It's an oddball world to inhabit, like its own little island. Coincidentally, this takes place on a little island, the kind of setting that part of me knows actually exists but that seems like it can only exist in a Wes Anderson movie. These characters are all his type of characters, nutty as can be, and I guess I can see how some people might have a problem with that. Of course, you've got a bunch of kids in there, too, and although there are a couple moments when the kids are kids--as in the type of child actor I normally really hate--they're given such funny things to do and say here that I didn't mind it. Oh, and Bob Balaban is in this, a bearded Bob Balaban, and his ridiculous opening narrative bit squeezed the first laugh out of me. This is a very funny movie. My favorite bit might have been a big action sequence involving a motorcycle, the flash of an arrow, a dog, a tree, and lefty scissors. Lefty scissors! You know what Alfred Hitchcock always said about lefty scissors, right? I'm paraphrasing, but it was something about how if a director shows the audience a pair of lefty scissors, you can safely predict that those lefty scissors will be used at some point in the movie. I was never clear on what happened during that scene, by the way, but it was shockingly funny stuff. Like with the underrated The Life Aquatic, this gets really nutsy at the end, but here, as it was there, the nutsiness really fits with the themes. This also looks a lot like a Wes Anderson movie, almost identically colored and textured as The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Of course, you just need to see a single frame of this movie to know who its director is, and again, that's not going to be a good thing for all viewers. And the opening shots, a journey through the Bishop's house that reminds me of the tour of the Zissou's submarine, is remarkable in how it sets the tone for the whole movie and gives such a good introduction of the Bishop family despite not including any dialogue. I also loved the music, some from Devo guy Mark Mothersbaugh and a lot of playful vocal classical stuff. I still can't get a final "cuckoo" out of my brain, and one number with angelic voices and boy scout trumpets was something I almost thought only I could hear, an ear hallucination or something. Oh, and there was a blast from my childhood with the work of Benjamin Britten. And a lot of Hank Williams. It's all just so beautiful, and I really didn't want the movie to end.

Side note: The theater we saw this at has a summer midnight movies thing. I tried to convince Jennifer to stick around and watch The Room, but she had no interest.

True Grit

2010 Western

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: The guy in that one Coen Brothers' movie killed another guy, one we never see but who was more than likely in at least one Coen Brothers' movie. His daughter wants vengeance. She wants it bad! So she finds a tough guy with an eyepatch, the guy who was in that one Coen Brothers' movie, and hires him to take care of business. A guy who has never been in a Coen Brothers' movie but who was in another movie with a guy who was in a Coen Brothers' movie tags along because he's been looking for the guy who was in the one Coen Brothers' movie for a very long time. A guy who looks like a bear shows up later.

Nice traditional, old-school Wild West action here, shaded with the Brothers' dark humor, offbeat characters, and stylized ultraviolence. Cause nobody just gets stabbed in the chest or shot in the head in a Coen Brothers' movie. They create big moments whenever their characters get theirs, moments that are oft-graphic, sometimes blackly humorous, and almost always thrilling. There's almost a coldness to their death scenes, and the poor characters pass to the next world without dignity. That's not a criticism, by the way. And the next worlds that most of these characters will inhabit probably aren't going to be a very nice one, like where the Care Bears live. No, most of these characters are going to end up in some dusty purgatory where their scars will itch. Being a Coen Brothers' movie, there are certain things you can just expect walking in: a great meaty script with lots of humorous things for the characters to say, stunning visual storytelling, and a few moments you'll want to talk about later. You know, like guys being shoved into wood chippers. And you get all that, as well as some terrific character acting. Mattie's played by somebody named Hailee Steinfeld, and although she's good, this really isn't her movie. This belongs to Lebowski, and every word he speaks is drenched in tobacco juice and whiskey and broken glass and filth. Bridges' Rooster is that type of character who is very funny without making any effort at all to be funny. You have to love Bridges' versatility. Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are also good, and the rest of the supporting cast, sometimes only on the screen for a few odd moments, help color in the Coens' askew vision of the Wild West. What I didn't expect walking into a Coen Brothers' movie: a heavy-handed Hollywoody score (I'll have to hear it again actually; Jen says it's a nod to the classics of the genre, and I think it could help with the myth making.) and such a traditional, simple story. The latter was no problem. What bugged me was the end where simple was thrown out of the saloon to make way for a goofy and unlikely denouement where a few too many things happen. As with all Coen Brothers' movies, I look forward to seeing this again.

