City of God

2002 movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: The true story of how the Brazilian equivalent of the Boy Scouts of America was formed.

This movie starts with chickens. Chickens are haunting me this year. Sure, you expect to see some chickens in a documentary about chickens. But it seems that chickens find their way into about half of the movies I'm watching this year. Herzog doesn't like chickens.

 

See? The beginning of this movie is a stunning look at a chicken being de-feathered and eviscerated and chopped into pieces. Spliced into that are very quick shots of a large gleaming knife being sharpened and a bunch of people who are looking forward to eating a chicken. And then you have a shot of a scrawny chicken watching the proceedings and waiting for its turn, and that chicken gives one of the best performances I think I've ever seen by a bird in a movie. The chicken trembles, gives this "Oh shit!" look at the camera, and eventually makes its escape. Somehow, the camera follows the chicken through the streets. Watching it all unfold is invigorating for some reason, and the scene, one that starts the movie but actually takes place later in the story, really sets the stage for everything that happens in the titular slums. For the protagonist, a poor guy who just wants to take pictures and lose his virginity, this is a place that can be overwhelmingly frightening and seemingly impossible to escape. This movie is entertaining with a vibrantly told story and colorful characters, but its most effective at disturbing you with the harsh realities of this particular spot in our world and really making you feel what some of the characters are feeling. Lots will disturb unless we're all desensitized to seeing a movie with about half of the scenes featuring children holding guns and occasionally shooting each other in the face. Those faces themselves are disturbing, so callous as they go about their violent business. More disturbing is seeing Li'l Ze (actually, Lil Dice at this point) in action for the first time. It's a laugh that, if you don't remember anything else in any movie you've ever seen, you'll likely remember forever. That crazed character is probably more interesting and surely more complex than Rocket, the main character. It's fascinating to watch all these youngsters bounce off each other, dangerous little unpredictable firecrackers in a vibrating cube. It's a world dominated by children--I believe parents are shown in this movie during exactly one scene--but they're not children. They've been shaped into something else. And you think, "I can't believe that people are like this in any part of the world," but then you think about the part of the world you live in and see enough similarities. Your world's got chickens, too. This is flashy and fresh, with a twisty narrative that almost reminds you of Tarantino but with every ounce of hope slurped out. City of God (I think that might be ironic because I didn't see God in this place) is a great film, but it's almost hard to be entertained by it because these characters seem more real than movie characters, and you just know there's not much hope for some of them.

 

 

There were other movie posters for this, but I picked the one with a chicken on it. 

The Tree of Guernica

 1975 war movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: There's a war in Spain.

This was Fernando Arrabal's third movie after Long Live Death and I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse, a pair of movies that I didn't enjoy or understand. So I'm not sure why I bothered with this one because I didn't enjoy or understand it either. The thing's steeped in metaphors, some that I didn't understand and flew by like non sequiturs and some that were so obvious that they seemed juvenile. Also juvenile was a lot of sacrilegious imagery Ok, Arrabal, we get it. You don't like the church very much. I don't need to see any more characters wiping their ejaculate on a statue. There's a lot of war footage and its grotesque imagery mixed into the barrage of often disturbing imagery. There are also a lot of little people, one with a naked guy who later gets a sex scene while other little people towel him off. And there's a bullfight scene with one of the little people tied to a cart with a bull's head on the front, a scene that I swear lasted ninety minutes. And there's a scene with two guys tongue-wrestling that looked like something that could have been in a Will Ferrell movie. Oh, and a giant ear knife on wheels (I have no idea how else I could describe it) with naked children running around it and a lady saving herself from rape by hurling snakes. It's that kind of movie, and I actually started hating myself in the middle of it. A lot of this has the feel of a snuff film, and although I'm sure there's a point being made with the whole, it was well over my head and I really couldn't connect to anything that was happening enough to even care that I was missing out on something. I would not recommend you watch this although it is a little funnier than The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.

Dead Ringers

1988 twin movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Twin gynecologists have this great system worked out where the more extroverted one finds women and has a sexual relationship with them before growing tired of them and passing them onto the introverted one. It works great until an actress comes along and not only finds out what they're doing but becomes the object of one of the twin's obsession.

In my head, I always think that Cronenberg's movies are too bleak. And then I think, "Wait a second! A lot of my favorite movies are pretty freakin' bleak!" So I don't know if it's the bleakness that turns me off. This one is as bleak as the others, and it's also cold, clinical, but there's still a lot that I like about it. First, you've got a pair of performances by Jeremy Irons that are just stunning. Unless Jeremy Irons actually has a twin brother who plays opposite him in this movie. I'm too lazy to look it up. The differences in Beverly and Elliot are subtle, but I had little trouble telling them apart because of the nuances of Irons' performance. And when he pukes into a shrub? Or when he says, "And some orange pop!" near the end of the movie? It's just the sort of acting perfection that you don't get to see very often. The movie's score by Howard Shore is also great, kind of a throwback to classic movies. And I like a lot of what Cronenberg does with color, especially those striking red surgical outfits that stand out in a movie that otherwise seems tan or blue. But so much of this movie is kind of boring and feels heavy. It feels like you're carrying something bulky and wet around with you for a couple hours, and although the story is shocking, emotionally complex, and eventually tragic, it just doesn't really inspire you to feel much of anything. This is worth watching because of Irons' performance and the mysteriously haunting (and apparently true) story. And those gynecological instruments were pretty sweet, like something you'd see in, well, a Cronenberg movie.

Belle de Jour

1967 fantasy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The sexually aloof wife of a doctor decides to take an afternoon job at a brothel.

"Semen retentum venenum est." If I had that line in my arsenal growing up, I might have gotten laid before my 25th birthday.

Tarantino probably likes this movie because it's got a ton of shots of Catherine Deneuve's feet. That's not exactly why I like it. I like it because of its mystery. This movie blends the line between reality and fantasy, between the humdrummery of everyday life and the free-floating exuberance of a life of dreams. Bunuel, unsurprisingly, uses this woman's story to dick around with his audience's minds, and he's one of the best ever at doing that. And he's probably the best candidate to take us on a little tour of the titular whore's dream/reality mash-up. Bunuel certainly creates an interesting rhythm with her journey, and rhythmic sound effects--bells, a few clocks, an ambulance, waves--seem to suggest something, but it's that kind of something that's just out of reach. You know, like in a dream. Catherine Deneuve's classic pretty face is perfect for the character, and I don't know if it's something she does or just her basic shapes and tones, but she's got just the right of naughtiness mixed in with this innocence. I also liked Pierre Clementi as bad-boy Marcel, a guy who either has a grill or forgot to take off his Jaws (James Bond villain--not the shark) Halloween costume. Jean Sorel makes a good schmuck, and shady friend Husson is played shadily enough by Michel Piccoli. And there are a few whores to add a little bit of color. This is a more adult Bunuel for better or worse, one who is not at his most audaciously playful, but its poetic eroticism makes it float. And who can pass up a glance through a peephole into Deneuve's subconscious?

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.

Alien: Resurrection

1997 unnecessary sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The Company clones Ripley, who had been knocked up by a Xenomorph in the last movie, in an effort to get their hands on an alien. Things go predictably wrong. Meanwhile, space pirates!

Lord help me, but I kind of like this movie. Nevertheless, there is absolutely no reason for it to exist. There's a lot to like about it though. First, it's got a cool cast. You get big Ronny Perlman hulking around and badassing it up. He, like a lot of characters, unfortunately has some really stupid things to say in this movie. ("So, like, what did you do?" made him sound like a teenage girl, and "Must be a chick thing" just seemed too much like sitcom dialogue.) Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon plays a cool character with an even cooler wheelchair and gets to butcher some lines in English. (Apparently, his "Who were you expecting--Santa Claus?" line was originally supposed to be "Who were you expecting--The Easter Bunny?" but he couldn't stop saying "English Bunny," forcing a script change. What a dumb line that is anyway!) Dan Hedaya acts like even he can't believe he's in an Alien movie. He overacts stupendously. And there's Brad Dourif, a guy who doubtfully can play a normal character. Here, he simulates a make-out session with the alien in one of the stranger scenes from the franchise. And there's boyish and cute-as-a-damn-button Winona Ryder whose presence forces me to give this a Winona Ryder bonus point. No pun intended! In fact--no pun at all! Oh, and somebody named Kim Flowers just may the subject of the very best shot in a franchise with a goldmine of great shots. Again, no pun intended. The problem with this movie isn't with the cast. The problem is that it's probably way too quirky and has some pacing issues. And the characters, as I mentioned say some dumb things. (Ripley: "Who do I have to fuck to get off this thing?") Why did Weaver have any interest at all in bringing this character back anyway? The character she plays here is really inconsistent, sometimes acting like one of those too-human androids with less ability to emote and sometimes sitting down with Winona Ryder's character to engage in a little girl talk so that the move can grind to a halt. She does get to show off her basketball skills in what was probably the dumbest moment in any of these four movies, so maybe she was using this to audition for the WNBA. I'm not even sure the basic premise of this movie--cloning a Ripley and an alien--makes sense, but I suppose you have to forget all about science when watching some science fiction movies. Speaking of Ripley clones, one of the failed efforts was kind of hot, and if  you've seen this movie recently, I think you know exactly which one I'm talking about. In a few hundred years, everybody could probably have their own Ripley clone in their homes. Something else I find hard to believe about all this is that there are still people who are going to be smoking that far into the future. Seems like evolution would get rid of that stupid habit. I'm a Christian though, so I'm not even sure how evolution works. Despite the myriad of problems with this movie that shouldn't even exist, it is a little bit of fun and does look very good. It's no surprise that Delicatessen and City of Lost Children guy Jean-Pierre Jeunet can handle the visuals. The special effects are probably the best of the series, right from the start with some grotesque opening credits. There's a ton of gore if you're into that sort of thing. This, interestingly enough, sets up for a sequel way much more than the third installment, Alien Cubed.