Jen and I made a rare trip to the theater to see this one. We saw previews for a movie that must be based on the old Rockin' Robots toy and a movie about Neil Armstrong finding Transformers on the moon. Jen leaned over during both and (too loudly) said, "I am all over that! Booyah!"

Last Man Standing

1996 gangsta flick

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Yojimbo but with guns and fedoras and Bruce Willis instead of swords and kimonos and Toshiro Mifune.

This gangster film, apparently shot on a used but abandoned B-Western set, is a convoluted rehash of the "Man with No Name" idea, most recently rehashed in Sukiyaki Western Django and Lucky Number Slevin with none other than Bruce Willis, stolen thirty years ago with Clint and Leone for A Fistful of Dollars, and first used in Kurosawa's excellent Yojimbo even though he borrowed imagery from the American Wild West and a central character from Dashiell Hammett. So as the kids are saying today: It's all good. This nearly works but I kind of got lost in the plot, probably because there are far too many gangsters and none that I really cared all that much about. By the time Christopher Walken rolled in, I had already gotten to the point where I was checking my watch, the same point where I realized I didn't even have a watch on. It was probably shot off my wrist by one of the characters in this movie during one of the gangster's dozen (same amount as a baker's dozen for you squares out there) scenes where there's nothing but a flurry of gun fire mayhem and thick dust. There are a few times when characters are shot and fly backward fifty feet, some of them disappearing onto the set of Yojimbo where Kuwabatake Sanjuro looks at him in confusion before trying on his shoes. I know even less about physics and guns, especially firearms from the Prohibition Era, than I do about movies, but it seemed a bit ridiculous. Good thing they didn't have their backs to me because I'm not sure my trash guys will take dead bodies. They won't take old furniture! I like movies with beat-up, dusty towns like this and Bruce Willis, although he looked a little fatigued, was just the right guy for this, but this doesn't have nearly the character and voice that Kurosawa and Leone had. And unfortunately, it's just begging to be compared to those films.

I bought this for fifty cents early in the "man" movie challenge. It was probably worth that much.

Jimmy Tupper Vs. the Goatman of Bowie

2010 horror comedy

Rating: 14/20 (Kairow: 10/20)

Plot: Jimmy Tupper is a complete loser. He's a Starbucks employee by day and nothing more than an alcoholic joke to his friends by night. And nothing about him indicates that his future will be drastically different. One night, his friends decide to dump Jimmy, who has passed out once again, in the middle of the woods and leave him. When he doesn't show up for work the next day, his friends go looking for him. They find him, beaten and bloodied and raving about having to fight off a goatman attempting to drag him away. When his friends don't believe him, he decides to camp out in the woods with a camera in order to capture footage of the Goatman of Bowie.

Warning: Spoilers! I generally try to avoid including spoilers, but I can't help including him while writing about this one.

Sometimes when I watch a movie, I can't help thinking of the rating I'm going to give it. Here's my thought progression as I watched Jimmy Tupper Vs. The Goatman of Bowie with my good friend, Kairow.

OK, I knew this was one of these Paranormal Activity/Blair Witch/Cloverfield found footage deals going in, but this party scene at the beginning is absolutely brutal. This is looking like a 3/20.

I like this Jimmy Tupper fellow. His friends sure are mean though. But at least it's sort of funny. This might be a 6/20.

What's this graduation footage doing in here? Who are these people talking about a Barbie doll collection? Back to a 2/20.

I'm penalizing this a point for making me dizzy.

Oh, my God. Nothing is happening here. I hope Kairow will speak to me again after this. I'm sure glad my wife didn't come to see this. Is this even a movie? 2/20 still.

This is almost like one of those jokes that was almost funny but then isn't funny at all but just keeps going and going, the Brett Favre of jokes, and eventually becomes funny again just because of its endurance. I'm bumping this up to a 7/20.

Marshmallows and bacon! 9/20.

Uh oh. I'm not sure this movie's going to have a goatman in it. I paid to see a freakin' goatman! If I don't see a goatman by the time this ends, I'm taking the life of everybody in this theater. 7/20.

My God! Look at that goatman! 15/20!

The ending! Goat men? Absolutely bad ass! 36/20!