The Master

2012 Paul Thomas Anderson movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A Navy veteran doesn't know what to do with himself. He's tried poisoning people, copulating with sand women, and ejaculating into the ocean. He's part of the Greatest Generation! One night, he finds himself aboard the boat of the titular cult-leader/new-age philosopher/self-help author and is pulled into The Cause.

OK, this wasn't one of the fifteen movies nominated for Best Picture? I can't compare what Joaquin Phoenix did here to what Daniel Day-Lewis did as Lincoln because I haven't seen Lincoln. I find it hard to believe that his Lincoln is better than Phoenix's Freddie Quell though. I really do. Forgive the hyperbolizing, but Phoenix's performance is the best and most powerful performance that I have seen in a very long time, one of those that, even if you completely forgot the movie, you'd not forget. The mannerisms, the posture, this emotion that you know he had to dig deep for as this sex-obsessed impotent guy. There's this balance of raw power and wounded weakness that is mesmerizing, and it's a treat watching Phoenix juggle the different dimensions of the character. It's amazing, the kind of character that just grabs you until you think your face is about to be bitten off. Philip Seymour Hoffman's no slouch either, and although it would be hard for me to go Hoffman over Waltz in Django, I do think the argument could be made. The tension these two create with their characters, their jagged rapport, the way they scream and spit all over each other. They're a pair of performances to behold, dear friends. There's a lengthy interview session that should be the most boring thing ever committed to film, but watching these two actors wrestle with it is nothing short of thrilling, a scene that made my heart pound as much as any action scene in the last decade. You'd never think that much suspense could be built up over whether or not a character is going to blink. Amy Adams is mighty fine here, too, even better than she was in that Muppet movie. Her character's an enigma. She's background until you notice, and then you realize that's she's the vertebrae of this thing and appreciate the way that character's created. For the second Anderson movie in a row, Radiohead-guy Jonny Greenwood handles the score. I like the chances he takes with that. I had trepidation going into this movie, but hot damn, how I loved it! It's the kind that will just stick with you, like movies from the 1970s only a lot better looking. This is the best 2012 movie that I have seen in what I'm starting to think was a really good year for movies.

Bay of Blood

1971 Italian horror movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A bunch of people murder each other in an effort to inherit an island. The island isn't very happy about it.

This was on my radar because of its bitchin' alternate title--Twitch of the Death Nerve. Apparently, this has more alternate titles than any other movie which I guess is something. Here they are:

Carnage
Bloodbath (or Blood Bath)
Bloodbath Bay of Death
The Odor of Flesh
Before the Fact
The Antecedent
The Last House on the Left, Part II (Note: It has nothing to do with The Last House on the Left.)
New House on the Left
Ecology of a Crime
Chain Reaction


Ok, most of them are in other languages, but trust me, there's a lot of them. And that's not counting a few working titles--The Stench of Flesh, Thus Do We Live to Be Evil, and That Will Teach Them to Be Bad. This movie's also notable as being a hugely influential slasher film, spawning films (for better or worse) like Halloween and the Friday the 13th franchise. The latter, which I've never really had much interest in, apparently borrows a few murderous acts from Bava shot-by-shot. What makes this movie a little more interesting than a lot of crappy slasher flicks that follow it is in one of those alternate titles--Ecology of a Crime. One could look at all the violence of this thing and wonder what's wrong with people, but the real villain might be a little sneakier than just something like human nature or greed. There are mysterious forces at play here, right up until the shocking conclusion which works as black comedy perfection and a final karmic exclamation point. This is very cheaply produced, but there are some great stylistic touches, like the slowing wheelchair wheel in the aftermath of the first murder. There's also some first-person stuff that predicts the opening sequence of Halloween. Oh, and there's German actress Brigitte Skay playing Brunhilda, a character you get to see every inch of if you're into that sort of thing. Lots of this is gruesome with its fair share of decapitation, impaling, slicing, and dicing. This could use better pacing, but Bava does a lot with a little and adds a little depth to the violent genre. And that ending!

Surviving Life (Theory and Practice)

2010 psychoanalyticka komedie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A bearded gentlemen meets a beautiful woman in a dream and tries to discover a way to dream more so that he can be with her.