I really enjoyed this movie. The found footage stuff makes the first sixty minutes seem almost endless. It builds anticipation if it doesn't quite build enough tension or suspense. Now, I think I have a lot more tolerance for this sort of thing than most people. I appreciated Tupper's meanderings, and I like how his character gradually deepens as he blathers on about making comic books or how he hates his friends. And his explanations of his plans to lure the goatman to his camp are hilarious. In a way, he reminds me of The Grizzly Man's Timothy Treadwell as his most pitiful. I was completely fooled into thinking this would end one way, then fooled into changing my mind about how it would end, and finally being way off with either of my guesses. At first, I figured this was going to add up to nothing at all, that there would be no goat man, that this was an almost Theater of the Absurd type of found footage parody, a mash-up of Blair Witch and Waiting for Godot. Even though I know how the movie ends now, that's still probably not too far off. The found footage stuff is realistic. There's nothing in this that feels contrived, but that might make this less entertaining for less patient viewers. A violently quivering camera, even during scenes that aren't supposed to be the least bit suspenseful, also adds to the realism, but again, this might make Tupper tedious for a lot of the audience. Most real of all, is the performance of lead actor Andrew Bowser, the same guy who directed this unless there are two people named Andrew Bowser working on the same project. He's a very believable loser, and I really felt I was experiencing all of this with an authentic person instead of just a character in a horror movie. One question, however--quite abruptly, this changes from a found footage thing to a more traditional horror movie at the end. Kairow liked it more at that point, but I thought the juxtaposition was strange, and I'm not sure I understand why it changed abruptly. Still, that last fifteen minutes is pretty rad.

I saw this at the Indianapolis Museum of Art as part of the Indy Film Festival. It was the only movie in the festival with the word "man" in the title.

It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.

2007 movie

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

Plot: Paul, a middle-aged man suffering from Cerebral Palsy, is wasting away in a nursing home. All he wants to do is be like everybody else and often fantasizes about just that. Except "everybody else" in this case is limited to men who strangle women after they sleep with them.

This isn't widely available, and a lot of people would argue that it shouldn't be. This is far from a perfectly-constructed movie. Heck, it's far from a competently-constructed movie. But there's a backstory that transforms this from just a movie to a work of art. The screenwriter and lead is the late Steven C. Stewart, a guy who really did suffer from Cerebral Palsy and who spent the better part of his life imprisoned in a nursing home. The great Crispin Hellion Glover brought his story to life. He does it cheaply--with some gross colors, some really obvious classical music choices, and more than a few editing errors. But there's a refreshing naivete with both the writing and the direction (the latter, possibly intentional) that makes this like outsider art. Outsider art made by an insider? When I was trying to put some words together, I had trouble coming up with anything better than "hideously beautiful," cheap and oxymoronic. Typing "hideously beautiful" embarrasses me as much as some of things I laughed at (uncomfortably) while watching this movie. There's a very dark humor throughout the story as well as some unintentionally funny (or are they intentionally unintentionally funny?) moments, especially any time Crispin Glover's dad Bruce is on-screen. If Bruce Glover doesn't win my yearly Torgo for his small role here, I'll be surprised. I really liked the beginning and end of the movie (a framing device), a terrific scene with police detectives and bendy straws, and a final murder scene that stretches so far into ridiculous territory that it hits you in the eye and makes you ejaculate raisins. Literally! Watching this movie with a crowd of people was fascinating to me. I believe most of the crowd liked what they saw, probably because they came to the theater knowing exactly what to expect, but I think it was liked in different ways. I don't frequently watch movies in big crowds, but I can't remember ever seeing a movie that got this much of a reaction, and that's worth something right there. Well, maybe Ernest Goes to Camp.

I saw this at the IMA. Crispin Glover showed a slide show and read from eight of his novels. Then, he showed this movie. Then, he came back out and kind of answered people's questions. My appreciation for America's finest actor has grown. I didn't stick around to have my cd cover autographed and get a picture because I was tired. I really hope he comes back to Indy some time to show his first movie.

One final note: Although I don't think any of you will see this (other than Larst), I do feel the need to warn you. The violence isn't graphic, but there's a lot of sex. This isn't for everybody, but for the right, open-minded audience, this delivers.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009 piece of garbage

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 5/20; Emma: 5/20; Abbey: 1/20)
[Original "6" rating traded for a "10" with my brother.]

Plot: Max is youngster suffering from schizophrenia and endangering the lives of those around him. Where the Wild Things Are is a glimpse at his battered mind, a trip to his world inhabited by CGI-furballs. If there is ever a Where the Wild Things Are II, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that there is either no God at all or that He has abandoned us, it would most likely be about Max's experiences in an asylum.

This might be one of the most joyless film experiences I've ever had. There wasn't a single moment in this movie where I was glad I was watching it. In fact, I wouldn't have finished this if I had been watching it alone. And I had high hopes for this one, curious to see how Spike Jonze would be able to stretch a fairly thin picture book into a full-length movie. Turns out, he doesn't. This has virtually no plot, existing only as jumbled symbolism or half-assed allegory. The people part of the movie is depressing. The wild things part of the movie, a part I eagerly awaited as I figured it would be filled with fantastical imagery and whimsy, was somehow even more depressing. And the imagery? It just looks stupid. The monsters don't always move fluently, especially when they leap, and there's never enough background to make this look like a finished movie. All attempts to attach any of Max's fantasy to his real-world problems--childhood fears of things like war, the eventual demise of the sun, global warming, etc.; alienation; growing up fatherless--come across as offensive. There is absolutely no reason for children to see this movie, absolutely no reason for adults to see this movie, and absolutely no reason why this movie should have been gotten the greenlight in the first place. See that monster behind the tree in the poster? I can only imagine that he's trying to hide from embarrassment at his involvement in this movie. I sincerely hope this is the least enjoyable experience I have with a movie this year.

My brother tried to warn me about this one. I didn't dream it would be this abysmal.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

2009 stop-animated funk

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20; Abbey: 19/20; Sophie: 20/20)

Plot: The title fox reluctantly settles down, retiring from chicken thieving and getting a job as a newspaper man to appease his pregnant wife, Mrs. Fox. Seven years later, his itch needs scratching, and he moves the family into a tree with a view of the farms of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean and begins plotting a final triple-header job. He and friend Badger get some bandit hats and pull off the jobs. This ticks off the three farmers who seek revenge.

"That's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey!"

Lots of biases at play here: 1) It's a Wes Anderson movie. 2) It's based on a Roald Dahl book. 3) It's stop-motion animation. 4) I saw it on the big screen. But at least with the first three, it's a menage trois made in heaven. I always think Anderson's movies are refreshing, and I usually find stop-motion stuff refreshing, too. Combine the two, with Dahl's talking animal characters, and you've got something that's downright whimsical. Petey, one of the farmer's personal banjo players and almost a completely useless character, is my favorite character (voiced by Jarvis Cocker), but there isn't a character in this thing that isn't great. I thought the three farmers were really funny, but the majority of the screen time is talking animals. And I love when a cartoon has talking animals that are so human. Great voice acting, too, with a lot of Anderson regulars. The animation is spectacular although intentionally a little low-fi. There are lots of "How are they even pulling that off?" effects, and lots of times when there's an amazing amount of movement happening on the screen at once. This has a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, and although it almost goes a bit too far in the end, this is the type of movie that I'd love to watch again and again. Downright whimsical!

2009 seems like an incredible year for animated movies. And I've not even seen Ponyo, Mary and Max, or A Town Called Panic yet.

Up

2009 movie

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 17/20; Dylan: 11/20;Emma: 18/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Lonely widowered Carl Fredrickson is about to be shipped to an old person's home because he's a menace to society. Instead of losing the home his wife and he constructed out of memories and love, he decides to transport it to a waterfall in South America, both as a way to escape the retirement home and to fulfill a promise he had made to his Ellie a long, long time ago. Unbeknownst to Carl, a boy scout has accompanied him. They make it to South America where they run into exotic birds, talking dogs, and a childhood hero with a zeppelin.

I fully expected this movie to end in what I thought was a predictably unpredictable way. Instead, it threw me off by unpredictably ending in a predictable way. The movie is better with my ending, I think, and I'm sticking with my slightly different "reading" of this one. I can't really say anymore about that without spoiling things. Lovable characters, solid animation (not as stunningly sharp as Ratatouille though), and a quirky little story add up to another Pixar win. Like Wall-E, I think the action bits go a bit too far (that's part of my "reading" though), but the humor works throughout with lots of visual and verbal gags and the colors and details make this a feast for the eyes. It's also a very touching film, managing to make me weep within the first ten minutes which is probably a new record. Lots of little details are going to make this a movie that you can return to again and again although, like Ratatouille, a large chunk of this one is more for adults than children.

Note: I did not see the 3-D version of this movie. 3-D is for suckers.