I've waited and waited for this to be available for me to watch and finally gave up and watched it on Youtube. Worth the wait? Absolutely! New Svankmajer should 1) be more of a regular thing and 2) should be celebrated as a holiday. This one seems very cheaply done. There's stop-motion, a lot more than in the last feature film, and a lot of the animation is cut-out stuff similar to the hilarious soccer short called "Manly Games" in this collection. This is very funny, too, and although I reckon the imagery and surrealistic asides would befuddle a lot of people, I couldn't keep the smile off my face while watching this. Half of this takes place in the main character's subconscious, the perfect setting for a surrealist like Svankmajer, but the conscious world isn't without the surreal touches. The main character spends a lot of his waking hours being psychoanalyzed, again perfect fodder for Svankmajer. The inside of the noggin is, after all, where all of his movies take place, isn't it? The odd visuals--chicken-headed folk, animated meat, a gigantic tongue, rolling apples, eggs, bananas, extracted teeth, antlered men, faucet-headed people, watermelons, flowers sprouting from women's heads--are easier to digest in this, like Svankmajer is picking and choosing from The Rudimentary Guide to Interpreting Dream Symbols or something. The psychological issue at the heart of the whole thing's been used enough to become a cinematic cliché, but none of that makes this any less fun. If you like your avant-garde animated movies on the playful side, this is definitely for you.

Meet the Feebles

1989 puppet movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The titular Muppet-esque creatures desperately try to get their variety show ready on schedule, but a variety of issues threaten to derail the whole thing.

This is one of those movies that I want to like more than I actually like. It starts out well enough with a bit glossy impressive theme song. The puppets look great, like creations Jim Henson's people just barely decided to discard. There's a ton of color and personality on the screen as we see the characters on stage for the first time. Then, the whole thing stumbles for about an hour and a half. There's way too many subplots, Peter Jackson (yes, this is what he did before he got Hobbititis) trying to juggle way too many ideas in a movie that is far too weak on main plot. For certain types of people, it'll be a hoot seeing these puppets, like bizarro Muppets, engaging in really bad behavior. The first clue that this thing isn't for children is the first sex scene featuring a little walrus-on-cat action. They're interrupted, and the walrus exclaims, "I was just about to pop my cookies!" It's ridiculously filthy, but it does force you to imagine interesting animal pairings. How would an elephant and a chicken do the deed, for example? For the rest of the movie, the creatures show off their waxy nips, puke, fornicate, smoke, die, shoot up, eat each other, curse, gorge themselves, drool while peeping a rabbit ménage a trois, engage in S&M acts, sniff panties, bleed, perform opera, eat fecal matter, have Vietnam flashbacks, make pornography (nasal pornography), contract sexually-transmitted diseases, projectile vomit, attempt suicide, and perform songs about sodomy. Again, I want to remind you that these are not puppets that you should watch with your children. I can't recall a Muppet ever dying. Lots of the Feebles die, and they die in grotesque meaty ways that only Peter Jackson at this stage in his career can dream up. If a director who seemed to be trying to see just what kinds of lewdness he could get away with doesn't completely scare you away, this might be worth you time. You'll probably never look at puppets the same, however.

Humanoids from the Deep

1980 horror movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Damn science! Once again, scientists dick around and accidentally create rampaging monsters. In this case, it's fish men who go around slicing up men with their deadly claws and violating women with their hideous reproductive organs. I guess they should have all listened to the Native American.

This is also, as you can tell from the poster called Monster. But that's not nearly clever enough for a movie made by people who can afford three monster costumes, the amount that is shown on screen at the same time. Yes, this is a cheap production as you'd expect something from Roger Corman to be. But it made up for its cheapness with the half-man/half-fish rape scenes. I mean, you never saw Jaws rape anybody unless you saw that titular beast as the phallic symbol that he was and saw the whole movie as some sort of rape allegory. I kind of liked how the monsters looked in this thing. They had these enormous heads and elongated arms, the latter which I imagine made groping teenagers a lot easier. This movie also has a fantastic ending, one that only sort of looks like it might have been stolen from another (more famous) movie that came out the previous year. And there was a random ventriloquist dummy in this thing as well as a splinters joke that I'm definitely going to be using if I ever get my hands on a ventriloquist dummy. This isn't the worst of these low-budget sci-fi horror hybrids, and the climactic scene where the monsters unleash their fury at a carnival that for whatever reason wasn't cancelled has its moments. And those monsters really do look kind of cool in a very ridiculous way. But this just feels like something we've all seen several times before.

Oprah Movie Club Pick for June: Blue Velvet

1986 neo-noir thriller

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Jeffrey, home from college because his father is hospitalized after a stroke, finds a severed ear while throwing rocks at a trash can. He takes it to a detective, but he and the detective's daughter decide to do a little sleuthing on their own. They uncover a sinister world of kidnapping, sexual depravity, and Roy Orbison lip-synching routines. Soon, Jeffrey is up to his nipples in shadows.