College

1927 comedy

Rating: 13/20 (Dylan: 11/20; Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Ronald graduates at the top of his class and attends his graduation ceremony with his proud mother. Mary, the girl of his dreams is also there, and following a speech in which he criticizes athletics, he is told that she could never love a man who wasn't an athlete. When he goes off to college, he tries his hand at baseball, track and field, and rowing, which in 1927 was actually considered a sport. Unfortunately, his rival Jeff also has his eyes on Mary and is more than a little more athletically gifted. He's got girth!

There are good bits here, but this is overall a sub-par Keaton feature film. Some of the sketches go on for too long, and some are just extraneous. His attempts to get a job, for example, are unnecessary to the storyline. There's also a scene that is a bit racially insensitive, but it was nothing that would be overly shocking to anybody who's seen a Shirley Temple movie. What keeps this from being as good as other Keaton movies, although it does have some very funny moments, is that it's far too episodic and doesn't have the flow of a The General or Our Hospitality.

This, by the way, is the first of many consecutive Buster Keaton Saturdays. I announced this to two of this blog's readers last night, but neither really seemed all that excited.

Watchmen

2009 movie

Rating: 15/20 (RD: 15/20)

Plot: The times they have a-changed, and in an alternate universe 1980's New York City (in which Richard Nixon is inexplicably still president and American won in Vietnam), superheroes have been outlawed and crime is everywhere. People live in fear of a seemingly inevitable nuclear holocaust. Following the murder of aging costumed hero The Comedian, another costumed superhero called Rorshach runs around in a fedora to warn his former cohorts about a potential threat against all superheroes and try to figure out who's behind it. Comic books explode as invitations to the apocalypse are mailed out.

I was unclear about my own anticipations going in, and coming out, I was more unclear about whether what I watched was brilliant or crappy than I have been following a movie in a long time. I'll borrow from RD, my friend who recommended and loaned me the graphic novels a few years ago (I should add, by the way, that without that reading, I might have been completely lost during this nearly three-hour movie): it was almost as if this movie had two directors, one who wanted to make a silly blockbuster that would make fanboys drool and pee their pants in delight and another who understands subtlety and grace and wanted to focus more on the depth of the graphic novel--the philosophy, the satire, and the dark dark humor.

The brilliance. An absolutely stunning opening scene followed by a gorgeous opening credits with bizarrely artistic visuals that simultaneously shocked, amused, and enlightened while "The Times They Are A-Changin'" blared. The rest of the visuals--seamless CGI, breathtaking imagery, fight scenes straddling the line between over-the-top and over-the-over-the-top. The story itself which retains the difficulty of the graphic novel's narrative structure, unfolding gracefully with flashbacks and (maybe?) flashbacks within flashbacks. There's so much to see; this is an absolutely jam-packed nearly three hours. And this is the exact kind of movie that excites me, the kind you just want to discuss endlessly and the kind which I believe people will be discussing for years and years. Nuances, depth, power, ambiguity. So much of this is so great, transcending comic book movies and blockbusters, baffling and tickling the audience, and holding that mirror up to our world in a way that reflects now, twenty-five years ago, sixty-seven years ago, and two hundred years ago. But. . .

There was so much wackiness, so many times when the movie loses focus, and so many unfortunately embarrassing moments in this. There was a necessary but troublingly campy sex scene, a few too many of those moments where this slipped into goofy action mode (self-parody?), and lots of stuff that should have easily ended up on the cutting room floor. There was some genuinely awful acting. There were some truly odd soundtrack choices ("99 Luft Balloons"? Was that incidental or was that supposed to be on a jukebox since the setting was the 80's?) and some scenes that might have been unnecessarily super-ultra-violent. I also hated this animated creature that was in the movie for no apparently reason. It looked really stupid.

I'll add four more things. 1) I really look forward to seeing this again. It's a feast. 2) I don't see movies often at all in movie theaters. I almost forgot that I had to buy tickets and am lucky RD was with me or I would have probably been beaten and arrested. But I wonder how much seeing movies in theaters makes those movies seem more impressive than they would be on my television screen. 3) I believe this is better than any Batman movie ever made. Add any Incredible Hulk movie to that. 4) My favorite audience member comment: "Doesn't anybody in this movie wear clothes?" I doubt I see more big ol' blue CGI penis this year.

Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius

Comedy shorts from 1926-1941

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Shorts, mostly involving Bowers' characters inventing weird contraptions. And most seem to have something to do with eggs. The films were "lost" until discovered somewhere in France. Hence, the "rediscovery" in the title of the collection.

The comedy is sub-standard here, and Bowers doesn't have nearly enough screen presence for even these 20 minute films. But these are still worth watching for the ingenious use of stop-motion animation. Each short, in fact, contains at least one surreal animated bit (cars hatching from eggs, giant chickens, anthropomorphized shoes) that add a flavor to these things, making them uniquely cool and entertaining. The inventions, complicated devices reminiscent of Rube Goldberg machines, also come from the mind of an inspired madman. This Bowers fellow was one creative dude, and the effects (which I doubt had a precedent) probably do make him a genius, if not exactly a comic one. Unfortunately, disc two in this set contains stuff he did once sound was available, and then the humor gets really embarrassingly bad. Still, recommended for fans of stop-motion or silent comedy.

The Brown Bunny

2003 movie

Rating: 2/20

Plot: Bud finishes a boring motorcycle race and heads out on a boring road trip to California. Along the way, he has boring encounters with desperate women who all have flowery names. His mind can't shake reminisces of an ex-girlfriend Daisy.

Ok, somebody should be arrested for giving Vincent Gallo the two hundred and fifty-three dollars to make this movie. It's January 8th. I've heard the best album of 2009 already, and I believe I've seen the worst movie I'll see this year. Self-indulgent, tacky, and extremely dull, The Brown Bunny starts nowhere (a pretentiously filmed motorcycle race) and ends with a shocking revelation that would make M. Night Shyamalan say, "No, that twist just doesn't work. It's, like, dumb." Gallo wrote, directed, and starred in this, but he probably should have found somebody else to do all three. Actually, he probably just needed to hire a plug-puller, somebody to say, "Vincent, this movie sucks!" before pulling the plug (literally...figuratively...it doesn't even matter!), destroying all footage, and giving the camcorder to a little girl so that she can film her My Little Ponies having a tea party--an NC-17, shockingly pretentious tea party. The movie's poorly filmed, reminiscent of a lazy artist's diarrhea, and the bulk of the ninety minutes is what looks to be home video footage of Vincent Gallo driving, eating, sitting there, driving, using the bathroom, driving, pumping gas, and driving. How this movie didn't ruin Chloe Sevigny's career is beyond me. Indianapolis was briefly in this movie and, I'm sure, is embarrassed about it.

It's a Wonderful Life

1946 silly movie

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: The happiest-go-luckiest man on earth, George "People Shouldn't Have Had Me Run on Film Because I Can't Do It Naturally" Bailey was born, saved his brother's life, saved a pharmacist's job, saved his podunk town, got married, and had sexual intercourse at least four times. It's a wonderful life! None of that matters, however, because his staircase railing is broken and he isn't man enough to be able to fix it. Within minutes, he becomes drunken and suicidal. As he's about to end his life by jumping off a bridge into the icy waters below, his guardian angel Clarence jumps into the icy waters. So George jumps into the icy waters below to save his life. Clarence, working on earning his wings, needs to convince George that life is worth living and shows him what the lives of others would look like if George had never existed.

The following is a partial transcript from a meeting following a showing of It's a Wonderful Life, then called Untitled Frank Capra Communist Propaganda Film:

Film Producer #7: But why does he keep shouting at everybody?

Frank Capra: Because he's excited! He's got his life back.

FP7: No, I'm talking about the rest of the movie. He spends the entire movie shouting.

FC: He does?
Film Producer #3: He really does, Frank.

FC: Well, that's acting. That's how Jimmy Stewart acts.

FP7: Well, I don't like it at all. Something must be done.

FP3: Yeah, I'm not sure I like all the shouting either. Nobody's going to want to spend 17 hours watching the longest movie ever made with a protagonist who shouts at everybody for no reason.

FP7: What if we give him a reason?
FC: What do you mean, Film Producer Number Seven?

FP3: Yes! We could have George born with a condition of some kind where he shouts unnecessarily.

FP7: How about this? How about we write in a scene where he has some sort of childhood injury which causes him to lose his hearing in one of his ears?

FP3: Yeah! The right one!

FP7: No, the left one.

Film Producer #4: And then his "acting" (finger quotes--actually the first time finger quotes were ever used) would make a little more sense. The character won't know that he's shouting.

FP3: I think this might work. Back to the studio, Frank Capra!