It's been suggested that Jeffrey's story is a neo-noir exploration of the Oedipus Complex, that Dennis Hopper's Frank is an abusive father figure, and Rossellini's Dorothy represents the mother. (See Fetishism and Curiosity by Laura Mulvey--Chapter Nine is all about this and can be found [mostly] online.) It's an interesting idea, but I couldn't get through the entire chapter either because I'm too lazy or not smart enough or some combination of the two. For me, Blue Velvet is really straightforward, perhaps Lynch's easiest movie to digest. It's still Lynchian--sprinkled with his trademark dark quirkiness and horrifying outlook on sexuality and violence. Of course, according to imdb.com, there are also allusions to Lincoln's assassination, so maybe I'm not digging into this nearly enough. I don't buy the Lincoln stuff, however. A Lincoln Street? Frank's last name being Booth? Victim's shot through the head? Seems like a reach or two to me. Something else learned from the imdb.com trivia page: Lynch (during the filming) and later Rossellini both find the rape scene that Jeffrey watches from the closet funny. I find that extremely odd. I don't see any humor in that scene at all; in fact, I think it's one of the more horrifying moments in film. I've always thought Lynch and I had similar senses of humor.

Anyway, this is a movie about things that are submerged, things that either people don't know about because they're actually hidden or people just want to pretend to not know about. Or it's about mysteries and what happens when you're curious enough to start uncovering those mysteries--sociological mysteries as well as personal ones. "It's a strange world." Those words are said during several conversations between Kyle MacLachlan and the lovely Laura Dern's characters. Lynch never hides the strangeness in our world. In fact, he brings it to the focus in his movies, and that's one of the things that can make watching his movies a sometimes-uneasy experience. That submerged strangeness is shown metaphorically right at the beginning of Blue Velvet. There are shots of white picket fences, flowers, a guy watering his grass, and waving firemen to the saccharine crooning of "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton. Suddenly--a gun on the television and a hose caught in a bush, the latter which I just typed and wondered if it was meant to be as dirty as it looks in words. And then insects snarling subterraneanly. Above, things are just peachy, but just below the surface, there's all sorts of nastiness. Look at MacLachlan's goofy character. He's nothing but innocent at the beginning of this thing. Hell, he tries to impress a high school senior with a story about the kid with "the biggest tongue in the world" and something called "the chicken walk." We don't see any evidence that there's anything darker going on with his character until he is in the nightclub watching Rossellini's character for the first time. Then, you see the lust on his face in a brilliantly acted scene. Just eyes, and you see everything start to unravel. Or maybe you don't if you're watching this for the first time. I don't know. Of course, earlier in the story, Jeffrey is plotting to break into a women's house, but there's still a kind of childish naiveté with that whole scheme. No, the sinister nature--submerged evil goop--in Jeffrey will be uncovered a bit later in the proceedings. Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth is the personification of that evil in society and maybe in all of us. And what a performance that is! There's a physicality to his character even when he's not moving, and each curse word he utters--and those are numerous--seems to pack more meaning than when I curse at people when I'm driving. And "I'll fuck anything that moves!" is one of my favorite lines/deliveries of all time. Hopper's at the height of his unhinged powers here. The great Jack Nance is in there, too, introducing himself as Paul multiple times and asking Jeffrey, "Have you ever been to pussy heaven?" Oh, and Brad Dourif. I like all the performances in this movie. They're the typical performances David Lynch usually gets in his movies, performances always threatening to completely cross the line into soap opera performances. They're performances that--almost thankfully--remind you that you're just watching a movie.

Other stuff:

Knife seduction--Lynch would have had to call in a double or stunt man for me, first because my naked rump is disturbing and covered with a layer of hair and second because I would have gotten to excited, lunged at Rossellini, and been stabbed. It would have been a Brandon Lee end to my career.

Oil drill shadows spotlighted on a brick wall. This doesn't have much unusual imagery. There's a guy with a gas mask, a few random shots of candles, and, of course, the severed ear with ants crawling all over it. But Lynch deliberately uses a spotlight to throw the shadow of an oil drill on the wall. I guess it must be important. Digging? Sexual symbolism (i.e. being drilled)? Something else?

There are references to logs or logging, and the town's called Lumberton. It really made me miss the presence of the Log Lady.

Heineken product placement--the first time MacLachlan is drinking it, you could almost mistake the scene for a commercial. It's awkward.

A blind guy working in a hardware store--seems like throwaway stuff. Is there anything deeper with this character?

"I have your disease in me now." I'm not sure if that's hot or creepy.

"Yes, that's a human ear all right." For whatever reason, that makes me laugh. Either the detective doubted that Jeffrey knew what a human ear looked like or he didn't believe him.

There's a song that plays when MacLachlan and Dern's characters tell each other they love each other--"Mysteries of Love" apparently, lyrics about how "Sometimes the wind blows"--and it might be the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. And I can't figure out why anybody would play that at a party unless they were trying to clear the room. It's Julee Cruise singing to Angelo Badalamenti's music. Badalamenti's the piano player in this, by the way. I like a lot of what Badalamenti did here, especially during the title credits where the work could almost be mistake for something Bernard Herrmann did. But this "Mysteries of Love" song is the worst thing ever.

I could have done without Mike, Sandy's boyfriend. I guess something needed to happen so that Rossellini's can wander into the background completely naked, but that pretty great scene could have been completely terrific without that distracting little subplot that didn't need to be there.