Film Producer #2: Anybody else think the movie is too long?

FP7: (Scratches self)

FP2: I mean, do we really need to show George using the potty for the first time or trying meatloaf? We have the longest exposition in film history here. It takes so long to get to the real meat of the movie and audiences have fallen asleep during test screenings.

Film Producer #5: The real meatloaf of the movie!

FP7: Are you drunk again, Film Producer #5?

Quite possibly the most overrated movie ever made. Definitely seems like the longest although, admittedly, I'm not used to watching movies with commercial interruptions and that probably made it seem longer. It's a very average movie, a little too manipulative and old-timey to fully appreciate. I gave it an 11/20 the first time I watched it, so maybe by the forty-seventh time I see this, I'll develop a soul and think it's a classic like everybody else.

Manos: The Hands of Fate

1966 horror movie

Rating: 1/20 (Jen: 0/20 even after she was told she could not give a movie less than a 1/20)

Plot: A family of three vacations with their little dog Peppy. They get lost in the middle of a desert and find themselves at the isolated dwelling place of a deformed man named Torgo and his master who is, according to Torgo, sort of dead and sort of alive. After Peppy is killed, the family decides to leave but can't because of car trouble. Little do they know, their real troubles haven't even begun. Torgo!

This might be the worst movie ever, and Torgo is one of my favorite characters of all time. The guy's deformity (fat legs?), his weird twitching, the way he shuffles about. He's just great. I told Jen that I'm going to be Torgo for Halloween next year , and we've now planned to be the Manos: The Hands of Fate family and try to find somebody for each of the characters. I also told her that Michael J. Fox could play Torgo in a remake of this which, if you ever see this, is an opinion that will either be really hilarious or really offensive. They don't make movies this ineptly anymore! It's hard to fathom what the writer/director/producer spent 19,000 dollars on, but that was apparently the film's budget. If there was an award for the worst editing in the history of cinema, this would win without argument. It would actually likely win a lot of "worst ever" categories. Yep, it's that bad. I'm trying to decide whether my brother or my dad gets this for Christmas this year. Maybe I'll wrap it up and stick it in somebody's mailbox at school and give it to somebody anonymously. If Manos: The Hands of Fate can't spread the Christmas cheer, nothing can!

The Grand

2007 improvisational comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Poker players converge on Jack Faro's The Rabbit's Foot casino for a winner-take-all ten million dollar poker tournament.

There's lots of talent in this one--David Cross, Harrelson, Michael McKean, Dennis Farina, Larry David's t.v. wife, Kotter, even Chris Parnell--and a few criminally unfunny ones. That's right, Raymond, I'm looking in your direction. There's also some neat cameos from poker celebrities (I especially liked seeing Doyle Brunson) although Phil Gordon, a poker player/commentator I actually like, overdoes it a whole bunch. It's a good ensemble cast with lots of eccentric goofball characters, most notably The German played by none other than Werner Herzog. There's a guy who, although his talents are behind the camera, needs to be in front of the camera more. Not necessarily in Harmony Korine movies though. The German talking about his need to kill something every day or looking for his pet bunny after his ousting from the tournament are hilarious. (A cut scene in which he reveals a secret he's discovered after travelling the world would have been the funniest bit in the movie.) The problem with The Grand is that there's far too much focus on the numerous subplots (relationships with fathers, attempts to save The Rabbit's Foot, the announcer's book, Raymond's worries about his fantasy football team) and not enough on the players doing their thing at the tables. When the jokes work, it's like flopping a flush, but when they fall flat, which they very often do, the feeling is more like having your opponent hit his three-outer on the river to take the rest of your stack. The poker in this, by the way, doesn't make a lot of sense. A movie pet peeve of mine is where chess doesn't make sense in movies, and although the poker looked real enough, the decisions these "professional" players were making annoyed me.

Jen didn't stay awake for the entirety of this one.

I had to give it a bonus point just for getting to her Werner Herzog say, "I've had a goat. To strangle a goat. . .that makes you feel really alive."

I recently watched this again, laughing more the second time, I think, than the first. I own this movie and couldn't find another comedy to watch. I feel bad for writing bad stuff about Phil Gordon. He's fine here, and so is Michael Karnow as his obnoxious co-host who sells his own books on his poker systems. There is a lot of inside poker humor that might not appeal to people who don't play the game, but there's really enough kookiness for the whole family. And Herzog! Man, I had to watch a couple of his scenes twice.