Dern discusses her dreams, talking about how it was dark because there weren't any robins. Of course, Hopper refers to it being "dark" a couple different times, too. MacLachlan's response is a beautiful "You're a neat girl" to which she responds, "So are you." Just beautiful. Those crazy kids living in this messed-up world. I sure hope they make it.

Cloud Atlas

2012 epic

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Six semi-connected stories about human beings spanning from the 1840s to the 24th Century. There's a lawyer on a boat, a slave on the same boat, a bisexual composer, nuclear physicists, a reporter trying to uncover a secret, a publisher in a nursing home operated like a prison, that guy's brother, a clone, a bunch of other clones, a tough-guy rebel, Forrest Gump, a visitor from a distant and technologically-advanced society, and a guy with a hat. I'd like to apologize to any characters I may have left out.

This is the best thing that Tom Tykwer or the Wachowski siblings have ever been associated with, and I can't figure out why it A) wasn't critically lauded and B) the recipient of countless awards. I went into this thing expecting to hate it, partially because I thought it looked kinda stupid in previews and partly because of its almost three-hour running time. And it is an exhausting experience, one that I started too late at night and ended up watching in two installments. I still wasn't thrilled about the length, but when you essentially have six movies packed into three hours, you really can't complain. That's six movies for the price of one, people. This is also exhausting because it does take a little intellectual effort from the audience. The individual plots aren't that difficult to follow unless you, like me, are confused by science fiction. What might be frustrating to a lot of viewers is how these six stories are portrayed--in disjointed snippets, some lasting barely longer than a few seconds. There's a jumpiness that at first I didn't like or understand, but once I got used to the rhythm and started finding connections between the individual stories, it made sense. And a lot of the transitions between these time chunks were pretty brilliant. Also connecting the stories were that the characters in the different eras were played by the same actors. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, and Hugh Grant play six characters each while Jim Broadbent and Ben Whishaw play five each. Nobody gets away with just playing one character, and some of these performers brilliantly play people of drastically different ages, different races, and even different genders. A lot of times, they're unrecognizable. Well, not Tom Hanks. He's pretty easy to spot. Maybe it sounds cheesy or gimmicky, but it works with the movie's themes and it's all so well executed. Tom Hanks is mostly very good, but he and his forehead were a little distracting. I almost wished those parts were played by somebody not as easy to recognize. Don't get me wrong though--I'm not trying to put down Tom Hanks. I would never do something like that. Hugo Weaving plays villainous dudes, and he plays villainous dudes so well that you suspect the guy tortures small animals in his spare time. I found this whole thing enormously entertaining. There were several of those big memorable moments where you think to yourself, "Man, this is something special." There are fragments of dialogue that are very beautiful. There's action, romance, some humor. There's historical and science fiction, a story that plays like a political thriller and one that is nearly slapstick comedy. And there's a message that, while maybe simple when compared to the complex layout of this beast, is also beautiful. I really liked this! Epic, enthralling, and ambitious, this is a movie that I think people will finally be ready for in ten or fifteen years.

I fully expect at least one of my 4 1/2 readers to disagree completely. I'd love to hear why I'm wrong about this one.

Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

2006 horror comedy musical

Rating: 15/20 (Libby: 18/20; Fred: 17/20; Carrie: 19/20; Josh: didn't rate)

Plot: A fast-food chicken franchise builds on a Native American burial ground. Amidst protesters, those Indian souls take possession of the foodstuffs and eventually the workers and customers. Poultrygeist!

What a terrible punny title. The intention with our little bad movie club, obviously, is to watch a bad movie and make fun of it. Troma doesn't make unintentionally bad movies exactly. They understand their capabilities and the filmmakers are proud of what the disgusting and sometimes downright tasteless stuff they put on screen. And sometimes, as is the case here, they sneak in a movie that could actually be described as good. This accomplishes everything Lloyd Kaufman and his writers set out to do. Josh put it best: "Fun for the whole family: racism, sexism, fat people, geeks, lesbians, h[censored], [censored], handicaps [almost censored that one, too], white trash, rape, shit, vomit, and boobs." And, of course, a whole lot of cock. It's trashy, often looks stupid, and could possibly offend hippies, animal rights activists, Native Americans, liberals, black people, people with good diets, Middle Eastern peoples, women, and really anybody else. This pulls no punches, unapologetically and gloriously. And yes, there is the "choke the chicken" that you could have predicted before the movie even started. At the same time, there's some shrewd satire about our appetites as a society, both our literal appetites and our entertainment appetites, as well as some expected and bitter swipes at the (admittedly, fish-in-a-barrel-y) fast-food industry. The jokes are stuffed into this thing, and while a lot of them are terrible--some funny because they are terrible--a lot of this made me laugh the kinds of laughs that you almost hate yourself for. And did I mention that Poultrygeist is a musical? Because it is! With some standard musical choreography! The songs are good enough to sound like something from Rocky Horror and the lyrics are funny enough. The real fun begins when the mayhem does, and there are a few lengthy sequences where Kaufman and company are very obviously just seeing how many different ways they can think of for a zombie chicken to kill a human being. The violence is nearly orgasmic. Unfortunately for a lot of viewers, they'll miss out on the berserk zombie chicken mayhem because they'll turn the movie off during an extended scene where a bulbous man with gastrointestinal issues makes a mess of a bathroom. That's if they got past the creatively juvenile use of a Native American zombie finger in an opening scene featuring a guy with something other than an ax in his other hand. No, you don't want to know. This is a movie that surprises from its beginning to its end, and you might have as much fun watching it as it looks like the people who made it must have had. It's a real blast but definitely not for everybody. I wouldn't recommend it to my mother-in-law, for example.

This Is 40

2012 comedy

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Pete and Debbie reach the titular age and deal with problems with finances, their sex lives, their parents, and their businesses.

What are people's opinions on Megan Fox? Does she have some degree of likability? I haven't seen a lot of Megan Fox movies--Transformers where I barely noticed her because it made my head hurt and Jonah Hex which I didn't like--but I almost always like when she's on the screen, and I know my wife has the hots for her. Is the consensus pretty much that she's hired for her shape? I like a lot of the talent in this. Apatow's wife (Leslie Mann) looks better than she sounds (didn't care for her voice) and has good chemistry with Paul Rudd. I always sort of like Rudd, despite the size of that chin of his. Apatow's daughters play their daughters. Albert Brooks and John Lithgow play the dads, the latter still looking a little confused from that Planet of the Apes thing. Apatow-regulars Segal and Melissa McCarthy and Chris O'Dowd are all funny in these, I'm guessing, largely-improvised scenes. Or at least they're based on improvisation. The humor does have a spontaneity to it that I like even though these comedians' streams-of-conscious too-often take them right to the scatological or genital to get laughs. Best of all might be Graham Parker playing himself, and I don't believe he makes a single dick joke. The problem with this movie is that there's way too much story. I like the relationship of the leads and their struggles to work through things even though things frequently got uncomfortable. But this movie's plot was the perfect storm of crappiness, and it was a lot to juggle, both for the storytellers and the audience. I guess that's why the movie had to be over two hours long, likely too long for a comedy like this. After a while, you're checking your watch as much as you're laughing. I really think about half of the subplots could have been dumped without making a difference, and that might be a clue that they're completely unnecessary. An editor was probably needed. That or somebody needed to finish the script. I was also a little annoyed at all the contemporary allusions, a thing I generally hate in movies because it pretty much ensures that people won't be interested in them in twenty or twenty-five years. I will say that my biggest laugh might have been the mention of John Goodman's name, however. This is funny enough and has a lot of recognizable situations for a nearly-40-year-old married guy like me to be worth watching, but it's unfortunately just way too long with far too many cheap laughs.

Looper

2012 time travel movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: There's time travel in 2074, but it's only used by the mob. They send people who need to be disposed of back 40 years so that the titular assassins can take them out and incinerate the bodies. Apparently, it's impossible to get rid of a body in 2074. The loopers are paid handsomely, especially when they have to kill their own older selves. Joe faces a problem when his older self doesn't really want to be killed and instead wants to run around 2034 looking for some kid who's going to turn out to be an evil warlord or something.

I might give this movie a higher rating if somebody can convince me that it makes any sense. Time travel movies are tricky anyway, and they require you to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy the things. The makers of Looper seem to realize that and just assume that you're going to let things slide and not think too much because it's all very entertaining. "Shut up and let us entertain you!" the movie seems to say. But I'm not sure this makes any sense, and the more I think about it, the more the apparent paradoxes annoy me. It's kind of a cool premise. But does the premise even make sense? Why couldn't they kill a person in 2074 and just send back a dead person to be incinerated? And why pull guns on people--especially the ex-loopers--in the future if the victims know they would prefer not to use the guns? This all builds to the exact climax I predicted as soon as Bruce Willis darted off in 2034 even though writer Rian Johnson tried to use a little postmodern trick to throw me off. The whole thing just gave me a headache even though there were things I liked about it. Gorden-Levitt is pretty good even though I do think he's a little too pretty and reminds me of plastic for some reason. But I like how you can see the Bruce Willis in him. Some of that's special effects, I guess, but he also nails the mannerisms and the voice. The whole thing where Bruce Willis--the future Joe--is angry at his younger self seems authentic. I mean, who doesn't look back at his younger self and get a little pissed off? The plot really toys with your emotions, making you wonder just who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. You struggle with which Joe to root for which makes sense, I guess, since they're actually the same person. I liked Jeff Daniels as Abe, and a scene where a guy is losing fingers, a nose, and eventually limbs is very well done. That's the kind of imaginative stuff that works in time travel movies. Unfortunately, this breaks apart when you dive in brain first and can't survive its paradoxical storytelling. And it morphs into a big dumb action movie by the end. I was happy to know that there are still hobos in the future though.

Another question: Why did they have the loopers kill themselves? Couldn't that create all sorts of problems? Wouldn't it be easier to have another looper take care of business? See, I keep thinking of these sorts of questions.

Much better time travel movies: Timecrimes and Time after Time.

Wife to be Sacrificed

1974 Japanese drama

Rating: 9/20

Plot: An ex-husband put behind bars by his wife escapes, kidnaps his wife, and gets his revenge.

It's unlikely that Masaru Konuma made any pleasant movies. This wasn't pleasant or entertaining although I imagine the target audience might get a kick out of some scenes and the creative use of lit candles. Things start cruelly and maintain it throughout, and that's pretty much all you get--just meanness. If there was any drama at all to the story, it might work, but this seems less like an attempt to tell a good story and more of an excuse to bust the kinkometer. There's very little style to transform this from smut to art. I did like how it was almost entirely sans music until for a pooping scene. That made me laugh. This was not a good movie, and you shouldn't even think about watching it, you pervert.

Logan's Run

1976 sci-fi nonsense

Rating: 13/20

Plot: It's 2274, and everything's great in a hedonistic society where people don't do much of anything but enjoy each other's company. And wear bad clothing. Man, people in the future dress poorly. The only problem is that everybody dies at the age of 30 in a Carousel ritual. Some citizens don't like that and try to flee, and it's up to the Sandmen to chase them down. The titular Sandman, while on a mission, discovers that there's more going on than people think.

This is often unfairly compared to Star Wars which came out only a year later and looked so much better. It also seems to have a few things in common--the use of national landmarks, I guess--with Planet of the Apes which came out around eight years earlier. Neither of those movies had Farrah Fawcett, however, and Logan's Run definitely has some Farrah Fawcett. It's also got Michael York who looks even more plastic than he normally does, and Jenny Agutter who out-cutes even Farrah Fawcett. This is a little cold, maybe even for a science fiction movie, so I don't really care much about the characters or their relationships. The most dynamic relationship is between Logan and his Sandman buddy played by Richard Jordan. The best two characters aren't main characters at all. There's one of the dumbest-looking robots ever, a robot named Box voiced by Roscoe Lee Browne. "Welcome, humans!" And then there's Peter Ustinov who stumbles into the movie and starts eating the marble. The breathy laugh when he comments about his name, the way he says "Cats!", gratuitous lip-smacking, a terrific elderly hip thrust during a poem recitation. And his "Nothing sadder than a dead fish" makes me wonder if Ustinov was allowed to improvise during his scenes. He's great and hammy though, and a movie that was already visually interesting and only kinda dull really picks up when York and Agutter run into his character. A lot of the special effects are so crappy that it's a wonder they were allowed to happy (The use of sparklers is a bit of a distraction, for example), but I really did like how a lot of this looked. The Carousel scene is really dopey, but it's visually neat. There's also some great music--all abstract synthesizer tinklings--and a fair share of nudity for a movie rated PG. For a sci-fi movie about a dystopian society, you almost want a little more depth, some kind of big message, but this one's here mostly for entertainment and doesn't really deliver anything like that.

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.

Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror

1981 Italian zombie movie

Rating: 12/20 (Libby: 4/20; Fred: 6/20; Carrie: 12/20)

Plot: Couples look for a good time at a creepy mansion but encounter zombies.

Don't get me wrong. The zombies in this are as creepy as zombies get. They're in various stages of decay, and a lot of them have wiggling maggots on their faces. They move like zombies should, feast on human flesh, and shamble out of unexpected places beautifully. But they are nowhere close to the creepiest thing about this Italian schlocker. No, that would be Peter Bark, the "unnerving Italian midget thespian" (according to imdb.com) who plays a twelve-year-old boy in this movie. His countenance and dubbed voice are creepy enough, but when he begins to sexually assault his mother? It's the stuff of nightmares. The problem with this movie isn't a lack of horrifying or suspenseful moments because once it gets going, really early in the proceedings, it's filled with horrifying and suspenseful moments. The problem is more with the storytelling, mainly that it doesn't have very much of it. The zombies aren't explained until the end with a quoted "profecy" that has more than one typographical error. And it's not exactly an explanation either. The human characters are a lot dumber than the zombies which doesn't make any sense. These are zombies that can use power tools. The humans? I'm not sure they can. I know one doesn't seem able to use a pitchfork. This festers with a lot of really nice horror movie moments including one that involves monks, and anybody popping it in for the gore will probably be satisfied. For me, it's the "unnerving" Peter Bark that I won't be able to shake out of my head.

Directed by Andrea Bianchi. It's a movie I liked enough to check out something else by him, maybe Strip Nude for Your Killer which was released six years earlier. That title's got some serious potential.